"You can do better"

I had trained all year. I thought about it day and night – every day and every night. Sometimes I was optimistic, but most of the time it scared the hell out of me. I’d lie in bed sweating, my heart racing thinking about it.

I was going into the mouth of hell on November 15. Even “success,” finishing, meant paying a heavy price. Last year I made an uncharacteristic mistake and got hurt at mile 200. Whiplash forward. I rode 20 more hours. At mile 600, I simply could not go on. I couldn’t hold my head up anymore. I had 255 miles to go on the 855-mile course. I just couldn’t, so after 27 ½ hours, I tapped out. I couldn’t go one more mile. 

The Baja 1000 is the longest non-stop race on the planet. Four years ago I had never even heard of it. Now I’d be entering it for the third time. The first year it was an 822-mile course that my son Tanner and I entered as a two-man team in a class called “Sportsman” – a mixed age class. We were at a big disadvantage to the 4-6 man teams, but we wanted to be a father and son only team. We took six turns on the bike each over the 25 ½ hours it took us to finish.

We made a movie about the race and put it up on YouTube. Today, “Into the Dust” is the most popular movie about racing motorcycles in the Baja 1000 ever made. It quickly became an inspiration to hundreds of thousands who have an interest in desert racing. Of course, there isn’t a desert within 1000 miles of where we live.

The second year we both decided to enter the Ironman class. This is where you do the entire course yourself. You and your motorcycle and 1000 miles, plus or minus, on some of the most hostile terrain you can ride on. Last year Tanner finished in 28 ½ hours, becoming only the 13^th person to ever even finish this class. Most racers that enter do not finish.

I never was a quitter. I needed to go back. I can’t die this way. I could make an excuse. Afterall, who else could blame a 52-year-old from Connecticut for only going a mere 600 miles in the longest desert race in the world? Had I finished, I’d have been the oldest finisher in the Baja 1000 Ironman class ever. 

Something in me was not going to accept that story. We can tell the world about what happened and explain the limits – but we can’t fool ourselves. I knew I could do better, even if it would take significant sacrifice. Great achievement always does. 

One step back…

I screamed from my gut. I thought my leg and foot were both broken. Anyone listening who heard all the cracking would think so too. I had never broken a major bone before. Just a hand (neighborhood football, age 13) and a collarbone, age 47. That’s the most common motocross bone to break because when you fall you often land on your shoulder, and sometimes when your helmet hits the ground the bottom edge rotates into your collarbone.  

It was only 3 months until the biggest race of my life – the biggest race on the planet. That’s the first thing I thought of. My race is over. 

Before I could figure that out, I had to get this tree off my foot. It was Wednesday night – riding night. My trusty 5 friends came over to ride, but today I wouldn’t ride. I’d save my neck and figure out something else to do while they rode. I had cut maybe 500 trees down in my life. The property around the track is nothing but trees. If I cut this big giant hickory down, we could straighten out this awkward turn and make the track flow a bit better.

Nowhere to drop it. Nothing but trees around. I planned on dropping it onto the smallest, sickliest other tree around that would be sacrificed under the weight of this 75-foot tall mature hickory. Here we go…timberrrrr…Ut oh… The head of the tree catches on another, the tree rolls around and winds up falling 90 degrees from the ideal location selected. I’d never do this around a house or power lines – but we were in the middle of the woods. 

The giant slaps down on and settles into three smaller oaks that bend like rainbows under its weight. I knew there were stresses there. A dangerous situation. But I had dealt with this before. Take off a 3-foot section of the trunk.  Make the tree shorter and lighter. And again, and again. I consider myself an expert with a chainsaw. 

Then I cut the next section of the trunk off and the tree did not fall to the ground. It was suspended in the three smaller oaks. I studied the complex situation for clues on where I could safely cut next.  The big hickory leaders were on the left side of this oak, and the right side of that one, with one in the middle…the oaks were bent over and saying “get off of me.” I had cut the trunk of the hickory up to the first big split, which was now suspended 6 feet off the ground. 

Oh crap. I reach my Husqvarna up and start to cut a bit to feel where the stresses might lie, looking and feeling for clues with every inch the blade advanced. Suddenly the big hickory split like a wishbone and released from the oaks, with a lot of their help. The 20” round freshly sawn trunk came at me to avenge its killer. I stepped back…and back again. Thinking I’d outsmart the tree chasing me to terra firma, I sidestepped, to let it go right by me. As if it had eyes, it followed.

The tree plowed horizontally into my shin until gravity took over and it dropped onto my foot and plunged it into the earth.  That’s when I screamed. I was pinned, like a mouse with his leg in a trap. I could not move my foot or pull it out. There was maybe a thousand pounds of tree on the bottom edge of that log, and my foot was under it. Lucky I was wearing safety toe boots, which I seldom do. The other guys came running. I yelled for them to get the tractor, but in the few minutes it took them to get there with it, I realized if we touched the tree it would slide farther towards me and break my leg.

My foot and toes were so squished inside my boot, that my foot was going numb. Mike Lane and the other guys dug a hole alongside my foot to take some pressure off, and then cut the back of my boot vertically with a knife, and then along the sole to make a flap. I was barely able to pull my foot out. Slow wiggle. Slow painful wiggle. No broken bones. A miracle. But there was plenty of damage.

I thought, “my race”…

Two steps forward…

The body and the mind are connected. You know this. The mind can make the body do things, and the body can make the mind feel like doing things. The body is a chemistry lab and the mind responds. 

When we keep the body healthy with what we eat and how we move and sleep, we’ll have more energy for an active life. Some of us run. Some hit the gym. Some have fallen in love with a sport. Sometimes when you are active to make things better, you get hurt and make things worse for a little while. Of course, a sedentary lifestyle has not-so-temporary negative effects.

I ride motocross. It’s been important to me for 22 years. Twice a week usually and most often on the same technical track. 23 jumps per lap, 40’, 55’, 85’, 35’, etc.

Every time I rode my bike this year, I’d pay the price. My neck would hurt for days or a week afterward. Not a sharp pain, but a discomfort; like I had a ball in my throat. The whiplash from last year’s Baja 1000 race at mile 200 had my neck out to the left according to an x-ray taken ten days later. I had battled this injury all year. I had been to the chiropractor so many times and he did a great job. But still, it persisted. 

One day when I had not been riding for a month, and my neck seemed to be getting a bit better, I jumped on a used bulldozer I bought to see how it pushed. It was 15 minutes. That’s all. But that’s all it took. My neck…ughhh. That’s when it hit me. The turning! All the brush hogging; all the track grooming on the dozer…and the tractor with the box blade on the back – I was turning my neck like an owl to the right to look behind the machine. On days I wanted to go easy with the riding, I’d spend much more time grooming the track for the other guys. It was the grooming that was killing my neck much more than the riding.

Figuring this out was important. The race was coming around again. The biggest race of them all…

Go. And do it.

The death rate is hovering around 100%. I have decided I’m not going out sitting down, without a fight. This is one thing I have to do…

                                  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 The following multi-part story is true…

They didn’t want to tell me, but now that I knew, they were all looking at me. I felt like I was their hope to finish this thing. I had to finish it for him, for me, for us. I was Dad again. I was over halfway there. I felt good. Energized.There was nothing more to say. Go. Go and do it.

I turned into the cold night. Paved road. San Ignacio. The 20 miles before this little town was hell. I was glad to put it behind me. Two blurry blocks to a right turn. Things are lit up. Fans three deep at the curbs. Bright colors contrasting the night. Cheering. I am full of resolve and a dimension has just been added to my purpose. I fist pump the crowd to the left. I fist pump them to the right. One block and a left turn in front of the 230-year-old mission church. More cheering fans. 

I fist pump them back – they respond. Inside my helmet I think “I will do this. I can do this.” Suddenly the last masonry and stucco structure disappears. Any lights give way to the black desert. My eyes go from colored vision to black and white. The course pulls me out into oblivion again.

I didn’t know it, but I have just made a simple but critical mistake, the consequences of which I will begin to feel soon enough…

Authenticity

When we find out someone is one person in public but another in private, we are taken back by their insincerity.  We wonder what they are really saying or doing when we are not around, and we lose trust in them.

Don’t you appreciate people who really are who they show up as?

Are you the same in public and private?

We all like ladies and gentlemen

In his book “The Eight Pillars of Prosperity,” James Allen talks about sympathy for others and being kind. 

Working with, through and for others is what we have to do to succeed; and they don’t like to deal with harsh, impatient, intolerant people.

Ladies and gentlemen get ahead faster.

Stress + Rest = Growth

Physical or mental stress is good because it’s the stimulus for growth. Stretch, but not so much that we snap or injure ourselves. 

Then rest and recover, and that’s when we grow.

Stress, rest, repeat. Grow strong.

Live like life depends on it.

Because it does. What you do today will affect how things are tomorrow for you.  

The time to make your life better for today, was yesterday. The time to make your tomorrow better is right now.

What do you need to do today?

Your fingerprints

Each job you do is a self portrait. You leave your work behind for all to see or experience. 

No matter what you do, autograph your work with excellence. If you don’t, you’ll be trapped in a mediocre existence. If you do, good things will happen.

How are you going to do things today?

Habits make the man

Some people read – every day. Some people smoke – every day. Some people drink six cups of coffee – every day. Some people watch two hours of tv, workout, stop at McDonalds, run, work on their project, hangout someplace, or spend time on their obsession – every day.

The cumulative effect of these habits grows and makes you who you are – and who you aren’t.  

A habit is an action repeated often without thinking much about it. You should think a lot about it – and craft your habits carefully – because like it or not – they are crafting you.

What are your habits?