Court the Angels

I believe there is a big bank account in the sky. Every time you do something good, especially for others, you make a deposit. Every time you do something bad, you make a withdrawal. 

In either case, it doesn’t matter if anyone is watching. It all counts.

So, when nobody is looking, I sometimes do something good that nobody knows about except me. Will it buy me some protection or goodwill or luck another time or when I need it?  

In my experience – yes.

How about you?

Failed attempts to fly

I am struggling now. Three o’clock pm. The heat. The course drops into a dry river wash with deep sand with embedded boulders. Tree branches hang over from the left and right as the course winds like a snake. Great effort is required.

Some riders are taken to the hospital by their crews for dehydration.

I begin to see trash on the left. That’s good. I was going to meet my crew at the Loreto Dump at mile 831. Keep going. Finally, I see a dirt lot with chase vehicles. I see both white vans. Mercy.

I pull up and surrender the bike to them. I slowly survey my pinky. It’s not broken. I feel hotter now that I am stopped. Tanner holds an umbrella over me to shield the sun. I sit down. I am overheated again. Worn down. Fatigued. 

I knew I had a big decision to make, and my team knew it too. We didn’t talk about it for a while.

I got up and studied the map on my GPS. I watched dust trails of buggies going by. I knew there was a huge rocky hill climb nearby, and I knew there was a paved road section where the spillways were. It was eight miles before the pavement though. If I could make it eight miles, I could coast the pavement without using much energy. But then the party would be over as there would be more rocky river crossings and 70 miles of sand whoops.

The next time I’d see my van was in 122 miles. That was very far. In my condition, that was very very far. It would get dark for the third time.

My bike on the stand, I stood alongside it and studied the GPS, and then looked to the horizon. Could this be it? I prepared for a year. Has it all come down to this time and this place? Tanner held the umbrella over me and knew the thought I was struggling with. Nobody influenced me. If I wanted to go on, they’d rally around me. If I didn’t, they’d do the same. 

They waited…

My body had precious little left. I didn’t want to sit up straight or stand without leaning on something. The thought of riding even eight more miles to get to ten miles of pavement was daunting. 122 miles to see the van again? That was not smart. There was no way to finish in the 48-hour time limit now, and getting lost on my crew was not going to gain anyone anything.

I gazed at the nearby mountains. Last year I got to mile 600. The last two years the course was 822 miles and 855 miles respectively. I was standing at 831. Now I knew I could go this far. There was something satisfying in that.

I had raced for 37-1/2 hours and I would be awake for 42 hours. I had faced the wall yet again. This time, I was better, stronger, smarter. That’s what these attempts had done to me.

Why do I tell you this story? My personal mission statement is “an extraordinary life of shared experiences.” I’m no different than anyone else. I struggle. I search. If I have done anything right, if I have discovered anything about myself and therefore all human experience, my wish is to share and inspire and empower as many others as possible. Heaven knows I have learned so much from other people – those that have come before me and my contemporaries. If I can be part of the chain of people who pass on the human instruction manual to a fulfilling high-performance life, I am eager to do my part.

Emotion welling up inside me and my voice cracking, I softly admitted to my son, “I’m done.”

The Gauntlet

The course wound left and right and left and right. Ruts from the four-wheeled vehicles dominated the path – one on the right and one on the left. These ruts were 12” to 18” deep. This means there was a hard berm in the middle as high, and the shoulders of the course were that high too. Up on the shoulder were cactus and hostile brush, often hanging over the course.

A motorcycle needs to lean to turn. If you are in the right rut, you can turn left ok because you lean over the middle of the course. But after every left, there is a right turn. Now you are in the wrong rut because you have to lean toward the shoulder and cactus of every variety, like Stegosaurus tails, preventing you from leaning that way. You had to jump the berm to get in the outside rut. This was no easy feat in many places. You’d get your front wheel up the berm and falling into the opposite rut, while your rear wheel tracked the old rut. With great skill, you can be successful most of the time. But a 99.9 percent success ratio had me crashing three times – once pretty hard.

It was a crash I knew I would have avoided had I been fresh. When I went to pick up my bike, I knew my strength was waning. The front wheel was up on the high shoulder against a tree. The rear wheel far lower down in a deep silty rut. I stood alongside the bike and heaved it up. When I got it vertical, I dropped my helmet down on the seat and tried to catch my breath out of the 100-degree air that was filled with my own dust. Sweat stung my eyes inside my goggles.

Around here, Jeff Benrud crashed in the silt and the handlebars slammed his knee brace. He thought he had broken his leg.

There were miles of this kind of road. No civilian vehicle could ever make it through. I’m fighting for every 100 yards now…and I have hundreds of miles to go.

I remounted and got out of my awkward position before any truck or buggy ran me over. I had water, and I was grateful for it now. I had learned a trick from one of the other guys. When you reach for your hydration tube hanging over your shoulder, the first swig is as hot as the air. But when you are done drinking, if you blow the fluid back into the bladder it stays cool on your back.

I push on. I am proud of my performance because no one part of my body gave up before other parts. I wore down evenly. But now, all parts were diminishing.

The course crossed a rocky riverbed. I pulled over and got off. Just for a couple minutes. A buggy approaches and storms by.

Rick Thornton, my pre-run buddy, got Rhabdomyolysis – a condition caused by extreme physical exercise where the muscles break down and result in clogging the kidneys. Rick saw yellow like he was looking into the sun. He withdrew from the race and was taken to the hospital.

The course opens up wider and turns left. I look ahead and I’m astonished. I knew this area would be silty from looking at it during pre-running. But this was sheer mass destruction. From a barbed wire fence on the left, 150 yards wide to a line of trees and pipe organ cactus on the right, it is a sea of silt. When a vehicle sees silt ruts, the best option is to take a virgin line around it. When everyone does that, there are no virgin lines left. They take existing lines and take their chances. Mash the gas pedal down and don’t stop. There are dig holes where race vehicles have been stuck. It looks like a trench warfare zone.

I study the scene and figure out the best strategy. I choose extreme left along the barbed wire fence. I jump over a big sewer pipe to get there – only to find it was as deep and shot as the field. I have little choice now that I am in it and cut across the whole field of deep ruts to go extreme right. I make it, and go what may have seemed off course, picking my way very slowly through the cactus trees – anything to avoid the motorcycle eating landscape to my left.

I judge when the landscape must have changed and emerge from the desert “forest” and re-engage with the course. This is real work now. The course has more gauntlets coming. A steep hill climb – narrow and twisty. More silt ruts. I recall why I hated this section so much.

Then the course drops into a rocky riverbed – not to cross, but to follow. Bowling ball size rocks, and nothing but them (no dirt) tests a motorcycle. Bump, bump, bump, bump – forever. Two men are standing ahead on course. Something’s up. As I approach, they point to the right, and up. I turn to follow the course and immediately go up a very steep hill climb hidden in the trees. It’s very steep and very long and twists and turns. Do I have the energy for this?

Back down as steep as it went up, and back into the riverbed. More variation. I see an Ironman bike and rider taking a break on the side of the riverbed. I keep going. 

In a right turn, I catch my right pinky on a branch that had been sawn off, and it rips it back. It felt broken, but I didn’t want to stop and look. My glove was ripped, and blood soaked through. There’s nothing I could do. I don’t really need a pinky to ride. Keep going.

I am struggling now…

The Shadow of the Wall

“I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that may learn how to do it.”  – Pablo Picasso

I only had a handful of miles to go to see my van.  But now that I was stopped at this Baja Pit under this pop up canopy, I realized I was seriously overheated and dehydrated.  The workers at the pit were awesome to me.  They gave me water and a banana and a wet washcloth.  I wiped my face and neck down and it felt like first aid.  I took five minutes – maybe ten.  I thanked my new friends, and headed out on course.  A blistering hot, rocky, white-with-sun course.

If I didn’t know I’d see my crew soon, I’d have stayed there longer.  Another fifteen minutes and I see a flagman and cones ahead – the physical checkpoint.  Thank God.  I rolled in slow between the cones and came to a complete stop.  They wrote down my race number. “Get it right boys – 714x is here, at mile 784!”.

Just as I started again I saw a half dozen faces I knew.  My crew!  They pointed to where I should pull over.  I dismounted, happy to see them.  They hadn’t seen me in 13 hours, and didn’t really know if I was dead or alive.  They looked relieved. 

They were baking in the heat too.  I got my pack off, then my wind proof jacket.  Then my pullover.  Evaporative cooling – sweet relief.  My face was red, and I was down a few quarts.  Since I saw them last I nearly got hypothermia, and now I was wiped out from the heat.

It’s hard to describe how great it was to see them.  Tanner looked very concerned about me.  John rubbed my traps and arms.  I got some cold Chia drink and food in me.  Chad and Omar changed the rear wheel and checked the oil.  There wasn’t much for the mechanics to do, as I had not crashed the bike since I saw them last.

I told them about what happened as I rehabilitated.  I started to feel better as my body cooled some.  We put a Tanner’s water bladder in my pack and filled it – lots of ice too.  I changed helmets, goggles, jersey and gloves, put my pack on, and mounted my trusty motorcycle.  Trevor changed my helmet camera batteries and memory card. I felt good….compared to how I felt 20 minutes ago that is.  I had a job to do and so long as I was able, I was going to do it.  Only 339 miles to go.  It was a little past noon, and I had been in the race for 35 hours.

I know what’s coming. During pre-running it was the hardest most technical section of the course.  I told Tanner about it 10 times since pre-running when he sat in the truck with a swollen ankle and foot.

I asked Tanner what the math was for me finishing in time. He said “Don’t worry about it. You only have to go 43 miles” (to the next van stop). I knew this meant they damn well figured the math and it was becoming nearly impossible to finish in time.

I told Tanner this section was 43 miles of hell. “Don’t be surprised if it takes me three hours to get there.” He said “Just give me ten miles, four reps”.  Ok, I thought. That’s what I’ll do. Ten miles. I can go ten miles.

He was right.  When we have a huge task ahead of us that seems insurmountable, just break it down into small doable steps, and do first things first.  That’s all you can do.

I took off out of there with authority. The bike sounded great. I had been up for 39-1/2 hours and only had caffeine once. The caffeine put me on a roller coaster I did not like.  It was long gone out of me and I didn’t want anymore.  Amazingly I didn’t feel sleepy. What I was beginning to feel was exhaustion.

I was controlling the bike well, but the pain was in my face now. Arms, shoulders, traps, back, knees and my butt.  They all performed spectacularly so far. But they were all sending me a message – “Hello. Umm, when is this going to end?”

I was beaten down by a long war, and the 43 mile dragon was in front of me – in 100 degree heat no less.

Now was the time.  When the needle is on empty, transcend the definition.  Perhaps it is hard to understand, but I had worked so hard and so long to come within the shadow of the wall, and now I would be able to see what I could do…

The Flight of Icarus

“Live like life depends on it. Because it does.”

Sand whoops gave way to a wide gravel road that rolled up and down in long intervals. I crossed three rivers that were filled in for the race. A race truck passed me going 20 miles an hour faster than I was – and I was doing 65. He must have had trouble earlier to be this far back.

Finally, I pulled into the Baja Pit for gas just outside Scorpion Bay. The whole town must have been there watching the race. The pit staff offered me an 8-ounce bottle of water and a half a peanut butter sandwich. I would normally decline. Not this time. I needed it.

It was near 100 degrees. A guy held an umbrella over me as I choked down the little sandwich. I was cooking in my race jacket, pullover, and jersey. To get it all off would take some time and effort, and my pack was not big enough to get my jacket in. There was no place else to carry it and I didn’t want to ditch it as I had another night to face later. My time limit would be up at 1:00a.m.

I sped away. Amazingly, I felt pretty good. I was thirsty, and tired and hungry and fatigued – but there was no one factor or body part that was screaming much louder than any other. It was good.

I hit the paved road for six miles along the Pacific Ocean. I looked to my right and watched the blue waves turn to white foam. The hills were brown, with a black ribbon of asphalt undulating ahead of me. The sky was blue and clear, and the sun bore down on it all. 

Thoughts of a worn man. We are blessed. To have all this. To be here at all. We’re just temporary dots on a big spinning planet. We’ve been given all this ability – to shape our world. To create. To experience. To love. And yes, we have been given this. We are not responsible for us being created. Hell, we don’t even know how we work. So…then…something else made us and set the table.

I headed back into the desert. It was way siltier than when we pre-ran it. The course got rockier as I knew it would. Rocks and silt. Rocks and silt. I was riding fast. I felt good. I felt lucky.

I was headed to mile 784 to the physical checkpoint. That’s where I’d meet my van and see my friends. I hadn’t seen them for over 12 hours now. The course went up a mountain and switch-backed; straight up on the right, straight down on the left. It was very hot.

The next Baja pit was 12 miles before the checkpoint. I pulled in. I was feeling it…something. I had to get off my bike and sit down. 

I knew I was in trouble…

Possibilities

“People living deeply have no fear of death.” – Anais Nin

I had a lot of time to make up. I had 646 miles and 28 hours of race time behind me, and 477 miles and 20 hours ahead of me. Finishing was possible, I thought, if I didn’t take any breaks and had no more problems. That’s what I was going to do. No more calculating. Just ride – fast.

I hit 94 mph on an open dirt road section – but it didn’t last long enough to make up anything significant. I was near the Pacific Ocean now. I couldn’t see it, but I could smell it. I was getting near the pit 16 miles away from where I ran out of gas. There was no way I was going to miss it. I got nervous early and pulled over to ask a spectator. “Where’s the Baja Pit?” He motioned ahead. I found it.

The sand was deep and some gentle whoops began. I reached for my water tube hanging over my left shoulder to take a drink. It wasn’t there. That’s right – I used it to siphon gas. No water for me. I was riding good, and I felt good, and that’s all that mattered right now.

Later I’d learned that Jeff Benrud and others had lots of problems in the night. When the fog came in, it made it hard to see through their goggles. When a truck went by, all the dust stuck to their lenses. Wiping it off with your gloves just makes abrasions on the lenses that catch the light and make it hard to see at all. Jeff threw his goggles off and rode without eye protection for three hours. He had dirt packed around his eyes at the end of the race. I missed all the fog. 

The mile-to-effort ratio is low at night. It was daytime now, and I was flying like the wind. Maybe I was lucky. In fact, I was sure I was. Here I was, 53 years old, 31 hours into the longest non-stop race in the world. This far in, you start to think different. You are beyond normal function. You have dug deep, over and over again. You’re in a surreal state.

What human beings can do is not based on their date of manufacture. That’s how we teach kids. You’re ten years old now, and you, and all the other ten years old’s will learn this, and have to pass this test to get a good grade and have your parents proud of your progress based on the same yardstick all the other ten-year-olds are on. This continues through life – we act our age. We are supposed to.

I’m not going to act like a 53-year-old. I don’t want to. So if my behavior is not that of a 53-year-old, then what is age anyway? Is it a limitation? Too young for this or that? Too old for this or that? Your body has an age, yes. But what you can do with it is up to your mind. Are there limitations? Of course. But they are far beyond the fence we have accepted.

I recently heard of a man in his nineties who swam every day for decades. At age 95, he improved his lap times. He was still trying to get better – and he did.

I got to the salt flats and was happy about it. They were fast and required little energy. The course alternated to sand dunes and back to salt flats. I went off course and wound up in a tiny fishing village. I saw a young man and held my arm up, palm up. He motioned to the way. Just the other side of the berm – back on track. 

The air was getting a lot warmer now. I was sweating. I had three layers on since I left my van at 11:30 last night in 40-degree air. Now it was about 85 degrees and rising. I hadn’t eaten in 9 hours and I had no water. 

As I raced toward Scorpion Bay I thought, this was going to be a problem…

Liberation

“To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Are mistakes failure? Only if you give up after making one. 

Mistakes can help us. They create humility. They are a primary source of wisdom. You learn from mistakes and are smarter after making them. Mistakes improve mental flexibility because when you realize you have made one, you have to change your mind.

In between race traffic that was getting spaced farther apart now, the desert was peaceful. I thought about what could have happened to Arturo, and why he turned back. I paced slowly around the low brush in the sand. There were thousands of footprints in the area from my pacing all night. I thought about how most stops where there was a Baja Pit near my van, it was Baja Pit first, then the van. The one I missed was the opposite. I usually just took off from the van and gas was already taken care of.

I was a racer, standing still, alone, isolated and ignored by passing vehicles. The eastern sky turned orangey. The light was welcomed and changed my attitude yet again, as it had yesterday, 446 miles back at San Felipe. I was 120 miles off my plan now, and more sleep deprived than I had hoped at this location. I had been awake for 32 hours now.

An ATV came by at 6a.m. Not the racing type of ATV, but a big Artic Cat, even though he was in the race. He slowed as he went past and turned around and came back. He approached me and the first thing he said was “Hey, you’re Larry Janesky!” “Yeah,” I said, shocked – partly that he knew me, and partly that after standing there for seven hours someone actually stopped.

“I saw your movie!  Your movie is the reason I’m here. My wife let me come because of it!” “Cool!” I said. “Can you help me? I’m out of gas.” “Yeah I think so.”

Mercy.

Just then, another similar ATV came by and stopped. It was his friend. They were Canadian, from Manitoba. Their machines had much more gas than was necessary to get from pit to pit – and they weren’t in it to win it, they were just in it to finish. 

I pulled the suction tube from my hydration pack off and we used an empty water bottle to siphon gas out of one of their gas tanks. I didn’t need much. He asked if he could take a picture with me to show his wife. I took a picture of them too. Thank God for the friendly Canadians! 

They headed out. I got on the satellite phone and called Andrew. “Andrew! I got gas! I’m heading out!”  “But Arturo is on his way again,” he said. I thought about it. If Arturo got to where I was and didn’t see me, he’d keep going, looking for me. He’d never find me since I would be moving faster than he was ahead of him – and it was another 150 miles to the van again. He didn’t have a satellite phone. 

“Are you kidding me?” I thought to myself. I waited six and a half hours for gas, now I got it, and I can’t go? Arturo was a great guy. He was caring, thoughtful, concerned, and a great rider. He was taking care of me. I couldn’t just leave. If I waited for him, he’d see me and turn back. It was 39 miles if he turned back, and 150 if he went straight.

The sun was up. The warmth was more than welcomed. I waited. Twenty minutes later a light approached. Here he was at last. “Mr. Janesky, I am so sorry. I tried my best…” I told Arturo to call me Larry a bunch of times, but that’s the kind of guy he was. He apologized profusely. I told him not to worry, it was my fault.

His first attempt he had a five-gallon can between his legs with a tie down around his neck and the gas can handle. This attempt, he had a two-gallon water jug 2/3 full of gas, carrying it in the same manner. He had work boots and jeans on. I poured more gas into my tank, thanked him sincerely, and packed up quickly. I switched goggles with him as my lenses were full of micro scratches from the dust and condensation. The 714x fired up.

A week after I’d return, I’d be listening to a podcast and it would say “A two-million-dollar Ferrari is useless if it runs out of gas.” “Yeah,” I thought, shaking my head.

I sped away from Arturo. I clicked through the gears. It was light out and most of the dust making dragons were past me. I felt good. My body was working. I pushed miles behind me.

I was free.

Isolation

“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back.”

The next Baja pit was 16 miles ahead. Could I walk? In riding boots in the sand…it would take forever, and then I’d have to walk back.   

Could I walk back? It was about 14 miles to the river crossing where I could find locals. Too far. More trucks. Another bike slows and stops. “Are you ok?” Nothing he can do. I stopped flagging vehicles. I called Andrew again. Another truncated conversation. He said Arturo was coming out on Tanner’s bike. Before we could discuss details, the call was dropped.

If I could talk for five minutes I would have told him that I was only 16 miles from the next Baja pit – so I didn’t need too much gas. They could fill four or five water bottles with gas and put them in Tanner’s pack. Arturo could ride freely this way.

I stood there in the dark, thinking about how much time I would lose. I thought it would take an hour for them to get back to San Ignacio and unload Tanner’s bike. Then figure 15 minutes to get Arturo prepped. Then an hour for him to get to me. I may even be able to get to mile 784 by daybreak, which would be right on my plan.

I rolled the numbers over in my head as trucks and racing buggies came by and dusted me, my bike, and my pack at irregular intervals.

I was sobered by my situation. I had worked so hard, done so much right, and come so far – only to make such a heavy mistake. If just one person from either crew said, “Don’t forget the gas pit ahead,” I would have been looking for it. But I couldn’t blame them. Everyone was focused on Tanner dropping out and not the details of me staying in. Fair enough. It was my fault.

Well, if I have to wait for Arturo, I’ll take a nap. He can’t miss my bike, reflectors, and blinkers. If I was any closer to the course I’d be on it. I laid down between the low brush and small cactus that lived in this flat sandy plain. I left my helmet on to hold my head up and keep it warm. 

This may be a luxury I thought. Maybe this is good. Maybe I’ll get an hour or two of sleep and be fresh as a daisy when Arturo wakes me up. It was cold. Real cold, and I wasn’t moving. My socks were damp from the river crossing and my jersey was damp with sweat. Cold night air doesn’t dry you like hot day air. The cold sand sucked the heat out of me. I started shivering. Intermittently at first, then continuously. Trucks roared by.

I had to get up. As tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep with my body so cold and quaking. I jumped up and down to get my blood going. I began getting warmer once I got off the ground and heat loss by conduction stopped.

I called Andrew. He answered. “Arturo is coming with a gas can.” I could hardly make out what he was saying. “A gas can?” I thought. How is he going to ride with a gas can? You have to stand up when it’s rough, and he had a river crossing to navigate. A dirt bike seat is about 4 inches wide, and you need to slide forward and backward to use body English to ride. Where is he going to put a gas can?

Time went by. It was 1:30a.m. and I had been there for two hours. It was 24 ½ hours since I saw the green flag. Then it was 2:30. Then 3:30. I kept recalculating the entire rest of the race. I laid down to try to sleep again. Same result – impending hypothermia. Get back up.

The sky was beautiful. I observed the desert at night as I never had before. I had hours to kill. I heard animals; a coyote or desert fox howling, and some kind of night owl. A shooting star. Hues of black.

It seemed to be getting colder. I observe a low cloud – no, a fog bank – rolling in. Soon, I was wet with condensation. My bike and pack and helmet and gear were all wet. When a truck went by, the dust stuck to me like I was a powdered donut.

More time passed. Slowly, I came to the realization that I was going to lose a lot of time. A LOT. This was going to threaten all my cushion time and even the race itself. All that cushion time I had earned with everything I had for the last 24 hours…gone. This I did not want to accept easily. I stayed positive. 

Another light is coming. Is it Arturo? I have a feeling it is. Closer…closer…the lights fly by – again.

By now I was pretty wet. The fog was moving on a slow wind. “So this is how plants and animals drink out here.”

Another light. Is it Arturo? No.

It was 4:30a.m. Then 5:30. A new day was turning the eastern horizon a dark blue, then lighter blue. The satellite phone rang. It was Andrew. I could not believe what the scratchy voice on the phone was saying. 

“Arturo did everything he could. He tried to get to you, but he had to turn back. He’s back here at the van now… We are no closer to getting you gas than we were six hours ago.”

My body was still. I blinked in slow motion…

Facing Reality

“The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the cause of all our adversities.” – Sophocles

It said plain as day on the tape on my front fender – Van stop 607. Baja Pit (gas) 607. I never saw the pit. It was in San Ignacio along the street with the people and the lights and the colors. It was camouflaged in plain sight. When I was fist pumping the crowd to the right, it was on the left.

I accepted what happened right away and began thinking about what to do about it. It was 11:32 pm and I was far away from any people or structure. It was 45 degrees and dropping. I pulled my bike over to the left side of the course and heaved it up the bank of sand to get it off the course. The sand was deep, and the bike would not roll. I had to pull it sideways one wheel a few inches at a time with great effort. 

I was ahead of my plan. It will be ok. I’ll get gas somehow, and if it takes an hour or two, I’ll be alright.

I didn’t pull it more than four feet out of the way of race traffic, because I wanted to be seen. Maybe someone would stop and help me. It was very dark, and the desert stars laced the sky above the clear air. I took my pack off and got my satellite phone out. I turned it on and waited to get a signal. I called Andrew and hoped he was monitoring his phone. 

There was a time when Iridium satellite phones were a hot technology. With 22 satellites orbiting the earth, supposedly you could call anywhere on earth from anywhere else. It never took off and I knew why. The damn things didn’t work half the time. I knew this from last year. The calls would not go through often, voices would come in garbled, and the calls would be dropped halfway through. Still, we rented them for the race because there was little choice in a situation just like this.

Andrew answered. He was on his way to our next rendezvous point at mile 784 and had driven over an hour away from San Ignacio. “I missed the pit, I’m out of gas at 646,” I reported. “Oh shit!” he said. After a pause for not knowing what to say, he said he’d head back toward San Ignacio and figure something out and call me back. I wanted to discuss some options, but the call was dropped. All I could do was wait.

Lights appeared on the horizon, coming my way. I stood near the course near my bike. Was it a bike? A truck? A buggy? As it got closer I could tell. I had never been stranded in a race before. When I saw a bike stranded, I always stopped to ask if he was ok. I guess I was assuming they’d do that for me. 

I had two red blinker lights on the back of my pack when riding at night. I also put reflector tape on every rear facing surface I could – the shoulders of my jacket, my pack, the back of my boots, under my rear fender and the back of my helmet. I didn’t want to get run over by an 800-horsepower truck going twice my speed. I positioned my bike and the blinkers so other race vehicles could see me.

Soon enough I had my answer. They didn’t even slow down. Race trucks went by at 80 miles an hour and showered me with dust. At first, I was disappointed. But when I thought about it, I guess I can’t blame them. They are in a race in their respective classes and have planned all year and spent a ton of money on this race. Bikes are cheap. The trucks are one million dollars apiece, not including pre-run trucks, the crew, chase vehicles, and the shop they built them in. If I was stranded, that’s not their problem.

A light approached and this time it was a motorcycle. I waved to him – as he went by. “Oh, ok. It’s like that then.” The thick of the pack of trucks and buggies were coming through – one every few minutes now. I knew there were about 300 vehicles besides motorcycles in this race – 400 entries in all.

Another bike…he slows and stops. “I’m out of gas,” I shouted over his engine and through his helmet. He thought about it for five seconds and then shook his helmet and shrugged. “I’ll tell them at the next pit,” he said. I paused. “Okay. Thanks.” He took off. There was nothing the guys at the pit could do for me other than report it to my team if we called them. What did I expect? That’s what I said to a rider who was out of gas last year. There’s nothing a bike can do. They don’t have any extra gas.

I called Andrew again. No answer.

The Second Crossing

“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity. For wise men say it is the wisest course.“ – William Shakespeare

I rode away from San Ignacio at 10:30 pm on a leg that I knew would take me most of the night. I felt good. Surprisingly good for being this deep into the world’s longest non-stop race. My physical preparation was paying dividends now.

I turned off the paved road into the desert yet again. There were fires along the course – people camping out and watching the race. The course rolled and turned in the hills, but it was far easier than the last 50 miles. I hear a truck and see lights coming up behind me. I pick a place to pull over and watch the dragon pass, populating the air with particles of airborne earth so effectively, you’d think that was why the machine was built.

I’d have to deal with passing trucks and buggies the rest of the race. This would slow me down significantly from the first half. I’d have to pull over to get out of their way, and then wait for the dust to clear so I could see and proceed. If there was no wind, a typical nighttime situation, it would take a number of minutes, and sometimes ten. Just when you get going, you see the lights of another one coming up behind you. This process gets repeated when the bulk of the pack is coming through, as your average speed suffers considerably.

I came to a river crossing – the same river crossing that had claimed Santana. It was about 60 feet across. This time it was night. There were crowds of people on both banks. This could only mean that there was drama here worth watching. The last thing I wanted to do was fall down in the water at night, submerged, with 40-degree air and being 157 miles from my truck. Now that I think of it, that could be life-threatening.

I stopped and asked a spectator, “Which line is good?” and I motioned with my hand. I couldn’t understand him. I asked again. He tried to help me, but I wasn’t confident he had been paying attention. A truck could take any line they want. But a bike had to miss the big boulders to stay upright.

When you have something tough to do, staring at it and telling yourself how bad it will be it won’t make it any easier. I didn’t hesitate any longer. I put the bike in first gear and put my calves up on the radiator shrouds, as is my water crossing technique to keep my feet dry.

The river received me without much protest at first. The water got deeper and deeper. The splashing from my front wheel licked the back of my boots on my outstretched legs. About 2/3 the way through, I hit something under the black water that knocked me off balance. Instinctively I hit the throttle to stay up. I altered my course to regain my balance and sprinted for the bank. I was about ten feet to the left of my original target when I got there, but I got there. Besides a little water in my boot, I was dry. 

I happily left the crowd behind and sprinted into the darkness.

I never was a quitter. When things got tough, I hung in there. When nobody expected me to win or finish or stick it out, I always did. If anyone can do it, I can do it. Maybe not at first, if I didn’t have the training or experience or knowledge, but if I wanted something, I’d pay the price.

I think too many people quit on themselves. In an age of instant gratification, where we find out if we win in minutes and go on to the next thing, persistence over long periods of time is a valuable quality. Sometimes you just keep going until everyone else goes home.

Finishing a project, even after you discover it is taking far longer than you expected or hoped, is what we need to do. Doing anything worthwhile means going deep into it. It means sticking with it through complexity and problems and when weeks turn to months or years. So long as it was a worthwhile endeavor in the first place, if you start, you finish. Finishing builds self-esteem and confidence. And life is a confidence game.

I pressed on. The excitement of it being on me, and the fans in San Ignacio, and now even the river crossing had faded. It was work again. It was cold. When I look behind me I could always see at least one set of racing truck lights back there coming my way. I had to keep looking to time when I’d pull over.

The course flattened out. The sand got deep. I shifted my weight back to lighten up the front wheel and gave it a healthy dose of throttle to push through the sand. 

Suddenly, “broughhhhhhhhh.” My engine quit. It took two seconds to understand what happened. 

I was out of gas.