Every Great Adventure Begins Like This:
With My Great Adventure Glasses. Nothing says it better than the glasses I won last summer at the Terra Firma Racing San Juan Hut to Hut Race. When the glasses come out, that’s when you know it’s going to be good,
real good.
It says one thing: ROAD TRIP!!
This time down to Dallas for the Frozen Endurance Series, DORBA race, on my old home course, at Northshore Trail. Those are some nice trails, and with the weather forecast at 68 degrees, it’s going to be heaven.
Wednesday night the cough came. This didn’t really have me worried, and I sure wasn’t going to talk about it, but I was fried, and I knew that I would just be riding to ride, seeing how I would do over 6 hours without throwing myself into bronchitis or pneumonia. Well, the threat isn’t over yet, but the weekend’s turn of events has me, more than ever, believing in the energy that provides for all things.
Yea, I’m sick, but this weekend is not about a great race performance, albeit, of course I wanted to do as well as possible. This weekend is more about dirt, warm weather, and great friends, and catching up with clients, those fall under great friends, too.
I make it all the way to Oklahoma City in one sitting. That was the plan. That way, when I woke up Friday morning, I could head straight to the trail to catch up with a client, and a good friend to get a preview of the trail. It’s been 2-3 years since I had ridden the trail, so I wanted to get an idea of what would be run. At this point, Ross, was the only one who knew about the cough from hell, and I knew that he too, was coming down with a bug. Our secret for now.
The trail was in great shape, and no matter what, tomorrow is going to be a great day!
I have all day to burn, and see people. And Chilax. Absolutely perfect.
I pushed my pre ride up earlier, being the Tundra in MN right now, I really didn’t feel like I had the fitness to be able to pull off a 2-3:00 pre ride, and then, turn around for a 6 hour race with such little recovery.
But I was happy to stick around at the trail and see my good friend Kat the owner of Terra Firma Racing and meet a new friend, as well, as give an old one a big hug.
Kat is pictured here in her totally retro Zoefitness kit as well as the Great Adventure Glasses.
What a great group.
They were looking really fast, and knowing the 3 of them, they cranked through a loop.
And an absolutely perfect day.
After meeting up with everyone at the trail I was off to Mad Duck Cyclery, Zoefitness’ sponsor bike shop. They’re the greatest shop in DFW. Very knowledgeable people, with a great selection of bikes. They have some of the best wrenches around.
Chef Connie Bakes met me at the Bike Shop, we got Batman all cleaned up and ready to race.
The great experiment is, how does Stans hold up in the garage with negative 40 degree temps?
As reported back to me, it was non-existent in the tires.
Chef Connie and I headed over the hotel so I could get some dinner, and lay around for the remainder of the night.
The night’s rest was less than perfect. I got woken up 6 times by drunk people, I think, it was the same girl each time, and slamming of doors. That is one thing that drives me crazy, is why you would assume everyone in the hotel is on the same schedule you are. Some of us have to get up at 545 am to race bikes for 6 hours. I think, I yelled, “shut the f’up a few times” I am never a happy camper when woken up.
6:50 and it’s time to head to the car.
Valet reports back to me, “There’s something wrong with your car, it won’t start. I can’t even get the key out of it.”
This is where the story really gets good.
Valet, the concierge, and some other random guy that worked there tried to get my car jumped, nothing. I had left my cooler plugged in, it’s supposed to turn off, and the car is supposed to turn off too. I was amazed, and just kind of laughed it off. What else could I do. I was sick, and someone was playing with me. So I called AAA. I have been a member with AAA for close to 30 years. Every year renewing my membership, not having to use it for road side assistance. We mailed the payment the week before the incident, but they had no record of the payment. They had canceled my membership.
This is what upset me about the whole ordeal.
This is part of what’s wrong with our society in this day in age. Things just get canceled, you start getting phone calls, if one payment is late. Companies no longer look at loyalty. Canceled, just canceled.
Facebook saved my ass. I posted, while I was sitting there on the phone with AAA that ‘my car was dead’.
Next thing I knew I got a PM from my good friend, Luke.
He’s on his way with a battery and jumper cables.
In the interim, I had been perusing my manual, the battery is not under the hood, and in the event we need to change it, we better know where to find it; I noticed that the directions to jump starting it were very detailed, and step by step, in other words, not your typical jump.
Upon arrival we followed the steps to hooking up the cables, and upon starting Luke’s car; ding, ding, ding, the car was getting charge.
It took about 5 minutes to get it charged enough to get it started.
And we’re off to the race.
We arrived on-site while they were lining up, at 9:00.
I began getting ready, I knew it would be 10 before I was trail ready, but I was going to try to do it faster.
My race started at 9:37 on my watch, and I was just cruising in the Z1-Z2 pace that had been established by my cough from hell. I don’t care though, it’s going to be 70 degrees, and I am riding my bike on the dirt.
11:15 the race was stopped, I was near completion of my 2nd lap.
There’s a fire, with no details.
About an hour passes and we are finally directed back to the transition area.
Not quite an hour passes and the race is canceled.
I’m not upset about it, it’s what I call at Zoefitness, “mandatory time off”.
There’s nothing you can do about, but roll with it.
It really worked out great for me.
I was interviewed by WFAA, the local news channel, in my Zoefitness kit, able to represent me and our sponsors more than by just finishing a race and doing well.
It was great that my 30 hour drive was rewarded with 3 hours of total dirt time and this awesome interview.
Everyone was OK, there was the broken ankle, which really turned out to be a compound fracture of the lower leg, that’s the guy who saved many people and possibly houses and a broken collar bone. I hope he understands how is misfortune, as it seemed, was really a bigger part in the whole picture.
We were forced to hang out at the race venue because the fire trucks were blocking the road for departure, and I had really good visits with clients and friends a like.
I got to leave a few hours early to start the drive back, which made it possible for me to get half way home.
It wasn’t exactly how I had planned it;
clearly,
there was another plan,
and it was my job to be flexible and receive it.
I posted a few videos to my zoefitness you tube channel to help you with your running, you may want to check it out!
Thanks for checking in, and here’s to all of your Adventures being good ones until next time!
-Coach Zoe