Rss/XmlConverting the Skeptics
Last Thursday was the start of my nearly-annual "Fishing Trip." This, in a nutshell, is where my three best friends from high school (did you go to Redwood? me too!) and I get together for all sorts of manly activities.
Check that - we used to be manly. In fact, we actually used to fish on the Fishing Trip. But now we share feelings and marital advice, get our heartrate up with a few workouts, compliment each other on our physiques and cook gourmet meals.
Oh, we mountain bike and surf and drink acre-feet of beer, but basically, with turning 40 now in our rear view mirrors, we are pretty much large, smelly women.
I'll spare you the grotty details of the trip - other than to point out that Greg fell off the sofa WHILE LYING DOWN - which none of us had ever seen before.
What is most appropriate in this space is the little conspiracy we have going to get the four of us on one adventure racing team.
I was the early adopter. With my flimsy Hi-Tec shoes and garish Avocet watch, I showed up at the 1998 Fishing Trip a hardened adventure racer with exactly one sprint race to my credit.
Doug, to his credit, mocked me relentlessly. Calling me "Adventure Racing Boy," he would ask me to "shoot a bearing" to the barbeque. But I kept at it, and soon my teammate Austin Murphy and I were doing credibly at races like the Appalachian Extreme (click for Austin's great race report in Sports Illustrated and a fine photo of me about to throw up on his shoulder as we fought off hypothermia in a public restroom).
After some relentless wheedling, I finally got Kevin to join me in a 24-hour race. Unfortunately, the race I chose was the inaugural BAAR Brawl. I should have known better -- even though I created that race, we didn't even come close to finishing it.
But the following year, 2005, we did finish it, and won it to boot. This finally got Doug's competitive attention, and by February 2006, burdened by a challenging job and a burgeoning waistline, he wanted in. The two of us chose the 2006 Tahoe Big Blue 24 Hour for his cherry buster - another fine example of my less-than-sparkling judgement.
That race is the real deal: altitude, endless mountain bike climbing, paddling on the wind-swept Lake Tahoe. We didn't finish, but we did alright. More importantly, Doug was hooked. He had lost a ton of weight, got to display his huge biking power and was able to apply pressure to the final corner of our little foursome.
Greg, is an architect with a busy practice, a beautiful wife and child and is normally possessed of very good judgement, so he had never shown any interest in adventure racing. But after hearing all of our yammering about "pushing past your limits" and "eating Gu till you puke," he unaccountably dropped a bombshell.
We were on our first ride of the weekend - from my house in Fairfax out to our Stinson Beach rental cottage. We were pushing our bikes up Lagunitas/Rocksprings fire road (no shame in that, it's a bitch). Waiting for Doug, who had managed to snap a chain, Greg causally mentioned that he too would like to try this adventure racing thing.
Well, that's all we needed to hear. Another otherwise-sane, blissfully uninformed member about to enter our tribe.
Greg doesn't know about the pain yet. He hasn't reached that point where pain and suffering is just part of the deal and there is no end to it unless you finish. He doesn't know that the most monumental achievement in life is ahead of him, if he can just reach the finish line.
But he'll learn. Looks like we'll be doing the Tahoe Big Blue 12 Hour in September.
We are not bringing our fishing rods.
