Suffer like G did

I knew there would be suffering involved with the GDR, but I got thrown a curveball and the suffering began before the ride even started.

I went for a ride this morning and came back a walking train wreck. I turned around after climbing a short hill at 40% effort and having my body compeltely reject the effort. This is not good. I also stepped on a cholla last night, making even walking painful and it’s likely to only get worse. As I rode back through the city streets of Tucson I was having trouble focusing my eyes and even looking behind my shoulder seemed like too much of an effort. I was in riding in survival mode, completely out of myself, after 45 minutes on the bike. Then my nose started bleeding, all over the place, for no apparent reason.

I’ve had a mild stomach bug mixed with major fatigue for the last week and a half. Each day I have seen improvement, but it has been slight, and I am running out of time. I started preparing myself for the fact that I might not be able to start the race days ago, but it will still be a major disappointment.

I have not given up yet. In fact, I remain positive despite all the setbacks. But the reality is that I’ve got 2 days to make a rapid recovery, otherwise I can’t board the plane to Montana. The way this illness has been going, it seems unlikely that I’ll start the race. But I still have hope. Hope is, afterall, unreasonable. And this is about as unreasonable as it gets.

My bike and gear are more or less ready, but I haven’t even had the energy to fine tune (much less test ride) my final adjustments and tweaks. I’m not as confident as I’d like to be, but I get can over it.

There is a backup plan. Wait until my body decides it’s ready to ride, then set off later than everyone else and ride the opposite direction. I’ll ride alone 100% of the time, but will at least run into everyone at some point. I’d prefer to ride it backwards anyway. But without other people around to challenge me, I’ll have to dig deeper for motivation. As if I didn’t need to dig deep already.

Besides it’s going to be rainy and cold for the start of the race. I won’t miss that, but rainy and cold are given on the GDR, so it doesn’t make me feel much better.

We’ll see how it goes in the next two days.