Iceman 2019.
The story this year was the mud.
The story every year is that I have a nemesis.
Hour 1
At 46 minutes, I was still upright, but as I approached another section of single-track hell, I moved aside to let riders pass. “Go,” I said, waving them on. I knew I would slow them down while I struggled through the thick mud ahead.
A guy behind me called out, “That was my best Iceman start ever!”
I went into polite chitchat mode, even in my agony: “Oh, have you raced this before?”
In the next moment, I screeched.
Jake had arrived.
Hour 2
The “nemesis” thing began close to a decade ago. The first year we raced the Iceman together, he beat me by 17 seconds. We were racehorses, neck and neck. A couple Black Beauties in spandex, as it were. And that battle, those 17 seconds, changed everything.
The war was on after that. Every year thereafter, we’d battled and we’d each “won” four times. So this year was crucial—it would be the tiebreaker.
Unfortunately, it was also the backbreaker known as Mudman 2019.
Much of the trail turned into black swaths of deep Michigan mud as an early November snowstorm melted away under thousands of bike tires. There was nothing I could do but stand up on my pedals for the worst parts and ride slowly, inching, controlling my bike with every (untrained) muscle in my body. I wasn’t fast, but I was upright. It was my only goal.
At least after Jake passed me, it was.
The Wait
About an hour in to the race, it happened. The entire operation shut down. The mud was so deep that it became unrideable and with snow and trees narrowing the trail on either side, there was nowhere to go. There were 1,900 riders ahead of me on the trail, and we came to a halt.
This may have been the most fun of the race.
People took off helmets and gloves. Got out phones. Turned on music, took videos. Shared snacks, met their neighbors. For 20 minutes, we literally stood in a line in the woods, waiting to walk our bikes down the muddy path until it spilled out on solid two-track again.
The Hill
Next, I approached a famous hill along the route: Make It Stick. There was a long-haired, bushy-tailed guy playing a full drum set at the top, with a cheering section offering Fireball and beer to the racers.
As I tackled the climb, I hit a mud hole that sucked me down. I literally PEDALED IN PLACE, my rear tire spinning, spitting mud. I felt like a circus clown. But I didn’t want to get off and walk. Instead, I continued to pedal for all to see, going nowhere.
Suddenly, I heard someone shout, “GET HER!” Two guys ran up behind me, grabbing my seat on either side of me, and pulled me up out of the hole— and pushed me up, up, up the hill.
I was saved!
My muddy soul was renewed, for a few pedal strokes, by their kind hearts (and their affection for Fireball).
However, when I made it to the top, Tim and Kendall stood waiting. They looked uncertain, worried. I was far, far behind my expected arrival time.
I stopped. I got off my bike.
“I’m done.”
Other cyclists spilled around me. Bikes broken, hearts broken, walking out to the nearest road.
Tim shook me a little by the shoulders, looked me in the eyes and said, with a laugh, that there was no way he was giving me a ride out.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Give me the keys.”
I had never felt like this. It was bad. I had no energy left, and sh!t, I was only 10 miles in with 20 miles to go!
Tim shuttled me back on my bike.
“You got this, honey!”
I was certain I didn’t have this. But I figured Jake felt this awful too. Maybe he would quit! Like any good friend, I started hoping for the worst.
Hour 3
Three hours in, and I was well into an abusive relationship with my bike. I spoke to no one. I hurt everywhere. I was walking when I had no choice. I was standing in mud when the line was backed up. I was wondering when the suffering would end. We all were. One section that would normally take 5 minutes, took 25. There were countless sections like that. At Williamsburg Road, 450 riders pulled out. Hundreds called it quits in other spots, hundreds more didn’t even start the race.
The race was no longer a timed event—it was a can-you-finish event.
The finish
It was in the last two miles, that I finally committed to that race. (It was also the point where there were no more side roads to cut out on.) An intensity (desperation) came over me as I imagined the humbling I was about to take on the last few hills. But I realized it was nothing to me then. My mindset had changed. I hadn’t died! I was going to finish!
Nearly four hours later, I got to the finish line. And there he stood: my nemesis. Waiting, with a full 14 minutes of rest under his belt.
But when we saw each other, it was like two survivors rising from the mud. We hugged, we drank, we (I) cried, we (he) celebrated. It had been the hardest race we’d ever done together. I bought a Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, as tradition goes, and presented it to Jake on bended knee.
Later, it was determined: The thought of the other one quitting… was what kept us both going.