I ran on Galbraith at least three or four days a week and saw mountain bikers on the trails probably half the time. Mountain bikers are funny because they seem to be much more interested in walking their bikes than actually riding them. Whenever there was anything even remotely resembling an incline, 90% of the bikers I saw would be sucking wind and slowly pushing their bike up the hill. Or they’d be pulled over on the side of the trail smoking pot. Now that a think about it, the two activities probably had something to do with each other. Occasionally I’d blow past a biker who was actually riding his bike, but they were few and far between, rarely did they even attempt to keep up.
Now I know running up hill is way easier than riding a bike up hill. It’s not even close. And while it’s easy for me to poke fun at the candy-ass stoner bikers, they were probably laughing at me too, “What the hell is that idiot trying so hard for? Does he think we give a shit if some scrawny weirdo in short shorts can get to the top of a hill before us?” Maybe they had a point, it does seem sort of ridiculous to care about beating someone when they’re not even aware that they’re in a race. It was more of a way to pass the time than anything else I guess. I never really considered myself to actually be in a race with any of these tool-bags. Until one Sunday...
This is the story of my battle with the mountain bikers.
The story takes place on some random Sunday in August 2006. I was 90 minutes or so into my long run and had just turned up one toward one of my favorite climbs on Galbraith. It was maybe a half-mile stretch of dirt road that get progressively steeper before finally leveling out. If I was feeling good, I’d like to push the pace a little on the climb and then relax and recover at the top before the final ascent to one of the best views on the mountain. This particular day was beautiful. The sun was shining and dozens of runners, bikers, and hikers were out on the trails. Right as I turned and began climbing, I passed a group of three bikers. At first I didn’t think anything of it, I passed packs of struggling mountain bikers daily when the weather was nice (they tended to stay in doors when it rained). But something was a little different about these guys. They looked like there were actually in decent shape and didn’t reek of marijuana. While I was still in ear-shot I heard them talking to each other and realized one of them was getting ready to throw down. It was all I could do to keep from laughing at the thought of a biker trying to beat me up a climb. Then, with a speed unheard of among two-wheeling wusses, one of the bikers shot out from the other two and closed the gap on me in seconds. As he passed me, he threw down the challenge, “Sorry, I can’t some runner beat me.”
Are you serious? This candy-ass mountain biker wants to throw down? And not only that, he’s cocky enough to apologize for winning before the race has even really started?
With that, it was on like Donkey Kong at Comic-Con. Before my brain had even fully processed the fact that I mountain biker had passed me, taunted me, and took off ahead of me, I was in a dead sprint. I tucked in on his wheel like I was Lance Armstrong covering a move in a the Tour de France and kept hammering. When you’re sprinting all out up a mountain, a few seconds feels like an eternity. And after an eternity or two, when it was still all I could do just to stay on the wheel this uppity biker who was almost certainly a ringer flown in from a recent training session at Alp d’Huez, I started to panic. What if I lost to a mountain biker? Even if this dude is a legitimate athlete, an uphill sprint on loose dirt and rocky terrain clearly favors a runner. This can’t happen. It just can’t.
We went around a small bend and the road got just a little bit steeper. I knew that if I was going to beat this guy, and not just sit on his ass and out kick him in the final few meters, but legitimately prove my dominance I had to go now. I took the turn wide and swung up next to him, putting everything I had into a surge that I hoped would break him.
It’s funny how important stupid little competitions like this can seem. When no one else in the world is even aware that some kind of metaphorical fight to the death is going down. And even if they knew about it, they wouldn’t care. The Guinness Book of World Records is a freaking anthology of people trying to be the best at stupid shit no one cares about. These things are pointless and meaningless, but when you’re in the midst of epic race that only you and three mountain bikers on the planet know about, it’s the most important thing in the world.
So I came out of that turn as if beating this dude would win me a trip to nationals. As if I’d trained my whole life just to crush mountain bikers on Galbraith. I gritted my teeth, leaned into the hill, and charged toward the finish line that I assumed was at the top of the hill. That’s another problem with spontaneous races on some random logging road between two strangers who’ve never spoken to each other... how do you know where the finish is?
Luckily my attack worked and the official (completely unofficial and meaningless) finish line didn’t matter. I took the lead and as I broke away I felt the biker let up, defeated. I maintained my rhythm through the crest of the hill just to insure that my superiority was unquestionable. It was important that I won with a knockout, no leaving it up to the judges for me.
I have to give the random biker dude credit though. That was one hell of a race up a random hill on some Sunday in July between two guys who didn’t know each other and would never see each other again.
Weekly mileage update:
Sunday: 5.29
Monday: 4.93
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: 4.1
Thursday: 4.1
Friday: 4.1
Saturday: 8.2
Total: 30.72
I’m now only 45.72 miles off paces and continuing to chip away at that number every week. 30 miles is feeling really comfortable so I’m hoping to bump up to 35 in the next couple weeks.
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