AIDS/LIFECYCLE 2005
Day 2: Aptos->King City (100 miles)
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Day 2 begins early. 12:55 AM, to be exact. That's when someone's alarm goes off. Problem is, it was so close to our tent that, tired and with industrial strength earplugs, maybe it was me. I always fear new technology, and I had checked my new watch, but it was set to a welcoming and comfy hour of 5:30. Was there anything in my bag that could have done it? Not my iPod, and I didn't own anything else electronic. I think I put my bag to my ear, and concluded it was our tent mates, who were either too asleep or not there to turn it off. Some grumbling, and then back to sleep.
Until 2:00 AM, when I hear a bunch of cheery voices. And the sound of rain. Again it takes a minute to get my bearings. Apparently the sprinklers have gone on. One hits the side of our tent. Others are not so fortunate. Tents are soaked, everything left outside is soaked, and it's 45 degrees outside. A sprinkler has apparently erupted beneath one tent, and that tent has been lifted up, Dorothy-style-we're not sure where it landed. Amazingly, people are laughing, joking, even as they are frantically moving their tents to dry havens. "Do I have to do anything?" I ask. "I don't think so," replies C-. But I can't go back to sleep. Not immediately. I have to pee. I slip on my Tevas, and, once I have stumbled outside my tent, I see something that I will see each night, that I am simply, at first, part of, and only later can I describe.
I am one of an army of zombies, stumbling mindlessly towards the portapotties. I make sure not to slam the hinged door, and then I stumble back to sleep. The sprinklers are off.
The normal day begins at 5:30. I am shocked by how many people are ahead of me in their packing, eating, tent clearing. The route opens, as always, at 6:30, and closes at 7pm, and we're doing a century today. That's 8 miles an hour, practically nothing compared to my 17+ from yesterday, I should have plenty of time, but since I've never done a century, and I just did 88 miles, I'm not sure what my body will feel like. I have to say, I feel good, and I head off to breakfast. And I eat and eat and eat. I eat a lot, and I continued to eat more than I ever have through the week. When biking at high heart rates, you drop upwards of 1000 calories an hour, which, when compared with your 2000 recommended daily calories, well, you get the idea. A lot of food.
I quickly dropped the idea of doing yoga each morning. Sure, the teacher looked good on the tennis court, a cute, slender man with dreads and a green visor, very upbeat, but it was 6 AM! There was also a stretching class-dance aerobics each morning, but I was more inclined to get out the door. Although you don't have to leave until 8:30, there is a sweep van that will pick you up if you are too tired, injured, or lagging too far behind. So no matter how fast you are, if you start late and blow a tire that doesn't patch easily, well, you're done for the day.
So I eschewed yoga and got on the road. Out of Aptos. The day went smoothly, although again it was a bit too cold for me—I had left all my warm weather clothes in Amsterdam! We pulled off the coast and went inland. For the first time, we were in agriculture. Lettuce, broccoli, strawberries. The strange roadkill of lettuce balls. The strangeness of migrant labor standing, bending, picking; their worlds far from ours. Big trucks on the road. But the road soon quieted; it was at this time that I begin to hang more with the posse. I had imagined that the posse would ride together, but it was organized more loosely. A difference of .1 mile in your average pace makes a half mile difference over a century, and it's actually difficult to slow your pace for any length of time. I began to get the loose, ride at your own pace, meet up at a rest stop, or not. I started to ride with DN- and G-, who were the strongest of the group. We talked shop about bikes (Lemond, Tommaso), but mostly it was enough to know I could keep pace with them.
Pac Man turns twenty-five today.
Sadly, I skipped the artichoke hut.
The scenery, too, started to change. It was drier, big hints of brush. But, if truth be told, the scenery was gorgeous most of the time, and, simultaneously, I didn't consciously stop to notice it. With the paying attention to other riders and the going pretty fast, it was enough to feel the wind and the sun, the hills rising and falling, the quiet of the road. Biking, for me, is not a time when I think a lot. To the contrary. My mind goes blank. It is one of my refuges, one of the closest things I know to perfect presence. It's when I recover from thought, where I'm not doing much more than a sponge. I take in what's around me. So while the ride lacked, for me, Kodak moments (with exceptions), that wasn't a negative. It was an immense period of quiet, regrowth-550 miles of being in my environment. The legs are spinning, the mind is not.
It was, I believe, on one of those quiet roads that, in front of a background of a green field, standing in front of a green Volkswagen van, stood a life sized Kermit the Frog.
And again tail winds, and again, good speed, and the century, my first century, ended quickly, in less than 6 hours. I still feel good, although I heard grumblings about sore IT bands, and I was a bit sore, but everyone continued to be in a good mood.
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