"Grab the bars and own it"

“He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man.” – Seneca

The end of night had to be close. I was heading east toward San Felipe and the Sea of Cortez. The deep, beautiful night sky began to relent at the horizon. I followed the course to a dry river wash with exceptionally deep coarse sand. Since Tanner crashed hard there in last year’s pre-run, I knew to watch out for partially submerged boulders, like manatees, that were the same color as the sand. Of course, at night, you see in black and white, not in color. Headlight shadows would help me.

The river wash made down a very long gradual slope. I knew it would dump me into a dry lake bed. When I got there, I opened it up to 88 miles an hour. The sky was getting lighter. Another bike was on my wing, and we held our relative positions to stay out of each other’s dust.

A dry lake bed is flat as a tabletop. But you still can’t let your guard down. Every so often they get wet and soft. Vehicles can make ruts and holes, and at 90 mph things happen very fast. On a dirt bike you are open in the wind. Fighting a 90-mph wind that wants to blow you off your bike takes work, and you have to find a position that works and hold still.

I was happy to be going so fast. I was watching my moving average on the GPS. I had to average 24.5 mph to finish in 48 hours. It sounds easy. But factor in all the stops and turns, and you have less cushion than you may think. Going 90 for 10 minutes helps your average.

The lake bed ended and funneled me and two other bikes near me into silty twisted paths. At times the silt got very deep. Silt is created when crusty dried dirt is pulverized by wheel traffic. 40” tires backed by 800 horsepower from pre-running trophy trucks are the perfect silt making machines. The silt can be 20” deep or more. Imagine riding along on a motorcycle and hitting 20” of flour, often with rocks or uneven terrain under it that you can’t see.

The silt, and silty ruts are the most dreaded terrain for a racer in Baja.

I took some alternate lines to stay out of the dust, and wound up off course. I had to thread a virgin line through brush, ledge, rocks and cactus to get back on course. It was half-light now, and a few miles of whoops gave way to a smooth dirt road. I knew the van was ahead.

Ralph was holding the sign – 714x. A welcome sight every time I see it. I pulled up and they sprang into action. Andrew and Arturo took care of the bike. I took my jacket off and dressed for the day when it would be 60 degrees hotter.

I got my shoulders and arms rubbed out, which feels great and is a huge help. Muscles that are under heavy use without a break start to cramp. I ate and drank. I swapped my clear goggles for tinted ones. A helmet cam change and I was back on the bike.

It was mile 200, and it was fully light out now. When Tanner passed here, he was in first place still!

I felt reborn with the sun. Each day is a new start no matter what happened yesterday or last night. I thanked my team. I really, really meant it. I was, and am grateful for them. I could not do it alone.

We all have people who support us in our lives. Whether they are family, friends, employees, customers, or people we don’t even know who make things we need to do what we do. I may have been the only rider, but I was far from the only one fielding the 714x.

My personal race plan had goals. We need goals; big ones and interim ones. Milestones to hit. I had planned to be at the dry lake bed by daylight. Instead, I was 20 miles past it.

I was encouraged…

No ordinary moments

It was about 4 a.m. This was the same stretch of course I had run on my last leg two years ago when we raced as a team, except this time I was running it the opposite way. I knew to look out for a raised concrete platform that crossed the course. I hit it at high speed two years ago and nearly crashed us out.

It took a couple months for us to replay the helmet cam footage and put two and two together, but me hitting this thing likely cracked the headlight brackets. Just a few miles later, I gave the bike to Tanner for his last leg, with us barely in first place. A few miles into his section, the headlight broke off the bike. Watch the movie on YouTube, “Into the Dust,” to see what happened.

I crossed it this time without incident. I noticed it was getting markedly colder. I recall it being very cold here before. We were at a higher elevation – on a high plateau over the valleys. My body temperature was dropping, and my hands were getting very cold. My fingers began to stiffen and ache from the cold. I wondered if I had made a mistake not adding a layer or putting my cold weather riding gloves on.

The course started down a section very familiar and distinctive to Baja racers – the goat trail. A steep decent marked by boulders and then slick rock. Down. Down. Down. As I descended it, I could feel the air getting warmer. Relief.

At the bottom of goat trail, it dumps you out onto the road. Whenever the course joined or crossed a paved road there were men stopping traffic to let you cross safely without slowing down. Yes, even at 4 a.m. There was no traffic of course, but it was comforting to know that the people of Baja knew there was a race going on and you weren’t going to get run over by civilian traffic.

I rode a couple miles into the pit at a tiny town called Valle Trinidad. Then a few miles more to a small hotel parking lot where we planned to meet our van for the second time at race mile 107. I pulled in feeling pretty good. I dismounted as Andrew and Arturo checked the bike over. Just then we heard someone yell and the sound of a motorcycle tumbling. We look that way and see the headlight beam rotating from a gulley, as it would if the bike was cartwheeling. A bike had gone off the road 75 feet from where we were.

Two of my team ran over and witnessed a bike at the bottom of a ravine that was 20 feet deep. They climbed down and helped the rider who miraculously, while shook up and injured, was walking. It could have been much worse for #709, and Ironman. I do not know the outcome, but I assume he was out of the race.

I resumed my race, still dark as could be, and hit my next Baja Pit for gas. At mile 99, in the middle of an otherwise fast section, there was a narrow and dogleg left. I came in hot and wasn’t going to make the turn. In front of me, as I skidded with my wheels locked up in the silt, I saw the consequences of missing this turn. It was a 30” deep washout with vertical sides.

I tried to finesse it and turn left just enough, but my front wheel fell in, and my back wheel followed. It was 6 feet wide and my front wheel was wedged against the far side, and my rear wheel wedged against the near side. I struggled to pull the front wheel to the left and the right direction for an escape. I saw that someone else fell into this trench too, and saw evidence of a struggle to get out. Later I’d learn it was Tanner.

I pulled my front wheel up the side with my bike running, and standing alongside it, I tried to drive it up. But my bike was nearly vertical, and the rear wheel pulverized the crust into silt and sank. As I struggled, another bike came in and nearly fell in with me. As he passed in front of my headlight, I could see his number – it was Rick Thornton whom we had pre-run with.

He didn’t stop for a second. Would he have stopped to help me if he knew it was me? I don’t know. Racing is funny like that. You want to be the good guy you are, but not at the expense of lost time. Some guys will stop, and some won’t. It depends on how they feel their chances are, and how dangerous of a situation they perceive you to be in. Of course, if you are their class and viewed as their primary competition, they usually will not stop to help you.

I was stuck right now. I looked around for a moment and tried to figure something out. As I did, I see two faces in the darkness! I did not expect to see race fans out here, with no light source around anywhere. That’s how the whole course is, you always have this eerie feeling that you are being watched – because often you are. These people will just appear from nowhere in a place where you’d bet $1000 that no human was within many miles of you.

This turned out to be a father and his young son watching the race. I yelled to him, “Can you help me?” I didn’t have to say it in Spanish, because it was obvious what anyone in this predicament would be pleading to anyone else. He came over and grabbed the fork tubes from the top and pulled as I pushed from alongside the bike and feathered the clutch. With the two of us, we got it out. I only lost 90 seconds or so.

A few minutes ahead, I see two headlights coming at me. I wondered what was going on. Then I saw it was two motorcycles. They took a wrong fork and were backtracking. One of them was probably Rick, but I couldn’t make out who it was in the dark. I looked at my GPS and saw that I had made the same mistake.

I turned around and followed them back 100 yards to get back on course.

It’s pre-dawn somewhere in Baja. It’s cold, and it’s dark. I am 3000 miles from home. I have over 1000 miles to go.

There are no ordinary moments.

We must do our best in this moment, because this moment is the gate to the next, and will determine how it will be for us when it gets here. If I don’t get out of this ditch, I don’t get to go the next mile. If I don’t go that mile, I don’t get to the one after that.

Do your best in THIS moment. It’s all you can do.

A body in motion…

“A body in motion tends to remain in motion until acted on by an outside force.”

These hills were different. Up and down like other hills, but these were whooped out. Three-foot-deep waves, 12 feet from crest to crest. Waves up big slopes and down them again; and on side hills too. Like moguls on black diamond runs on a ski mountain.

When the terrain is turbulent, you try to make it quiet with grace and inner tranquility. If you fight what is, you will lose. So you go with it, and accept it, and don’t make it mean something it doesn’t have to be. You determine what it means.

When the front wheel hits the face of a whoop, you have two choices. You can push with your arms to resist the front end coming up at you. Of course, once it comes up all it will, it will go down again. You have another choice. You can tighten up as it pulls you down. This resistance will find your torso going up and down and up and down – using a lot of energy.

Instead, you can stop fighting. You can allow the handlebars to come up at you, and know and trust it will not come up forever and knock you off. You relax your arms and grip and bend your elbows in an act of non-resistance. With your elbows bent, you are prepared for when the front-end drops. No need to resist, just keep your arms relaxed and straighten your elbows out. You are using far less energy and your center of gravity is not going up and down very much at all.

Once in a while, when the whoops are spaced right, you can look ahead and use the face of a whoop to blip the throttle and jump completely over a trough, missing it altogether. When you do it right, it feels like a dance.

We can accept what is, or resist it. When we resist, it causes suffering.

Acceptance does not mean being satisfied or resigned to it. It just means recognizing it for what it is, and not resisting its existence. If we can do that, a lot of personal suffering will melt away inside many of us.

My first Baja Pits gas stop came at mile 50. “Baja Pits” is a service – a business that sets up gas stops along the course every 50 miles or so. You pay ahead of time, and you get an orange diamond-shaped sticker to put on your front fender that says, “Baja Pits.”

The pit itself consists of a small trailer and a 10’ square pop-up awning. A big 3’ x 3’ orange sign is set up in front that says, “Baja Pits.” You shouldn’t miss it, especially in the middle of a stark earth-tone desert. At some pits, they’ll put another sign a few hundred yards before the actual pits saying something like “Baja Pits ahead.” If you pull in and they see their big orange sticker on your front fender, they know you are a customer of theirs.

They have quick-fill gas cans and, combined with your spring-loaded quick-fill gas tank (no gas cap to screw off, just press the gas can against the cap), you can fill up in about 6 seconds. They’ll wipe your headlight and goggles off, offer you a water (not necessary with our hydration packs) or a banana, and ask you if you are okay. They’re volunteers and race fans, and happy to help you.

Baja Pits are important – very important. If you miss one, you’re done. Our bikes would go about 80 miles on a full tank, and the Baja Pits were spaced 45 to 55 miles apart, depending on where they could get access to and set up.

I pulled in, and in 30 seconds I was off again. It always felt good knowing I didn’t have to worry about gas for another 50 miles.

At mile 74, I met my van and team for the first time since starting. I took a few mouthfuls of food and gulped some chia I had floating in a water/hydration powder mix.

So far, so good. Both my team and I were encouraged.

“Where’s Tanner?” “He’s leading!”

I clicked the bike into gear and sped off into the blackness.

“I got your back son.”

Active Pursuit

“Your life is not going to be easy and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard.  It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go”.  – Henri Nouwen

I was rolling. I had 1134.4 miles to go over some of the toughest terrain imaginable, and 48 hours to get there. If there were virtual gauges in my consciousness for rest, attitude, energy, physical fitness, and plan, the needles were all pinned at green. I felt great and my confidence was high.

Four blocks and two turns on city streets lined with fans, I dropped into the river wash for ten blocks to the east. Back out on city streets for a few miles, then onto a highway that was under construction. Then, “into the dust.”

I climbed the hills east of Ensenada. Campfires from fans dotted the way. The course rolled up and down. I settled in, finding a place at the intersection of fast, smooth and economy of human energy. Last year I held back in the beginning to save myself. This year, I was in better shape, and I wanted to go faster sooner to put miles behind me early.

A critical part of the race was already over – starting it. The road to the starting line is a long one. You need resolve as you navigate the uncelebrated hurdles and challenges. All that was over. The bike was between my legs and the bars were in my hands. We were moving – and it felt awesome.

The dirt road rolled and wound. Some parts were hard and slick with granules. Some parts were full of deep silt. An occasional lone rock to be avoided; just by an inch would suffice. I could see the lights of Ensenada below, which ended abruptly at the ocean.

Since the last race, some people asked why I was doing it, and told me I didn’t have to. I thought about it. It would be easier not to. A lot easier. But I want to go in the history books – the Ironman finisher born longest before the race. And in order to finish, I had to start.

So often we take ourselves out of the game because we think we can’t win – or can’t finish. When we do that, we ensure we won’t. I’m here now. All I have to do is keep going until I see a checkered flag. 

I passed a couple guys from my class, and a guy passed me. When someone comes up on you on a motocross track, you fight them off – taking the best lines and riding a wide bike. This wasn’t motocross. With 1100 miles to go (unless I was vying for a podium position or at the end of the race), you let them go. 

Taking the chance of making a mistake or spending energy unnecessarily is stupid in a survival race. They are stepping it up to pass you, and if you step it up even more to prevent it, the worst that can happen is you crash, and the best that can happen is you have to hold him off at 100% of your energy and ability for many miles – and that is not good to be riding on your edge for so long.

I descended the hills into Ojos Negros where I gave the kids stickers a few days before. I was doing 75 on an open gravel road and a bike came by me at 85. The black of the night was like being in space. There were my own lights illuminating a conveyor belt of earth’s textures flying under my wheels. Then another set of lights coming from a second flying object breaks the ink around me. Our lights join as a team, until separating again as he gets farther ahead. Being behind him, even 100 feet back, was like getting machine-gunned with gravel.

I passed the military checkpoint on the right and flew over roads that rolled up and down like the roads would through farmland in Iowa – almost like a roller coaster. I could see by the shifting lights on the horizon in front of me that another bike was coming up from behind. I didn’t want to be in his dust right here, so I rode fast and smooth to delay the event.

There were two of them, and when they went by I could see one of them was Jeff Benrud. He was a military special forces guy. For the last two years, he crossed the finish line first but didn’t win due to penalties. 

If you go off course, you can miss Virtual Checkpoints. These are 50’ – 100’ round spots that you must ride through or you get a 10-minute penalty. Picture Pac-Man consuming all the little dots along the way. You can’t see them of course, they are a digital creation on the tracker that race promoters follow your every step with. When you miss one, you don’t know it until the day after the race when your path over the course has been analyzed and verified by race officials.

If there is a shortcut to potentially take, the course designers will put enough VCPs along the course there to make it not worth it to take the shortcut. If you get lost, you can miss VCPs too.

Last year, Jeff crashed hard in the rocks and was knocked out cold for 20 minutes. He suffered a concussion and broken wrist. He doesn’t even remember finishing, which may explain why he missed enough VCPs to be penalized back to second place – for the second year in a row. This time, Jeff was in it to make the win stick.

I couldn’t see in the dust, as two bikes passed close together. I looked down and stayed between the left and right sides of the road and hoped for a crosswind.

I wondered how Tanner was doing ahead of me.

It was mile 40-ish, about 2:20 a.m., and I followed the course up into the hills where Tanner smashed his foot up on day one of pre-running. 

Less than 1100 miles to go.

Feeling good…

The return of the underdog – 714x

It was Wednesday. Race day. Tanner was okay. Our friends – Ralph Carpinella, John Sayour, Franz and Trevor Froehlich, Bobby Miles, and Todd Lutinski – had come in the day before to follow the chase trucks and give us any support they could. Jesse Dostie and Ted Waldron, who were instrumental in producing our YouTube movie “Into the Dust,” had the cameras and drone ready to chronicle the event again. 

The race officially started tonight at midnight. We had to be in staging at 11:00 p.m. They’d let the first bike go, and wait two minutes until the next one got the green flag. By the time they’d get to our class, it would be 1 a.m. before we were out on course. We’d have a ten-hour head start on the trucks. In my mind, it would be about 20 hours before we had to deal with the first one. I would turn out to be exactly right.

At 11:00 a.m. we went to a press conference where they wanted to interview us. We were first, thankfully, because we wanted to go rest. We got out of there in about an hour.

Tanner and I ate a good meal and went to bed at 2:30 p.m. How can you sleep at 2:30 p.m. when you have been sleeping all you can for five nights straight, knowing you have to get up at 10:30 p.m. for the longest non-stop race in the world which you will do solo?  To make matters worse, they were doing some remodeling at the hotel. A hammer drill was chipping on concrete all afternoon. No pressure – go to sleep.

We couldn’t. I lay there and did my best sleep impression for 3 ½ hours. When it got dark, I could take no more of the hammer drilling. There was too much at stake. I called the front desk and asked them to stop. Fifteen minutes later, it hadn’t. I thought about how I must have failed to communicate properly, and picked the phone up again. Their idea of good and bad service can be skewed at times down there.

The whole hotel was full of racers. I explained how the motorcyclists had to get up in a few hours and we were all trying to sleep. The hammer drilling going on in the pool area, which the entire hotel wrapped around, was keeping us up. I suggested that it was bad hotel management to be doing construction after the sun went down, especially under these circumstances. Finally, I told them if it does not stop, I would be coming down to the front desk. This was no time for timidity. We had a whole year on the line.

This time I got my point across…it stopped in 60 seconds. Finally, I drifted off to sleep and got four hours in before waking up before the alarm at 10:20 p.m. “How much did you sleep, Tanner?” I asked.

“None” he replied. Not good.

If we had gotten up an hour earlier, we could have made dinner at a number of restaurants before they closed, but we needed all the sleep we could get.

We got our gear on, packed the last bags that were not in the truck already, and went out to the parking lot where our bikes were waiting for us. They were truly impressive machines – and still clean and shiny in the night lights. We donned our backup lights and fired up our GPS’s. I swung my leg over the seat and fired up my Honda 450X. It sounded like a hot rod and inspired confidence. 

Race number 714x. My number. Me, a kid from Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the Baja 1000 Ironman class. A race number beginning with a 7 means Ironman Class (solo, no teammates, start to finish) and an x at the end means motorcycle (as opposed to most of the 400 race entries which were four-wheeled). It would be me and my bike – partners, for three nights and two days.

We rolled out into the nighttime streets and made our way to the starting line. There were a lot of bikes there. In 2015, when we won the Sportsman Class and made our movie, there were ten teams in that class. This year, eight months after our movie came out, there were 26 teams in that same class. Many of them said they saw our movie and were inspired. They recognized us and complimented the movie. Many said they were inspired to put a team together and enter because they had watched the movie. The movie really is a “how to race the Baja 1000” guide.

The race Chaplin came to pray with and for us. We huddled with him and his wife as he prayed for our safety and wisdom. “Amen.”

Midnight. We heard the bikes ahead of us take off and a drone followed them a ways on course, with a live video feed to the Jumbotron on the bridge under the big “Baja 1000” sign.

Ahead was a raised platform where they could take pictures of you and the crowd can see you. I checked my GPS. So long as it was working, and I had gas, I had what I needed right now. I was here last year, and I knew what to expect. I didn’t want to get my heart rate up and burn one calorie I didn’t have to. I was calm.

Tanner would start fifth out of 19 Ironmen. I started eighth. I’d probably never see him on course. He was going for a podium finish, and I just wanted to finish. I would be the oldest Ironman finisher in Baja 1000 history. I believe I am the oldest one to even enter this class of elite athlete riders.

It was 1:00 a.m., November 16, 2018. I saw Tanner get the green flag in front of me. “Go son! If anyone has got this, it’s you,” I whispered to myself. I rolled up. Sixty seconds later another bike left. I rolled up. Before I knew it, there were two green flags in front of my bike. The Starter yelled over rumbling engines “Twenty seconds!” He held his hands up and counted down the seconds. Ten, nine, eight…this was it. It was up to me now. Seven, six, five…all the training and preparation…four, three…ok, I feel good…two…I got this…one! 

The green flags lifted. I rolled the throttle open and feathered the clutch out. Throngs of fans lined the course.

It was the return of 714x.

Almost…

It was Tuesday. Tomorrow we’d have to wake up at 10:30 p.m. for the race.

The race.

We were first in line to register yesterday, beating 400 other teams and avoiding a multi-hour line. But they didn’t give us all the forms we needed, so we had to go back. Our mechanics got our bikes through tech inspection. Our friends went out to eat. The streets were filled with fans and vehicles of all kinds. Tanner and I walked through it all and stayed focused. It was lunchtime. Rather than asking where everyone else was, we decided to go to lunch ourselves and stay centered. 

We chose a restaurant called “Baja Fruit.” It was one block away from the hotel and we had eaten there before. Great food. We sat down and Tanner ordered fajitas. He can speak Spanish and get along. I said “dos por favor.”

My phone rang. Andrew, my mechanic, needed me to come to sign for the trackers and give a deposit on them. These trackers were important and you couldn’t race without them. It was three blocks away. I got up from the table and told Tanner I’d be right back. I ran down the street wondering if my food would be cold when I got back.

On the way, a race support truck towing a very long trailer tried to make a turn onto a side street and stopped inches from sideswiping a parked car. He’d need to back up on a busy main street to get out of it. I acted fast before gridlock piled up behind him, and stood in the middle of a four-lane with my hands up like I owned the place to stop traffic. He backed up, took another angle at it, and got through. In race week, you just have to work together to make it work. 

I signed for the trackers and ran three blocks back to the restaurant. I sat down, and at that moment, Tanner, who had already started eating, asked the waiter “What’s in that sauce?” “Peanuts.” The first word out of his mouth was peanuts.

Tanner stood up. We had to go. Now.

When Tanner was 2, he ate a Girl Scout cookie. That’s when we found out. We almost lost him. His throat swelled closed and his lips swelled. Two years ago, he got Chinese food and went hiking. He ate it all. He was at the top of a mountain far from the car. By the time he got to the hospital, he was as red as a lobster. Doctors using epinephrine and Benadryl saved his life for the third time.

Now we were in Mexico.

The sauce was hot sauce. It looked just like the hot sauce we were eating all week. Tanner was twenty feet out the door, and I threw $20 on the table and issued a stern explanation for our hasty exit. “You have to tell people about peanuts! They are allergic!” I held my hand around my throat to demonstrate the effects – and I was gone.

I caught up with Tanner and we walked hastily to the hotel around two corners. He was feeling it in his throat, that’s why he asked about the sauce. He didn’t eat much, but it didn’t take much. We went to our room where he had an EpiPen. He had never stuck himself with it. We called an ambulance. Tanner knew how much time he had until he could not breathe – one hour.

We used twenty-five minutes of the hour by the time the medics got to our room. They had no Benadryl. We got him out into the back of the ambulance. I jumped in front and, siren blaring, negotiated far too slowly through the crowded city streets. I looked back to see my son and riding partner on the stretcher. At least they could monitor his breathing back there.

We got to the “hospital,” which was an urgent care clinic with three beds. It wasn’t far. For the next two hours, a careful, patient, seemingly qualified doctor observed Tanner’s heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. He didn’t overreact and fill him up with drugs. He administered a steroid in a low dose. We waited.

When he was stable, we paid the bill – $20 – and walked to a pharmacy to have a prescription filled in case he needed it. At the pharmacy, I thought something must be wrong when it cost $2.30. We walked back to the hotel. It was about ten blocks more and Tanner walked quickly. We sat down in our hotel room again. Within a minute he said, “We have to go back.” He didn’t look good. He was worried.

This time we knew where the clinic was, and we didn’t wait for another ambulance ride. We walked. I asked, “How is it now?” every two blocks.

We got back to the clinic and sat down in a chair in front of the doctor’s desk this time while Tanner explained what he was feeling. Again, the doctor didn’t overreact. He checked him out, patiently. We sat for a while. He began to feel better. Again, we walked back to the hotel.

We both wondered if the effects of anaphylactic shock would affect his race that was to begin in 30 hours. 

We slept as much as we could that night – our last regular night…

The future is promised to no one.

“Most men ebb and flow in the wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardship of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.” – Seneca

Wheels touched down in San Diego. We spent the night there, and we both slept as long as we possibly could. We woke up and just laid there waiting to fall asleep again. A few rounds of that until we could sleep no more. Can you bank sleep and make a withdrawal later? I hoped so. 

I had been purging my body of caffeine. I drink coffee and found not having it the week before the race easier than I had imagined. If I tapped into caffeine during the race, which was inevitable, I wanted my mind and body to respond.

We drove across the border back to Ensenada. It was Sunday. I thought about the race all the time. Conversation was often just an interruption of an internal dialogue. We all talk to ourselves. And that voice is the most important voice in our lives because we hear it all the time, and believe what it says because we generated it. 

Questions and thoughts would come up. “If anyone can finish this race, I can. Nobody is better than me.” “The race promoters would not lay out a race course that was impossible. Would they?” “This race was for multi-driver trophy truck teams that travel at twice the speed of bikes. It’s not a single rider motorcycle course…” Yes, no, maybe, and correct.

We had three days to prepare for the green flag on Thursday morning at 1 a.m. Ensenada erupts in race mania on race week. It’s the only place in the world you can see 800 hp trophy trucks, which are nowhere near street legal, trolling city streets like they owned the place. All the classes of race vehicles did. We had to stay focused. We had a lot of work to do.

We got on our newly modified race bikes for the first time in a year. We rode 34 miles to test them and pre-run the first 34 miles of the course. I was determined not to do this the day before the race. No riding then, just rest. So we did it Monday at dusk. The course went through the smallest, dustiest of towns called Ojos Negros. Poor kids were standing along the streets, if you can call them streets, waving. I stopped at six groups of them and gave them stickers to their great delight. 

As it got dark we tested our race lights. It may not sound like something you have to do, but at night if your lights are not pointed in an ideal way as you bob up and down, it could make a big difference. Worse, if your lights go out, you have trouble. 

We had secondary lights velcroed to our helmets like Mickey Mouse ears, with a cord running down to batteries in our backpacks. We could ride by them alone if necessary, though probably not as fast because they were not as bright as our headlights. We also had a secondary power supply and replacement fuses for our lights. If they went out, unplug this connector and plug that one in. Last year Tanner lost his lights in the race – twice.

We carefully considered what to carry and how, and what to put in what bag in the truck. This was a one-way race unlike the last two. We couldn’t leave anything in the hotel.

We shopped for good food – not easy in Mexican grocery stores. That’s why we did some shopping in San Diego and drove it over the border. In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan took visiting Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to an American grocery store, he wept at the abundance we had, that his country did not. We truly are lucky to have a relatively free market, innovation, and millions of capitalists and entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to make a million details better so we can have more selection, quality, low prices, and convenience. Big Mexican grocery stores aren’t exactly third-world, but they aren’t exactly your local Whole Foods stores.

Tanner’s back injury had improved. My left knee was mostly better from slamming on a box jump, and my left foot was tweaked, but dramatically improved from my woods run four days earlier, and it did not hurt when I rode. My neck injury from last year’s race was as good as it had been in a year. When I rode it was not perfect, but okay.

We went to bed early and slept as late as we could. If we couldn’t sleep, we just laid there. 

We knew what was coming, and time was short now…

Break it down into micro-goals

When we have a big stretch goal, we have to break it down into micro goals. When you can’t accomplish your big goal today, you have to ask, “What do I have to do today to make the next step possible?” Without these small steps being taken, there would be no great achievement. There’s no big bang. Most of the steps to accomplish great things may seem ordinary and dull to an onlooker.

With two weeks to race day, we were making plans and getting last minute gear together every day. Tanner’s foot was healing. We were working out every day, and eating and sleeping with intention.

When I was a kid, I got this idea that I was put here for some important reason. I’m not sure where it came from. Maybe getting straight A’s in school bolstered my confidence and self-concept. Whatever it was, I firmly believe I was not put here to be okay, or even good. I have things to do, and damn it I am going to do them.

It took me a while to overcome the social stigma of “you’re no better than anyone else,” and I have people in my life that help me be humble. Worrying about people thinking I am better than them in some pompous way, is something I still struggle with. But this isn’t about anyone else. It’s about me. I’ve always made every day count – always. But now that I am 53 years old, my sense of “no time to waste” is at an all-time high. 

Giving kids and adults a sense of belief in themselves in the number one thing we can do to make the world a better place. People can take care of themselves and their families, and go far beyond that; they can do amazing things if they can overcome their own inner voice – the one they listen to all day long.

While social and family help, support, and love is required and makes life richer, the number one person to help you is you.

Just a few days before we had to fly out, Tanner hurt his lower back doing 185# overhead squats. It was bad. We were very worried. Would it get better in time?

I hadn’t been running as much as I was earlier in the year because of my foot damage from the hickory tree. Just six days before race day, I decided to go for a run in the woods. It was cold and damp. Fresh fall leaves blanketed the ground and hid the rocks, roots, and holes. I couldn’t see what I was stepping on and made dozens of small missteps that a healthy foot could endure without issue. When I was done, I realized I made a mistake. My foot was making grinding sounds. I reached down and massaged it and stretched it with my hands. When I stood up again, I could hardly put weight on it. Oh no…

Self-Propulsion

Why am I spending so many posts talking about pre-running and all the things I have, and we have not even started the race yet? Because it mirrors how life really is. It’s mostly preparation. The high moments are made possible by endlessly readying ourselves for them. Learning logically, trying, learning emotionally and physically, adjusting, trying again…it’s all part of growing and growing again. That IS the journey.

As we neared LaPaz and the finish line, I envisioned being in the race. The pain fell away because I knew it would be over soon. Spontaneously, I got emotional and screamed out in my helmet. “Ahhhhh!” I will finish! It was the desire in me coming out all at once, willing to make the sacrifice.

I increased my speed in the sand whoops and started wheel tapping them – a technique where you pull the front wheel up over the troughs and let it touch just the tops of the whoops. You can go a lot faster in the whoops this way, but it takes a lot more energy and mistakes can happen very fast. I was encouraged I was able to do this on day five. I put a huge gap on the guys behind me.

Ten miles before the finish, there was a section called “The Waterfall.” There was no water involved; just a very steep decent marked by continuous ledges that dropped vertically to the next and the next. We navigated the drop-offs and I used my motocross skills on this much heavier bike.

At the bottom, the course made its way out to the paved roads of LaPaz. Crowds of fans were waiting to see pre-running vehicles come out to their home city three weeks before the race. As we made our way through the city, bands of muscles across my back just below my shoulder blades were screaming at me, and screaming loud. It was almost unbearable. I couldn’t wait to get off this bike.    

Our pre-run trip was over. I had seen the course over five days. Tanner had not, although he did see all the team pit stop points and what was around them. Now it was time for both of us to fly home, heal up, and make a precise race plan based on what we had learned.

I know the best way to make a fear go away, is to face the thing you fear. I was more optimistic about the race now than I was before riding the 1134 miles. 

Whatever was to happen, there was no turning back…

Do what you say you will do.

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” – Nelson Mandela

Day 5 of pre-running the longest cross-country race course in the world had us with an initial goal to go from Loreto at race mile 831 to about mile 1000. The next day we’d finish to mile 1134. But that’s not how it turned out.

Tanner’s foot was still not well enough to ride on. The swelling was still there and the colors were coming out in deeper hues. Again, I felt bad. My son and riding partner was disabled. 

We set off on course and almost immediately we got to a hill climb so ridiculously steep and rocky… “Wake up! It’s me, Mr. Terrain, and I am here to kick your ass again!” Down into a long rocky river wash and then out onto a beautiful winding paved road. We switchbacked up over the mountains and the ascent brought beauty and cold air. I wondered if I needed my jacket, but it was too late. 

Chris Haines had told us a story with a cautionary warning. He said that a party of four racers from Sweden were riding this section of pavement and met disaster. What could happen on pavement? When a river crosses the paved road, you can make a bridge for the road – but that costs money. Here, they just let the river cross over the top of the road as a normal condition – a “spillway.” The water was about 25 feet wide and only two inches deep or so. Algae grew on the road surface and it was as slick as ice.

The first Swede went down, and the second and third went down trying to avoid him. Only one made it. When you crash on the road, it’s much different than crashing in dirt. There were broken bones and a concussion among them. “Be careful at the spillways” Chris warned. I told Rick and Santana, although I was sure Santana would know this already.

We approached the first spillway and I slowed, rolled through it touching neither the throttle nor any brake. There were four spillways over the next few miles as the same river meandered left and right of the road. Rick did not have such luck. He went through the first spillway okay and thought the warnings were overblown. On the second one, he went down on the pavement and slid 150 feet. His riding pants, very hard to tear, were ripped open at his thigh. He broke his foot in the incident, but he could still ride as it was small bones that were broken.

At this point, I was the only one of four of us who began four days ago who didn’t have a bad crash on this pre-run trip. I wanted to keep it that way.

The course kept crossing this wide rocky riverbed with rocks like bowling balls and watermelons. Then it opened up to sand whoops. Have you ever felt discouraged when you see the road ahead is long and difficult? 

I could see about three or four miles ahead – nothing but waves in the sand created by wheel action over many years. Up, down, up, down. Try to find a rhythm…get to the top of a rise and I could see another five miles of the same. Get to the top of the next rise…it went on for 80 miles. 

I got to the truck and waited. Eventually, Santana pulled up. Where’s Rick? He was between us. We waited and hoped we didn’t have to go back so many miles in those whoops to find him. Nearly an hour later he finally rolled in. He took a wrong turn but somehow figured it out.

The sun beat down on us as we ate some lunch. Santana had the idea that we’d finish pre-rnning the course today instead of tomorrow. Instead of stopping at a little town around mile 1000, we’d go on to the finish in LaPaz at mile 1134. That was a tall order. It would be 310 miles for the day.  Besides actually racing IN the Baja 1000, that would be the most I had ever ridden in a day. A deep breath of hot dry air… “Let’s go.”

As the course wound south, the terrain changed from time to time, as it does. When I saw the mile marker that said “1010,” I had to stop and take a picture. 1010 miles of this behind us. That was far. Very very far. While my body was exhausted, I knew I was getting better from all the “practice.”

I looked forward to seeing that sign again in two weeks…