I am an athlete

The day after BC Bike Race 2015 ended, my 2 riding buddies and I were having brunch in Whistler. One of them, Sabrina, looked at me with a huge smile on her face and said, “So, we did BC Bike Race!”

Sporting an equally massive smile, I replied, “Yeah we did!”

Part of me still can’t believe the week has already come and gone, though the aches and pains in my body assure me it did, in fact, happen.

The 3 amigos of mountain biking – Sandra, me and Sabrina – after we’d finished Day 7 and collected our belt buckles.

My finisher’s shirt and belt buckle.

Three women with average fitness and a passion for mountain biking, we each rolled across the finish line to earn the coveted BC Bike Race buckle. Having that blue ribbon draped around my neck confirmed that whatever I did in the lead-up to the event, it was enough.

Those of you who have been reading along for the past 6 months know it was not always an easy journey. First, there was the hip flexor strain, then I fell and jammed my tailbone. Compounding that were the smaller injuries including rolling my ankle and mashing my left hand between a tree and my handle bars. At times it felt like maybe the universe was trying to tell me something. But surely by now the universe knows how stubborn I am.

I’m grateful that the list of injuries stopped when the race started. The only medical issues I had was a baboon butt from not enough chamois cream, one small blister on my left hand and a chain ring bite from lack of attention when putting my bike down at an aid station. Despite hot and dusty trail conditions that made traction challenging at times, I managed to keep the rubber side down throughout the race.

Some others weren’t so lucky. Each day, the medical tent had a few folks on intravenous drips to bring them back from dehydration. There was a queue each morning for people who needed injuries dressed or redressed.

On the more technical trails, I saw a number of riders with dirt- and blood-streaked faces, arms and legs. The excitement temporarily gone from their faces, their exhausted and pained facial expressions showed the tougher side of this race, the one that doesn’t often make it into the upbeat videos that capture each day. I had my share of these moments too.

For people like me, the battle is against the race course and perhaps ourselves. We have no hope of standing on the podium and we’re ok with that. We have jobs and families and simply getting to the start line is an achievement in itself.

We have contorted our lives around this event: found training time in the smallest of windows, spent too much money on bike repairs and massages before and during the race, been selflessly supported by family and friends, booked time off work a year in advance, and told other people we were doing the BC Bike Race at every opportunity (even when they had no idea what it is). The list goes on.

For the average rider, from the moment you lay down the thousands of dollars it takes to enter this crazy event, it has a constant presence in your life. And then it’s gone, in the past…unless you get caught up in the excitement when registration day rolls around again.

But it isn’t really gone. My house is now sprinkled with remembrances of a tough but spectacular week: my big and little red BCBR bags, hoodie, race plate, racer handbook and finisher’s belt buckle. My phone and computer are full of photos. And then there are the memories of all the people I met on the trail, in the dining hall, or around the Bear’s Den (the post-race chill-out spot). Mountain bikers are pretty fabulous people, you know.

This experience will stay with me for the rest of my life (or until I go senile). In a way, it has given me permission to say, “I am an athlete”. Not kind of an athlete, not basically an athlete. I am an ATHLETE, as is every other person who participated, even if they didn’t finish every day. The fact that we signed up for a 7-day mountain bike stage race, knowing our loved ones would give us the Dwayne Johnson eyebrow raise, means we are willing to physically push ourselves to the limit. We want to test our bodies and see what happens.

There are myriad reasons why some folks don’t finish all 7 days—a mechanical, a crash, not fast/experienced enough, poor weather/trail conditions and many more. None of these things diminish the fact that those people showed up and gave it their best.

In addition to being stoked that I conquered the course, I’m grateful I had the opportunity to do it. There are plenty of people out there who don’t have the money, time, physical ability or support to make it happen for themselves. An amazing experience like this, no matter how long or short, shouldn’t be taken for granted.

By the numbers

• Kilometres ridden: 323
• Amount of singletrack: 242.25 kms (75% of the route)
• Metres of vertical climbed: 9,815 (more than Everest!)
• Average speed: 9.3 km/h
• Time in the saddle: 35 hours, 44 minutes, 37 seconds (more than 16 hours longer than category winner Katerina Nash. She’s crazy fast!)
• Finishing place: 22nd category / 317th overall
• Number of racers: 600
• Number of finishers: 531
• Fun had: incalculable

My results by the day. Some of those were looooong days.