Arkansaw High Country Race Day 10.5 / Eureka Springs to Fayetteville / Done!

 

Leaving the hotel at dawn, I stopped at a convenience store and bought snacks, coffee and three breakfast sandwiches. I sat down among the dead bugs and cigarette butts on the sidewalk in front of the store, ate one of the sandwiches and drank my coffee before gingerly mounting up and continuing through downtown Eureka Springs, a place I have found fascinating since my first visit with my family when I was about 14. Its hilly streets, hippie vibe, funky shops and Victorian architecture were so different from anywhere I had ever been, and the idea that the springs had healing powers lent credence to the proposition that the place had some kind of magic. I soon crossed the suspension bridge over the White River at Beaver that had been underwater the previous summer. 

The chunky, wet gravel and frequent mudholes along the section that followed slowed me to a sub-10 mph average. Without realizing it, I passed over into Missouri and eventually passed through the town of Seligman on good road before returning to another muddy valley where the road eventually turned to parallel Little Sugar Creek. In my haste to make it to Bentonville I neglected to stop at the store near Seligman and I came to regret it as I ate every scrap of food I had with me and still felt like I was way behind on calories[1]. My mood brightened as I could see signs that I was approaching Bentonville. Although I was only 30 miles from the finish line, I sat down for a good meal in downtown Bentonville. Despite my deep hunger, I wanted no more greasy burgers or pizza and opted for the vegetarian sandwich. From Bentonville, the course takes a greenway, a smooth path for cyclists and pedestrians that extends all the way through Fayetteville. I knew this was the victory lap of the whole race, but I didn’t have enough energy to celebrate much, and to the people out for a Sunday walk or bike ride I was just a random filthy guy slowly riding a muddy, loaded bike.

I arrived at the imaginary start/finish line in front of the Graduate hotel just before 4 pm, stopped the bike, and hit “stop” on my Wahoo bike computer. I put my mask on, went in the hotel, and recruited the desk clerk to come out and take my picture. Rolling up to an empty finish line was not a downer. On the contrary, it fit with the whole endeavor since I knew that the strong support I enjoyed was virtual and distant. I started alone, was physically alone through every pedal stroke of the course, and I was alone at the end. If you need cheering crowds, finishing medals and admiring spectators to make the experience meaningful for you, ultra-endurance and bikepacking racing is not your thing. 

Now is as good a time as any to acknowledge that dot-watchers, bikepackers, adventure racers, connoisseurs of the Arkansaw High Country Race, and my own critical self may be thinking right now, “Was this guy even racing? Sitting down for meals in restaurants? Staying in hotels? Riding 44 miles one day and packing it in because he needs to buy a wittle bitty cable? Isn’t this more like touring?” Fair questions, all. 

I have ridden shorter events in the style of “ride until you can’t stay awake, sleep an hour in a ditch, get up and keep going,” and that was the way I started out riding during my attempted ITT in the summer 2020, but I didn’t hold up well against the uniquely hard demands of this race. I think we see videos and listen to podcasts with Lael Wilcox or Sofiane Sehili and we think, “Well, that’s how you do bikepacking races. You go more than 48 hours without stopping or you go 18 days without ever stopping for a meal or sleeping under a roof. That’s what I’m going to do.”  And we think we’re going to do that for 1,000 miles without understanding the physical and mental adaptations those riders have made through years of unfathomably hard riding. Listen to Lael describe her first few years of riding on episode 68 of the Bikes or Death podcast (https://bikesordeath.com/ep-68-lael-wilcox/). Go read Sofiane’s blog (https://sofianesehili.com/cyclinsomnia/) and gain an appreciation for the wide expanses of the world he had ridden in extreme conditions on a nothing-special bike before he ever did a single bikepacking race. The people at the elite end of ultra-endurance racing didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.  

I respect and admire how other people approach racing this course, but I knew that to finish, I would have to meticulously plan and execute my race, programming the amount of rest and feeding I thought I would need to ensure I could successfully cover the whole course. If I had been touring, I would have tried to wait out the rain in Mt. Ida. I would have hung out in Hot Springs an extra day instead of riding for 16 hours in the rain. I would have turned back at any one of the flooded river crossings and waited for the creeks to go down. I would have stopped in Jasper and let the rain pass by. I would have hung out in Ponca a little longer and let the roads dry out. And the way I felt slowly riding that final thirty miles down the greenway from Bentonville to Fayetteville, utterly empty and totally void, too vacuumed out to be emotional or jubilant, told me that I did race and that I had won, if even just barely, against the competitor that mattered most: the version of myself that had pedaled away from Fayetteville some ten days and nine hours before.

Just as the Lord of the Rings movie didn’t end when Frodo Baggins tossed the ring into the fires of Mount Doom, my report doesn’t end in Fayetteville. I went over to visit Michael and Martha, my friends from grad school who teach at U of A. I got cleaned up and even entertained the thought of driving straight home, but only about an hour up the road deep fatigue made me re-think my plan and I checked into a hotel in Ft. Smith. On the drive home the next day I basked in satisfaction, but I also mulled over the idea of ever doing something like this again. Being 57 years old and having an arthritic left knee, it’s not like I’m embarking on a promising ultra-endurance racing career. I decided that I didn't need to decide. Margaret was still at work when I arrived home in Hewitt. The house stood cool and quiet. Before doing anything else, I brought all my dirty clothes in the house, piled them into the washer and started it. I laid out my muddy bikepacking bags and shoes on the driveway to hose them off and lay them out to dry. I put my bike on the stand and meticulously cleaned it, re-lubed and wiped the chain, checked the shifting, adjusted the brakes, and put a little air in the tires. When I got the bike down off the stand, I couldn’t resist the temptation to ride it out of the driveway and up and down the street a little bit. My saddle sores barked when I eased down on the seat. The bike came to life and glided easily up the street with a couple of firm pedal strokes. The tires hummed on the tarmac and the shifting was crisp and precise. The clouds had momentarily parted to allow the sun to warm my shoulders. 

It all felt perfect.

 

  

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[1] I had mixed up and drunk my last ration of Spiz before leaving the hotel that morning.