LOTOJA - Ready To Talk About It Now

LOTOJA is a few months in the past now, almost three I guess. In a lot of ways it was a traumatic experience for me. Going into it I was not very motivated and almost didn't go. I was pretty sure I could finish, just wasn't sure I cared about doing so.

I'll spare a lot of the details. The short version is that I started from Logan, UT at 5:50am riding with a group of 6 guys and I finished my day at 8:20pm alone, 5km short of the finish line at Teton Village, WY. If my math is correct that's 14.5 hours. I had been fighting varying degrees of nausea for around 13 of those hours. I don't know that I can say any part of the ride was fun. I don't know why I kept going. I had three chances to bail early but kept going until there was no light left and I couldn't see the road in front of me. I know why I kept riding during the Crusher, I wanted to finish! But LOTOJA, I didn't care if I finished so WHY did I keep riding!? The question really bothered me for a couple months. I think I have some answers now and I'll go into that more at a later time.

The physical effects on me? Well, at some point two screws came out of my shoe cleat allowing my left food to move side to side on the pedal a lot more than it should. My left knee has been a trouble maker for several years and the who knows how many hours of weird movement aggravated it pretty bad. For a couple weeks walking was a bit painful and biking was a torture fest. Its all good now. My right hand went numb during the ride and stayed numb for a solid month, its mostly better now...my pinky still doesn't have much feeling.

14.5 hours on a bike is a long time. 204 miles is a long way to pedal in one day. It wasn't fun in any way shape or form. But I was still essentially able to finish. That makes me happy.