Finding Ultra (25 page)

“Right. Fantastic.” I stared off into the deserted inland. Nothing for miles.
This sucks
.

Close to forty-five minutes later, Rebecca and Molly finally arrived to find me in a semi-manic state and fearing for the collapse of the overall EPIC5 challenge not even 20 percent into its completion. Contacting Kauai Cycles—the island's sole bike shop—for help, the two women did their best to calm my nerves. Unfortunately, the shop was on the other side of the island and nobody seemed able to reach the mechanic.
The only mechanic
. I was losing hope. Realizing I could no longer sit around waiting for someone to solve my problem, I decided to soldier on, grinding it out alongside Johnny in the only gear I had—all the way to the northwestern reaches of the island, where the road turns to a fine sandy dirt at Polihale State Park. In the process, I “buried myself,” cycling parlance for overextending my effort. My legs now swelled with rivers of lactate that would seriously undermine my body's ability to rebound for tomorrow's test. I logged another twenty or so difficult miles in my hardest gear and was en route back to the Lihue Airport when Johnny and I met up with Jason and his small crew of local riders near Kekaha. Up ahead a steep ascent loomed, but I allowed myself a whisper of hope as I saw the crew van in the distance. I wasn't sure I could climb that hill in my fixed gear. We labored up the initial portion of the climb to a bluff above the ocean to greet our crew, who informed me that the bike mechanic was now en route. Nothing to do but sit tight, during which time I tried to eat but spent most of the wait anxiously pacing, repeatedly checking my watch against our impending 7:52
P.M
. deadline. Half an hour later, the mechanic finally arrived, only to inform me he had no real fix; my shifter was completely stripped and he had no replacement part on hand.

I walked away from the group to brood. If I dug deep, I could probably make it up that hill and through the day, but what about tomorrow?
Damn
.

“Rich, calm down. We'll figure it out. We always do.” Jason's words relaxed me; I realized that my competitive nature was getting the best of me, and that I didn't want to derail this for Jason. Knowing he was calm about it went a long way toward easing my nerves.

I returned to check on the progress, happily discovering that the mechanic had successfully jerry-rigged a temporary solution to the problem by installing an ill-fitting gear shifter from another bike model. It wasn't ideal, but provided it held up, it should get me through the day, and hopefully the week.

It was now about 5:30
P.M
. That left only a little more than two hours to cover the remaining thirty-five miles on the bike back to the airport, unload the van, pack our bags and bikes, and get checked in at the airport in time for our flight. It was time to put our collective heads down and focus.
Gotta make that flight. Get it done
.

It was dusk when Jason and I pulled into the airport parking lot to greet our two crew vehicles. We were elated that we'd just completed the first day of EPIC5. But there was absolutely no time to celebrate.
Fifteen minutes to takeoff
. We were faced with the task of unloading the gigantic load of belongings that had accumulated over the course of the day in the crew vehicles, packing it all up, breaking down our bikes into travel boxes, and getting everything through security in time to board. Meanwhile, Rebecca—the one person who had a grip on where everything was and where it should go—had already departed for Oahu hours earlier to secure our crew van there and get us checked into our hotel. But with the help of Molly and our local volunteers, we worked like a Red Bull-fueled Indy 500 pit crew, frantically jamming items into bags without regard to what should go where. Though we had 140.6 miles under our belts, Jason and I were denied the luxury of even sitting down. We furiously disassembled our bikes and anchored
the various parts in hard-case travel boxes before making a mad dash across the parking lot toward the terminal with as much gear as we could possibly haul.

Ten minutes to takeoff
.

Luckily, this was Kauai and not JFK, so there were no real lines to contend with. But with inter-island travel, you must carry even your checked bags through security and out onto the tarmac, a challenge almost as daunting as the day itself. Loaded down with hundreds of pounds of gear, including bike boxes, Jason and I bumbled through the terminal to security. We dared to breathe a sigh of relief. It looked like we were going to make it after all.

However, in our exhaustion, we overlooked one crucial fact. As we passed our gear through the metal detectors, the TSA officials took notice of the copious amounts of liquids we were attempting to “smuggle” on board the flight. All of our performance nutrition for the upcoming days.
Damn! No liquids on the plane! How could we forget?

Five minutes to takeoff
.

Security pulled us aside to interrogate us.
Why are you going to Oahu? What are these strange liquids?
They detained us for what seemed like an eternity as we watched them pour out hundreds of dollars of race nutrition—expensive items like FRS and CarboPro 1200 that we'd be hard-pressed to replace. Bad mistake.

Two minutes to takeoff
.

We were finally released by TSA, and Jason and I made a frantic sprint for our flight, our depleted bodies hauling our bikes and bags, straining through this final unofficial Day One challenge. With one minute to spare, we arrived at the gate just as the doors on our flight were closing. Finally seated, we burst out laughing, only then realizing that we were both still wearing our cycling kits, our stenchy spandex fouling the cabin. But we didn't care. Day One was in the books. We'd done it.

“That's why it's called a
challenge
, Roll-Dawg!”

Next up, Oahu.

A mere thirty odoriferous minutes later, Jason and I landed safely in Honolulu, fantasizing about the dinner we'd yet to eat, the warm shower that beckoned, and the hotel room bed. But not so fast.

Rebecca greeted us at the arrival terminal with our new crew van and bags of Thai takeout food. Normally, I'd have been pissed. Herself a health nut, Rebecca knew all too well how important good nutrition was to successfully completing this adventure. And this fare was garbage. But one look into her eyes and it was obvious she was overwhelmed, forced to handle the work of four people. And just as fatigued as we were. So I happily let it go, grateful for the calories as we collected our gear from the luggage carousel—with one glaring omission. My bike hadn't arrived. It seemed impossible that Jason's bike would make the flight but not mine, yet that's what happened.

Airline officials informed me that my bike somehow “missed” the flight and would “likely” arrive on a subsequent flight routed through a different island, sometime around midnight. Fearing I'd never see a bed that night, let alone my bike, I asked Rebecca to get us settled in our hotel rooms and return to the airport herself to retrieve my trusty steed.

I was never so happy to get out of my cycling attire and into a hot shower. It was now almost 11:00
P.M.
, with our 5:00
A.M
. alarm looming. So recovery luxuries like organic produce, ice baths, and massages were simply out of the question. I still needed more food, but the kind of food I really wanted—brown rice,
steamed vegetables, and hand-pressed juice—was an impossibility under these circumstances and at this late hour. Somewhere in the mountain of luggage there were stores of gluten-free granola, raw almonds, and dried fruit, but I was too depleted to root them out. Forced to make do with what was within arm's reach, foods that under normal circumstances I'd never eat, I inhaled as much of the remaining takeout as my stomach could handle—mostly third-rate noodles and overcooked vegetables soaked in corn oil and white rice. Technically vegan but not exactly healthy. And a far cry from the antioxidant-rich, plant-based-protein superfood Vitamix brews I'd come to rely on for proper recovery.

When I awoke the next morning, my fatigue was deeper than I'd expected or wanted it to be. Maybe I'd run that marathon too hard. Or pushed too aggressively on the bike.
Damn you, Johnny
, I thought. And the gluten-rich takeout from the night before hadn't helped. Then again, even an “easy” iron-distance triathlon is still 140.6 miles. Did I really expect that I'd feel good? But I had to check my brain at the door and focus on what lay ahead. First up, I had to reassemble my bike, which Rebecca had rescued last night, and which now sat unboxed and disassembled at the foot of my bed. Just then, I heard a knock.

“Big bro. We have a problem.” Jason looked grave.

Holding his bike frame up, Jason explained how, in the haste of the prior evening's bike disassembly, the lug nut that secured his bike's seat post to the frame had somehow been lost. It was one of those “minor” things that create “major” problems. Without this specific, tiny yet utterly crucial piece of gold-colored, triangular-shaped metal, the seat post wouldn't anchor to the frame, rendering the bike impossible to ride. We had to immediately find a replacement part at a local bike shop, rent a backup bike, or throw in the towel for the day. Obstacle management just became an advanced placement course. Then things got worse.

I returned to my room, lamenting how Jason could allow this to happen—granted, we were in a state of anxiety-fueled delirium when we were breaking down the bikes, but this was a rookie mistake! But as I began to piece my own bike together, I quickly realized that I had the same problem. It seemed that I, too, had managed to lose the same piece of equipment.
Who's the rookie now, smart guy!?

Jason and I were riding the same bike model—top-of-the-line S-Works Transition time-trial bikes, given to us by Specialized Bicycle Components, one of our key event sponsors. Like high-end race cars, these bikes are composed of a very specific array of modules and components, completely unique to this bike model and no other. That meant that jerry-rigging or swapping parts from another bike was a highly unlikely solution to our problem.

Left with no alternative, we headed across the street from the hotel to the protected lagoon at Ala Moana Beach Park, just west of famous Waikiki Beach, to begin our assault on the Ironman course originally conceived by Navy Commander John Collins back in 1978, before the race was moved to the Big Island in 1981.

It was a beautiful dawn, and despite my fatigue, I welcomed the warm, calm waters as the sun rose. I used the swim to shake off the anxiety of our mechanical setback, losing myself in the metronome of my stroke. I thought of it as an active meditation; I visualized success, balanced my emotional frame of mind, and made firm my resolve that no matter what followed, Jason and I would get through it together.

Meanwhile, our local crew chief for the day, accomplished ultra-runner Rick Vicek, helped Rebecca load up our vehicle with the day's supplies and began the task of locating the precious replacement bike parts needed.

While Jason completed the swim, I used my iPhone to send out a distress call on Twitter and Facebook, hoping that I could recruit
some assistance tracking down the parts. I also posted alerts on the EPIC5 website, which displayed progress updates from our crew, periodic video uploads from the course, and a GPS-enabled map that pinpointed our exact location and telemetry (such as average and current speed) in real time from microprocessor chips Jason and I kept attached to our bodies.

To my amazement, the response to my help requests was almost instantaneous. All across the world, people jumped into action, manning their computers, performing the search on our behalf. Before I could even blink, our “outsourced” viral volunteer staff had forwarded more than a few viable leads. I was beginning to understand some important facts. First, social media had the power to marshal the spirit of
ohana
beyond the shores of Hawaii. And second, our crew wasn't limited to feet on the ground. The support evaporated my fatigue and lifted my spirits. We'd yet to solve the problem. Yet right then and there, I knew for a fact that we would.

Luckily, we were on the metropolitan island of Oahu rather than remote Molokai. A nearby shop that retailed Specialized bikes didn't have the scarce parts available for sale, but they did have two Specialized Transition floor models on display. At first, they refused to strip these bikes of their seat-post clamps. But Jason wasn't the type of person who took no for an answer. He pulled the shop manager aside for a private negotiation—a chat that was part pleading, part charm, and part wheedle. And sure enough, minutes later he returned from the recesses of the shop's back office to announce his success: “Done.”

The bad news was that this detour had eaten up an unbelievable amount of time. While the mechanics worked on our bikes, Jason and I nervously checked our watches; it was nearing 11:00
A.M
. and we'd yet to really even begin the day's journey. At this rate, it was going to be a very, very long day.

But all we could do was accept the situation for what it was.
Let go
. We couldn't afford to expend energy on frustration or failed expectations. In truth, we were incredibly lucky to get this mechanical issue resolved at all. Had we been on any other island, we might have been facing 112 miles of cycling on loaned beach cruiser bikes! It was now 11:15, but we were finally suited up and ready to go.

Then it started to rain.

Jason met my growing concern with a smile, repeating his now favorite line. “Like I said, Roll-Dawg, that's why it's called a challenge! The EPIC5 Challenge!”

It took what seemed like forever to ride out of the Honolulu and Waikiki city limits, since we had to stop every half mile or so for a stoplight. But we eventually made it out of town and began heading north around the eastern edge of the island, facing strong headwinds on rolling climbs and a few sharp ascents. Chasing daylight, I once again fought the urge to ride too hard, keeping my energy levels in check.
Persistent conservation
. It was going to be a long day no matter what I did at this point.
Just sit back and enjoy the ride
.