Boy, am I sore right now.

There's a good reason for that. Sunday, I successfully rode my bicycle to the top of Mount Diablo....10.8 miles with an elevation gain of 3,249 feet. http://www.savemountdiablo.org/moun.....lo%20Challenge
We'll get into why, later. Or at least try to.



For those of you who may not be aware, my partner is a hot-shot road bike racer, and he is very, very good at it. He's had a great season this year, and this is the kind of course he loves the best; really fast up an insanely steep hill. Chris in fact did really well; the only guy in his age category who beat him was literally a professional rider. So this seemed like a good way to end his season.

I, on the other hand, am neither a hot-shot nor a bicycle racer...I'm what the race types gently refer to as a 'recreational rider.' I take it that this is something like recreational drug use, but I'm not certain. I'm not 100% new to racing; C and I have raced our tandem, but my single bike scares me and is mostly an avenue to keep myself reasonably svelte. It is most typically used in the living room on a trainer in front of the stereo while I read novels and comic books. Hills scare me. Steep mountains and bikes and this jackal are not generally referred to in the same sentence.

But it turns out that 2 days before the race, one of C's teammates had to scratch and gave C his more favorable starting time (starting was done in 3 waves since this is an event of 1,000+ people. Naturally, He of the Quickness wants a spot in front). So we had an extra registration. Registration for this thing is $50, all for a very good cause, but I hate to waste money. I offer it to Lucy: no way. So, do I want to go or not?

You can do it, he says; you're fitter than you think. There will be kids and mountain bikes on this thing. Just go. A little later, the decision made (and I am far too proud to go back on such a decision), it's 'oh, you'll only need one water bottle. What, STOP? No you can't stop to rest, it's a race! Oh, and you won't need that easy gear...

The surreality of the thing began at the start, which was at the Athenian School, still one of the prettiest high school campuses I've ever seen and the place where I went to 7-8th grade. I've not been there since high school. So here I am signing in for this event in the midst of this huge throng of people in the field where I used to hang out reading and avoiding all of the people who actually wanted to do sports when I was in junior high. Trippy.

And speaking of kids, the few I see look plenty serious. There are mountain bikes: the kind that look like they were designed by NASA, and their riders have leg muscles like clydesdales. A vast majority of the machines I'm observing are of the razor-tired, worth-more-than-my-car road racing variety. Ok, so my bike is also a road racing sorta job if you want to look at it technically, and I am on the spare race wheels, but still. You can register a shetland pony in the Kentucky Derby...

1,000 people on bikes is a lot of people on bikes. C pins my number to my lucky neon-yellow, leopard spotted-jersey, gives me an encouraging smile and a pat on the back and is gone. I can't believe I'm doing this. I am suddenly at a race start, without a tandem bike, without Chris. There is definitely some heavy 'see no mountain, hear no mountain, climb no mountain' denial going on in my head as I try to relax by chatting with a rather pretty boy in spandex about his recent traverse up Mt. Shasta. (Jackel, socializing, even with someone cute of like interests, to relieve stress? You know something is wrong when...) There is enough caffene in me that I probably wouldn't pass a drug test and the guy probably thinks I'm nuts, but hey, I'm not actually racing.

I'm just trying to get up this thing in one piece.

So, I am perfectly happy in wave 3. I am fully expecting to take the red lantern (a term borrowed from sled dog racing...they keep the red lantern burning in Nome 'til the last team comes in...) and given my horrid fear of running into other people, dead last suits me fine, though as it happens I just leave nearish the end. I watch the mass leave with a mixture of horror and, well, horror. Lucy shows up in time to see me off with the parting words "you look terrified!" and a big grin. Why am I not standing next to her, admiring all of the prettiness so conveniently displayed in spandex and safely not myself wearing spandex anything, which is what we usually do at these things?

I step carefully onto my shiny, glittery-green steed, clip into the pedals, wobble a bit and am off.

The fact that I am in my easiest gear before we've even crossed the 'welcome to Mt. Diablo' sign does not comfort me, even a little. But a surprising thing starts to happen. I feel kinda good. Must be the caffene, or maybe the denial.

I begin to pass people. Ok, so the guy with a kid in a trailer, he's out. And the fat guy in the 'dizzy donuts' jersey? It would be an affront to the gods to let that guy cross the finish line before myself. We're good with that. I ascend.

The mountain goes up...it is in the nature of its kind to do so, after all...but not that badly. Maybe I can do this. I'm actually shifting OUT of my easiest gear, and riding with a couple of neat-looking female cyclists with matching team jerseys and legs maybe not all that more cut than my own. I like riding with them; there is a sense of accomplishment and cameraderie.

It is a beautiful, moody autumn day, the first of October. This is my favorite month, and I love its character, its anticipation, its edge. The sky is high and gray, turbulent with moving cloud. It is blessedly cool, but this mountain speaks warm things: rolling oak, seared chapparal, dry grass old and golden. He is relentless and hot, this mountain. I'm comfortable enough on the bike to say hello to him, to notice these things, these turns of beauty, these little markers of identity. Hello, sweet mountain, hard mountain. Let me get up you, just this once.

I've passed the two women without really thinking about it, and I'm targeting someone else now. I've taken too much caffene (either the 200 mg pill or the Rockstar drink the next time, not both please) and I am uncomfortably jittery. I keep telling myself to calm, not to go too fast: I will pace myself or not make it.

The jitters calm out. There are moments of absolutely glorious beauty, a purity of place and image that will, I think, always be with me. A line of cyclists on a switchback above me, rising from a blanket of fog into a brief moment of dazzling sun that for a moment seem to be riding on cloud. The vista below, a flowing ocean of golden waves, of oaks and twisted volcanic rock, marred only in the far distance with the scab of human habitation. An ancient oak twisting above the road, its trunk gnarled and heavy. There is beauty here, and I am moving within it. It is a clean thing, this effort, a whole suffering.

There are new rules. Mountain bikers must be passed. They are; I go by dozens of 'em. If their chain is squeaking, they must be passed ruthlessly because, after all, squeaking chains are an affront to the mountain, the effort, competence. Until I can get past them all, there are far too many slow people in my way and they are cramping my style. I size up my prey and take what I can. I'm very pragmatic about it, but if I didn't have at least a little competitive streak in me I'd never have made it through law school, to say nothing of living with Chris.

I don't pass everyone I'd like to, but I am not being passed much. I have found a rhythm, and this seems indeed to be something that I can do. There are people who I'm pretty much staying with, and we get to know each other: "the cheetah has her wind back!" one woman says as I pass her again.

With a thousand people and, as always, alone. Grinning with pain, I make peace with the suffering of it. I can sense the presence of what we'll call my spirit guide for want of a better term; she's loping easily beside me and in a good mood. She always has enjoyed my sweat and pain, anyway.

It gets hard after about an hour. My legs are hurting, I'm breathing, the mountain is getting steeper, and though I'm not really slowing down yet I start to get a bit hard on myself. I'm so out of my league here it isn't even funny. I am not, don't really aspire to be, a bike racer. There is no way I belong on this mountain. What kind of an idiot am I?

Perhaps it is because I am half-tranced, and thus very clearheaded albiet in a strange way, but I come down on these thoughts with unexpected ferocity. There is no room for negative self-talk on the side of a mountain. Do I not love myself enough at least to let myself do this thing?

And something interesting happens: it's ok. I don't need to be a racer, and I've already proven my ability to be here, to try this. There's no reason why I should measure myself by the standard of Chris. I am good enough, and here, and suffering well. The scruffy and antisocial child who last was on this mountain would have recognised something she liked and wanted in me, would have seen something she recognized and been proud. It is becoming clear that I will make it up Diablo. I'm happy, almost in tears I'm so happy. It is enough.

Someone cheers at the rest stop, as I pedal past it, that it is great to see that I can still smile so close to the end.

You glance ahead with an eye to the top in these things, or at least I do. Progression is evident. We are in the cloudline, cold and foggy, and then above it. The very peak is tantalizingly close now, though far enough away that the pain of gaining it is made obvious. Still, we are riding a long, sloping saddle above the clouds, and it is a fine thing to feel, and see, and live.

It gets steeper. Ouch. My thigh muscles have gone beyond straining to more-than-just-annoying cramps. I stop for a drink before a particularly nasty pitch and realize, as they begin to cramp up badly, that stopping is indeed a Very Bad Idea. Thankfully quenched, I get back on the bike and keep pedaling. I am moving slowly, not passing or being passed now, in a little bubble of space between those before and behind, timeless, an isolate.

The top comes. Chris is there, yelling "Jackel!!!" as I force myself up the last bit of mountain. I am snarling and in serious pain. It's gotta be the end now, right?

It isn't. One of the things I wasn't thinking about, ever, was the last 200 yards, a wicked pitch that would have hurt even if ol' Devil-mountain hadn't already softened you up the last several thousand feet of climb. For what it's worth, Chris hurt too. Plenty of people are walking their bikes up it.

I get about 100 yards, crawling, my legs spasming hard. I crawl to a stop. I can't do it. I get off the bike without crashing...that's an accomplishment...and start walking.

I can't do it. My legs are shaking badly, my legs in full rebellion. I'm using the bike to prop myself up. I can see the line through blurred vision. People are walking and riding past me, slowly. And I realize that I can't do it. Can't walk across the line. So I force myself back on the damned bike, somehow, and pedal across. Just barely.

I stand there shaking. Someone takes off the ankle strap with the computer chip that recorded my time. I hobble to the railing and stare out in cold and golden sunlight over a sea of clouds. I can barely move. With great difficulty I seat myself on a bench, stare out, utterly still, empty, timeless. Someone asks if I am Ok. I nod.

Eventually I realize that I need to find Chris and figure out how to get down. I coast down to where I saw him before and finally meet up with him (he's been looking) just as I stumble off my bike and, with difficulty, make it to the ground. My legs are in full rebellion and a whole lot of pain. I can barely move them, and at this point realize that 1.) I am experiencing actual medical difficulty and 2.) that I am apparently more stubborn than my body. Cool. The rangers wrap me in mylar blankets before I start to need to worry about hypothermia as well as the muscle spasms, stick me in a warm truck, and deliver me to my safe, warm car and my desperately-missed Chris and Lucy.

OK, maybe not the most dignified end to the event, but at least I didn't have to deal with the freezing, tricky, dangerous decent down the mountain. And we weren't going for dignity here, we were going for truth, and because life is short and easy to miss if you don't actually go out and live it.

I don't know why I volunteered to do this, save perhaps that I needed to know that it was possible. There was need to restore a measure of faith in myself, to learn a little something about the creature I have become, to test her a bit, to see what she will do. Because a certain level of suffering is good for you, because there are kinds of beauty that can't be seen if they are had easily. Because, and I'll say it again, I want to live a little bit before I die, and that is not always an easy thing to accomplish. Death is after all an inevitable suffering, but it can also be a necessary and beautiful one, and it is not a bad thing to practice doing with a certain amount of grace.

For what it's worth, my time was 1:51:17 (under 2 hours! woohoo!) and my place was 789. What I took from the mountain, what we take from any mountain, is rather more difficult to quantify.

So I thank Diablo's steep flanks, the body that can do this kind of thing now but won't always be able to, and the fact that I am given this brief, hurtful, beautiful life. It is a fine and sacred thing to be alive, and I am humble in it, in shining moments happy. Thank you. It is enough.