By Lila Planavsky
This event was fun to plan out. It was the first event that I have done virtual or in-person since St. Croix last January. Prior to this year, I hadn’t biked more than a handful of times since I was 18 and had a few biking adventures. I have never participated in a bike race virtual or in person, so this has been a change of pace for me. I am familiar with endurance running, but it has only been in the past few months that I have been biking consistently. I just made the jump a week before this event to buy my dream mountain bike, one that I can really ride and can dream of doing longer endurance events on. So, I was pleasantly happy when it looked like the forecast called for unseasonably warm temperatures and clear trails in Hixon Forest. It looked like I was going to be able to sneak in a long ride sans snow and all of the other aspects of winter that are more typical of December.
The week before this planned virtual event was an emotional roller coaster for me. My mom discovered that she had a melon-sized tumor on her ovaries and I spent much of the week in tears thinking that I was going to lose her in the next year as signs were pointing to it being cancer. She went in on Monday and they removed the tumor which weighed 10 pounds. Initial tests showed it was benign. This same week I was finishing up my graduate program for my library license which I had been working on for the past 3.5 years. I was supposed to finish it in the spring but had put it off, and it was taking a stressful last push to get it done before the deadline. That Tuesday we got final test results that my mom’s tumor was benign and within the same hour, I got final approval that I had passed my portfolio review. So, I went into this for Wednesday feeling a huge weight lifted from me of worry about my mom and obligation having something hanging over my head with my graduate program finally being finished. I teach, and honestly, virtual teaching has not been my favorite, so Wednesday was the first day of 11 days off from work. So, despite having had a really stressful week I went into this event feeling very positive mentally.
The evening before I spent quite a bit of time obsessing over how to put together gear and what to carry. I ended up doing a sewing job on my son’s Camelbak to make it work without the water bladder and so I could stash rain gear on my back as my mountain bike other than a water bottle has no gear storage. I was doing loops so would be able to have my truck in the parking lot if needed. I was worried about the weather as despite being unseasonably warm there was rain in the forecast, and 40s and raining has been the one set of temperature conditions that I worry the most about for getting really chilled.
I met three friends at the weather ball at sunrise and we set out. I started out the ride in a pair of winter boots, which I ended up swapping out for my hiking boots as they didn’t quite fit right and weren’t needed for 40 degrees. The first 10 miles flew by. The trails at this point were still mostly frozen with a few wet patches starting to come through. I had made the decision to fill my bike bottle with Gatorade, and it was an appreciated preparation.
We didn’t really have a set route as we wanted to see how trail conditions were to determine where to ride. A highlight of the ride was the downhill to lower Hixon. I just felt really happy and free. The ride back up Vista which is a 3.5-mile consistent climb was a bit harder. I often ride Vista and usually feel pretty good. I made the mistake of doing 150 burpees the day before with a friend. I felt compelled to do them in part because it was a fundraiser for kids for school lunch. The original plan was to do 250 burpees, so I was glad that I hadn’t done that. However, my legs were pretty dead for climbing. If I had been consistently doing Crossfit in the past two weeks I think I would have been fine, but lesson learned: Just take the day off before an event! I wouldn’t have regretted that decision. Trail conditions on Vista were still pretty decent for riding, with a few spots of slippery mud. I ended up with a tree grab fall on one of the sections! It ended up being fine but definitely took more caution on corners after that. Took time to stop at one of the overlooks for a photo.
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Once back at the top we were around 20 miles. We stopped at the car for a refuel and water bottle fill. I had packed trail mix in my camelback and it was really hitting the spot in terms of what I was wanting to eat. The trails on top had gotten really muddy, we altered our route, and ended up walking bikes for a bit to avoid the mud and attempt to not damage the trail. The last few miles the rain poked through a bit and it was drizzling and very windy. We rode out to the flag overlook and turned back around to finish at just over 32 miles. We celebrated with a hot holiday tea toast and headed home to kids and the beginning of winter break! I came home to my son wanting to snowboard so headed out for another winter adventure appreciating that it was winter break and I wasn’t tied to my computer for work. I finally ate the chicken noodle soup I had packed for the event on the way out to the ski hill. I think my overall emotion for this event was gratitude. I was grateful for friends to ride with, and for my family who had supported me in buying my dream bike, and wanted to spend time with me post-ride. Grateful that discovering biking was a silver lining to being injured from running and this pandemic year. I was really grateful for finishing a 50K ride after a year full of frustrating injury. Happy to not have my graduate program hanging over me anymore. I was mostly grateful to have my son convince me that even though I just rode 50K I needed to do jumps in the terrain park with him. And really really grateful that my mom doesn’t have cancer and is recovering from surgery. Thinking that you are losing someone close to me made my emotions more raw, and made me see time spent a bit differently. Sunrises are worth getting up and this life is not guaranteed.
