Burn 24 Hour Race

12 hours of individual riding, 104 miles, 18 Power bars, 18 bottles of water, 12 servings of GU....0 BURN Energy Drinks. This weekend, Galen King and I completed the Burn Energy Drink 24 hour mountain bike race. It goes down as the hardest thing I have ever done athletically. I think back to 2 AM on Sunday morning when I was half-awake, shivering, wondering if I could force myself to the Start/Finish Line to take the baton from Galen for laps 7&8. I finally got moving, warmed up and eventually completed 14 7.5 mile loops.
The atmosphere was great, the people were all very helpful and everyone there shared a common bond. On the trail people were courteous and occasionally they were willing to talk to a blabbermouth like me. I had some great conversations with people on the trail, and it really helped take away the pains of climbing up Dark Mountain again and again and again. The race experience really solidified not only my love for the sport of mtn biking, but also for the culture that surrounds it. From the style to the sportsmanship, from the common interests and willingness to compete against yourself and others, I loved it all. During the race, each person was pushing themselves to compete against what their bodies thought they could do, as well as against the next person.
Galen and I came in 5th place out of the 2-person teams and 46th out of 115 overall, but we came there to "just finish" and just finishing was the best prize at the end of the day. I will always be able to look back to that time when I was alone, at night, climbing up the same damn hill for the 8th time that day. I didn't think that I could make it, so that was when I just had to stop thinking. I still hate going up hills on bikes and I don't like being alone in the dark, but I have stretched the boundaries of how much I know about myself. I am ready to continue that trend. Challenging myself hopefully won't have to come in the form of athletic torture, but I should always try to live in a way that does so. Whether it is with diet, speech, writing, reading, traveling. The more one is challenged, the more they find out about themselves.