Epilogue

Unlike Relays from years past we arrive at the finish line in time to go shower up before the awards ceremony.  No we won't be making any appearances on the podium but we have a history of great performances in the post-race raffle.  One year I won a T-shirt and a bike based baby carrier that allows you to use your child (along with your helmet) to prevent head injuries from front end collisions on a bike.  Too bad Jennifer and I are out of the baby-business. Maybe use it on the grandkids? 

The I-bert bike carrier:
Really questionable technology
or idea whose time has come? 

Another year I got bibs and two free entries into the Tour de St George.  Kim, in fact, is wearing a pair of shorts that Thad won at last year's raffle( the raffle doesn't know your gender or size, only that you're a winner), so given our history we want to be present.  Also we would like to know how the speedy teams, the riders we want to train ourselves into being and whose finish times we aspire to match, finished.  Unfortunately our best efforts on the road allow only for showering, not for napping.  Probably a good thing, at this point if we actually allow ourselves to slip into R.E.M. sleep we probably won't wake up until Sunday evening.  

  

Case in point, the winners of the Co-ed competitive category (team SBR-WBR aka Fat Cyclist) slept through the awards ceremony.  So we arrive at the park scrubbed but still sleepy and mill around with the other dazed riders and snack on the wraps and cupcakes that Rockwell has provided.  Jenn can't eat any of it, so instead she drapes herself on me, literally.  I feel like I'm wearing her as a mink stole.  She hasn't been this comfortable with public displays of physical contact since we were engaged and for briefest of moments I tell myself "she's seen my prowess on the bike and now can't get enough of me" until I realize that she has actually lost the ability to support her own weight.  If this post-race malaise were a medical condition I would call it 'Relay Rickets'.  It's fatigue on an elemental level, where your bones go bendy, but not at the joints.  I'm reminded of a science experiment I did in third grade that involved a chicken bone left in vinegar for three weeks.  The acid leached the calcium out of the bone giving it a rubber band-like consistency.  That is Jenn (and Thad) right now, they are Cyclists as rendered by Salvador Dali, melting into the St George Sunset.

Photo Bomb courtesy of Cort's wife.  Rockwell Relay staff have been awake
for the same amount of time the riders have, driving the route instead of biking it.
They are undoubtedly tired too, but caffeine can still have this effect on
them.  We, on the other hand, are past that point.

As predicted, we clean house in the door-prize portion of this event.  Let's call it leg thirteen of the race and we own it.  Kim gets a $200 gift certificate from Hyper Threads (all four of those teams, wearing their own apparel of course, finished in less than 28 hours) which should make Kim hyper-fast when she's wearing their kit.  Thad scores some blue tooth based ear buds for riding, I won an equipment bag and we all scored Gnarly* energy supplements and Gnarly* protein powders.  Not a bad haul at all.

*not an adjective but the product name.  Which, yeah gnarly is not a word I associate with something I put in my mouth, so probably a pass.

Sure the riders who finished fastest got a trophy shaped like a sprocket,
but really who are the real winners here?

The awards ceremony gives you a chance to track down riders you met and with whom you became (literally) fast friends as they shared in your season of suffering out on the road. Jenn spots the rider she dubbed 'the Green Machine' who is actually 50% of team Broken Spoke Bikes a pair of cyclists that split those 525 miles and 25 thousand feet of climb two ways.  I'm beyond impressed as I recall the look on Kim's face as she arrived in Hanksville, how broken I felt when I crawled onto the back seat of the truck in Torrey, how exhausted and relieved Thad looked when we came back to him with one last bottle.  How spent he and each of us looked and felt when our three shifts in the saddle finally came to an end.  I double all that 

The spokes may be broken but they are not.

suffering in my mind and go to shake their hands, slap them on the back and give them their well earned propers.  What they have accomplished is a first for the Relay.  It will likely inspire others to make the attempt, just as likely those individuals will be first-timer Rockwellers because I'm having a hard time believing that a rider knowing what's out there would come away thinking "that was great, but do you know what would be even better...?" Then again, these are avid cyclists and endurance athletes we are talking about, crazy feats of strength and suffering are kind of their thing, so maybe look for a new competitive category in 2016?  Just don't look for my name on that list, next year or any year. 

Teams, those that were slower than us (and that percentage went up quite a bit this year) continue to roll in as the awards ceremony progresses.  These teams (and At Dawn We Ride--At Sunset We Finish is among them) have been going at it for almost thirty six hours. I feel their pain, because I have been there, multiple times.  When I hear them call out At Dawn's' team name I go over to talk with them because I know they are first timers and I also know something of what they have experienced over the last day and a half and I'm curious what their opinions and thoughts are about the last thirty six hours of their life.  I ask what they think and would they do it again?  Rider #4, the one still straddling his bike and dripping sweat gives me the 'too soon, way too soon' look that I anticipated, two of the other four give me a frightened look, like I just threatened them as opposed to making a friendly inquiry but the fourth rider gives it some thought and then nods his head, slowly at first and then more emphatically and says "Yeah, yeah I'd do it again, but only with these guys." Pretty soon all four heads (including the one dripping sweat from under his helmet) are nodding in agreement and there is a chorus of "yep, but only with these guys".  Score one more Rockwell Relay team bond forged in the furnace of Utah's southern desert.  One can only guess at how much and how closely they trained prior to the event, but they've shared six months worth of cycling memories compressed into two days time.  And though it hardly compares to actual combat they've fought together in the proverbial trenches and have now probably seen each other at their best and worst, at their extremes of stress and fatigue, physical as well as psychological. It's an experience that will not soon be forgotten.  I'll be surprised if we don't see another At Dawn We Ride team in 2016, albeit a wiser, more seasoned, more prepared and yes faster version of the team that joined the Rockwell graduating class of 2015.

The award ceremony over, we head out for a well earned victory meal and like a hungry pride of lions we are interested in one thing and one thing only: meat.  We've given our muscles about eight hours worth of serious pounding and now our body craves protein above all else.  Kim suggests ribs and maybe steak.  Perfect.  We drive to the sports grille she recommended and as we are walking across the parking lot, Jenn, with the same slightly confused look on her face common to nearly every Rockwell participant we've seen in the last two hours, says "I'm freaking out, we're in St George, but I don't know how we got here. I mean... I... Know how I usually get here... but... how did we get here?"  The sotto voce quandary is just the last in a series of surreal moments that began about the time the sun dropped behind the horizon Friday night.  Each one of us hears what she is saying, all the words make sense but none of us can formulate a plausible answer, or if we can it will take too much effort.  In the restaurant we are handed menus that appear to be written in Hebrew and for some reason our server will only speak to us in Portuguese.  We are four well-educated, literate adults and between us we can't remember how to order food in a restaurant. Fortunately the encrypted menu has pictures and the pictures are of meat. Stacks and stacks of meat.  We point to a few, and the Portuguese waitress brings us food, which we consume, greedily and the world slowly begins to make sense again.  The rest of the evening passes in the same dream-like fog to which Jenn gave voice with her existential  'where am I and how did I get here' soliloquy.  At some point we must have gone to Nielsen's frozen custard and purchased two pint sized and one quart sized containers of custard, the flavours of which, how, when, and by whom they were consumed is still a matter of debate as the only evidence that it happened at all were the empties we found the next morning. 

Collectively we wake from our coma sometime mid-morning and head to the traditional Sunday brunch spot that Thad (a frequent visitor to SG) introduced us to several Relays ago.  It looks like a dive from the outside and like the Patio in Blanding, the cover of the book is a pretty good indicator of what you will see inside as well, but man the food is great.  If you're looking for a delicious omelette (no waiting) I don't know why you would go anywhere else. With ten straight hours of sleep under our belts we're able to semi-lucidly evaluate our performance and crunch the numbers.  The results are mixed.  On the one hand we logged the best finish time ever in five tries and not by just a few minutes either.  On the other hand, of the eight co-ed competitive teams that registered we finished sixth and only seven competitive co-ed teams actually posted an official time.  So kind of a feather in the cap/slap in the face sort of scenario.  Regardless of how we finished in the pecking order, we had a great time. I think Thad and I both were wondering what to expect.  The idea of riding it with our spouses was a bit of a lark, one I think we didn't anticipate actually happening. Rockwell Relay is generally a four day bro-out with a bike race as a backdrop (and our previous results have reflected that) but after last year's debacle we decided we'd had enough of that.  Riding with our wives would assure us of a team that would come fully prepared to ride but there was no guarantee that it would be entertaining or even the least bit fun.  We assumed it would but (as earlier and frequently stated) lots of things can happen in 500 miles of constant riding and many of them can be bad.  Bad with buddies you can leave on the road and go back to your life when it's done.  Bad with your wife goes home with you, sleeps next to you and is angry at you on the couch and at the dinner table.  The flip side to that is if it turns out well (which it did, and then some) it's about as good as it can get.  What we ended up experiencing was the ideal:  near perfect riding conditions, an unbelievably enjoyable ride with a team that worked well together, supported each other in suffering and laughed, lots (and lots and lots).  If there was one missing piece it was the fact that we didn't compete.  With the exception of one crew, every other similarly staffed team was done racing for more than an hour by the time we crossed the finish line.  Even over omelettes, without all the results available it was evident that there was room for improvement, things that could be done better, more efficient training, different leg assignments that might better match team member's strengths, more regimented nutrition, more focused workouts all with the aim of improving our performance.  But Thad and I are both still feeling a bit cagey, we've done this before and we know better than to make 'we'll get 'em next year' pledges while still firmly in the grips of the Relay hangover.  Better to reminisce about the ride, relive the high points, lament the missed opportunities and (before split times are posted and collated) congratulate ourselves on our strength in the saddle.  

It's somewhere in the midst of this discussion that Jenn throws out "You know, if you ever want to get on the podium you're going to need us."  Followed by a slightly uncomfortable silence.  It's likely a true statement.  As a men's competitive team we have never been closer than 8 hours from the eventual top contenders, as a co-ed crew we are less than two hours away, that would mean shaving 10-15 minutes per leg which seems imminently doable.  I can almost hear Thad mulling it over.  He's far from committing to anything but at the end of the day he's a competitor and a numbers guy and these numbers intrigue him. Whether or not Jenn knows this or intended to do so she has planted a seed in the most fertile part of Thad's race focused mind, the part that tracks watts and functional thresholds the way investment bankers track bond prices and prime interest rates.

Confusing pop art or cautionary tale?

It's about this time that I excuse myself to use the men's room and I reacquaint myself with Pugilistic Utah In a Santa Hat (oil on canvas)  I forget about this painting every year till we return to Jazzy's Java and Juice (and Rock and Roll Diner) and every year it troubles me because, what does it mean and perhaps more to the point is it possible I am just imagining it (it's so bizarre)?  Is it a visual hallucination brought on by Relay stress, like the Zombie-walkers on Boulder Mountain which were actually observed by dozens of race participants and quite real, the only question being why were they there? Similarly, why Angry-Fightin' (but still festive) Utah in the Jazzy Java water closet?  In light of the conversation I left at the table I see it in an entirely different context.   Granted, the only context I previously attributed to it was 'that's gotta be the best white elephant gift ever' but now it seems to carry a deeper meaning and message. If in a year I want to be back here completely satisfied with my Rockwell experience on every level (including competing for a podium spot) it's going to be a fight.  No hibernating for the winter.  Come the Holidays I'm going to have to pass on the egg nog, say 'no thanks' to the second helping of Christmas ham and when I do indulge in the season's culinary traditions I'm going to have to match that indulgence with an equal portion of firepower on the trainer and in the gym.  The Relay Race that bisects the state every June is a brawl, better put on your gloves and your game face and get to work, starting now.  

I return to the table to find Thad silent as sphinx but Kim and Jenn are already planning next year's race, critiquing their individual performances, mentally trimming their weight, increasing their leg and core strength, improving riding techniques, eating like an athlete, and plotting training regimens.  That talk continued as relaxed our weary muscles in the hot tub, while we packed for home and pretty much the entire drive north.  They may have only planned on nibbling at the Rockwell bait but ended getting deeply hooked.  They want more. I suppose neither Thad or myself should be surprised.  Whether or not there is a reprise of our performance remains to be seen.  One thing's for certain, no matter what happens:  The Honeymoon's Over*.

*next up: Tour of Utah Ultimate Challenge.  Saturday, August 8th.