#14 Choices

My team was wondering if I would go on, and if they should let me go on; if it was safe to let me disappear into the night again. I didn’t know it, but they had asked me questions to gauge whether I was of sound mind and judgement. Ralph thought I gave all the right answers, and nobody disagreed. My body was in distress, but my mind was ok. They elected to let me sleep.

About 50 minutes after I had fallen asleep, I woke up on my own. The windshield was opaque with dirt. Trophy trucks were coming right by us and spraying us with dust. I sat up, opened the door, got my gear back on, and thanked everyone. It was on to the next stop – mile 470, 55 miles away.

The 55 miles to 470 was rough, but not quite as bad as the sections in and out of the bowtie. After having some food and a rest, I pushed through it. 55 miles was a long way, but not nearly as far as the 125 I had just got done with.  

I came down a slope and saw an alternate route to the right. I figured it must be there for a reason, even though I couldn’t quite make out what was ahead. It looked rough. I saw lights coming so I pulled over to the right side of this alternate way around, which was about 100 feet long. A trophy truck came flying in, and he did not take the alternate and went straight instead. He locked up his brakes when he saw the refrigerator sized rock in the trail. Too late. He steered to the left, which was a vertical wall, his wheels climbing up it in a desperate attempt to avoid the giant rock. He decided he was committed and gunned the throttle. I had a front row seat, just 50 feet away in the middle of the night, to hear violent metal crunching and roaring and wheels spinning. He made it over that rock. I expected to see him in a mile or two with no oil left.

Just as I considered getting going again, more light approached. It was a Class 1 buggy, with the same engines as the trophy trucks. He skidded to a stop just before the rock and put it in reverse, roaring backwards. He turned towards me down the alternate go-around route. Was I far enough over to let him by? He tried to scoot to my left, but there was another rock the size of a refrigerator to the left side of the alternate. If it wasn’t for me being there, he could have avoided it. Crunch! He dropped down off it and it was metal to rock in a violent bang and scrape. Sorry buddy! I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for him as I was stationary the whole time.

I have to say, it was an exciting 90 seconds and it woke me up a bit, even if it was because my life was at risk!  

Later Tanner and I agreed that this race was crazy dangerous. Not dangerous from a mother’s point of view. Dangerous from a adventurer-risk-taker-already-crazy-person’s point of view. It was stupid dangerous.

Keep going into the black dusty night.  

At mile 400, the worst case scenario happened to Tanner. His lights failed. They went out. Just like when we pre-ran. These lights we were using were awesome, but we thought there must be an issue somewhere. Tanner remembered that Jimmy set up an entirely different circuit to plug the lights into. He got his wire cutters out, cut a wire tie to unfold the new plug, and plugged his main light into it. It worked!  

Tanner got us both battery back-up lights that attached to our helmets which we could have ridden back to the van with, but there is nothing like the main double cluster of four LEDs.

I weighed where I should invest energy to save time, or where I should spend time to save energy. I knew I could ride faster, but it would be strenuous (and riskier) and burn up more energy. If I went slower, I could save energy for the last part of the race. But if I went slower, the race would be longer, and I’d have to be awake and on the bike longer. Choices. Tradeoffs.

Isn’t that what we do every day? We have to decide where we will spend our mental and physical energy. Energy for this, means less for that. The same with our time. If we spend time on this, it means less time for that. We all have the same amount of time. It’s precious. 24 hours in a day. 36 hours in this race. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

These are important decisions. I find there are so many “important,” fascinating, interesting, fun, fulfilling things to do and so many fun, interesting, exciting, worthy people to spend time with. But I just can’t do everything. I can’t accept every invitation, chase every opportunity, and experience every place and event. I have to make choices. Sometimes the choice is the best use of my time and energy. Other times, I didn’t choose really well because of limited information. Other times, I’m spent, and I need time for me – to rest and heal and regroup.  

I had been making these choices this whole race. At one point, a bike passed me back at mile 180 or so. It was a bike from another class, likely with a fresh rider. I didn’t want him making dust in front of me, so I raced him back and passed him. I spent the energy to do that to try to have a clear track. I think I surprised him when I came back like that. He decided to race me, and he passed me back. I could have raced him for miles and miles, but I had to let him go. He had teammates and had to ride for less time than I did. He could spend all his energy battling with me. But I had 855 miles to deal with. His wasn’t the only battle I had on my hands. So I made a choice. Let him go.

That’s what we have to do, and we have to make these choices without regret. We have to decide how to spend our resources, and move forward and make the best of it. Not look back and worry if we made the right choice. It’s over. Move forward. You can’t change the past.

So my strategy the whole race was to conserve energy, not get hurt, and not break the bike. I figured the other guys would burn up with poor energy management strategies, and I’d come by them late in the race. That’s what I did in Spartan races. That’s what I figured would happen now. I didn’t count on getting hurt. I rarely crash and rarely get hurt on a dirt bike. I had 10 “tipovers” or more, but that’s not a crash. And I had never been hurt in Baja. “So much invested, and now is when I get hurt?” Thoughts went through my helmet. 

Keep going…