Don't quit.

Some times things just don't go as planned. Of course I know that because I certainly didn't plan crashing on the mountain bike last Monday. Saturday (yesterday) was race day. My husband's advice was to "go fast but slow". He then changed that to "fast but cautious". I went to my exchange area rather early because I just get nervous hanging around the starting line. I knew our fjeld runner (2 mile run) wouldn't be fast but I went early anyway. This gal deserves tremendous praise (the fjeld runner, not me). She is overweight and she has only been running for 2 months (lost 5 pounds doing it) but wanted to participate. Bless her heart. That run was more difficult than she thought. It is on rough, uneven ground, a cross-country type of course...but not as nice. To make a long story at least a smidgy shorter, my fjeld runner did come in last and a full 15 minutes after the second to last person. You know when you run, 15 minutes is a lot but she didn't quit. We did have to remind her that many people didn't even think about signing up for this event and she finished her part!

Now starting out 15 minutes after everyone else was long gone was a bit intimidating so I just had to tell myself "just me and the clock". As soon as I was off road and hitting the hill, I had troubles. Nothing dramatic, just not performing as I should. One of those "swearing under your breath" moments (but I didn't really swear Mom, really). Things just seemed to get worse from there. No one was around. People are supposed to be posted along the trail periodically. I saw one volunteer at the start of the hill. I finally get to the bridge where I ended up after my crash. As I get close I ask the guy in the bright orange vest which way to go. He points and says up the hill. I question him, "Up the hill?"

"Yes," he says, so up the hill I go. After I'm nearly to the top of the hill, I figure out that there was no way this was right. I'm supposed to ride down this hill. After talking to "flat tire guy" (he was coming down the hill), I turn around and ride all of the way back and now I'm not happy. Actually, before I got back to the bridge, I came across a sheriff on a motorcycle. He was checking for anyone with a problem. He had no clue where I was supposed to go either of course. I end up back at the bridge asking orange vest guy to call someone and the guy he calls (who is on top of the hill) doesn't know either. Finally I say, "Last year I went East along the canal and up the fence line." Since no one knows, they advise I go that way. Now I'm mad. I start 15 minutes later than the last person and now I'm an additional 25 minutes off track because that dude didn't know the course and misdirected me. Why did I listen to him? Grrrr! Then to top it all off, there were several places the path split and no marker, no volunteer to direct me, just me and my memory. At this point I'm mad enough that I think about quitting. I know a way back to the point where I'm supposed to end and I seriously think about quitting. Then I think of "L", my fjeld runner. She finished. It was hard for her and she finished. My new mantra became "My team will finish!" I was going to do it for "L" if for no other reason. Then I remembered my friend, our team captain, said this was supposed to be fun. I wasn't exactly having fun but I shouldn't quit because of all of the problems. I was going to finish and you couldn't pay me to quit (well, maybe if the price was right). I did eventually finish. The water station was long gone. I supposed they packed it up long ago. Sheesh.

At this point the most interesting thing was the reaction of my friend who had come to wait for me and "L", my fjeld runner who drove The Beast (aka my dh's truck) there. Apparently they were a bit frantic because earlier someone had rode through on their bike saying they thought someone had wrecked or was throwing up because they heard moaning. This was reported and no one bothered to check it out. Nice. So for quite some time, my dear friends were waiting, worried that I had crashed and burned again. Nice. Finally they asked the official that was there, if he could get someone to check on me. I'm sure they had visions of me laying in the middle of a pile of tumbleweeds, moaning in pain, just waiting for help. I'm wondering if that sheriff (who was in a car) that passed me was the one sent to check out the possible crash victim. I'm not sure what good he would do once he got to the trail. It's not exactly a place a car could go.

When I get back to the main race area, I find out several mountain bikers had complained about problems on the trail. Still, I felt it was my duty to let the race director know how I felt. Don't get any bad ideas, I did it nicely. Here's the thing...some woman that lives up among the hills where the course was, saw all of those nice markers with the arrows on which way to go and she took them away. Yeh, you read that right. She thought someone was having a kegger and all of the markers were pointing the way so she got rid of them. Okay, this is the 24th year of this particular race. As my sister said, "What, was she from Pluto or something?" I don't know if she moved here this past year or if she is just plain stupid but I do know she cause a lot of people to be swearing that day (not me though Mom). I still wonder where the volunteers were though. They could have come in handy in this situation.

Okay, if you are nice enough to have read this far, you get "the kicker". After all of this, our team still came in second place. Of course the only person around to get the medals was our team captain. I had just left the award area because I figured Edmund needed to get home for a nap. We were tired and sunburned (apparently the sun screen only works if you get it out of the bottle and on to your skin). I certainly knew we didn't place after that fiasco. What I didn't count on was...

1. ALL of the mountain bikers had a terrible time. As a matter of fact, some did quit.
2. Our road cyclist did awesome and our final runner did awesome. (Our inline skater may have as well, I never did find out)

Now, what would have happened if I had quit? We would have been disqualified. No medals. "L"'s painful run would have been in vain. That's a long story just to tell you that you should never quit. But there it is. Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the lunatic who was attempting to evade the law as we were driving back to the main race area. It was an interesting day after all.