Like any good traveler, I began packing for my next trip before I had even finished unpacking from my six month ride across the country. My long time friend, Steve, signed up for an “extreme triathlon” in Chile and needed someone to handle the support logistics while he raced. It sounded like a good time and a good excuse to practice my Spanish. (Even though I grew up in a house with a strong Colombian influence, I don’t speak Spanish fluently.)
With only two days between the trips, I set the odds against myself but managed to get a lot done and rest a bit before our flight out, which was early (wake up before you even go to bed early).
I slept through most of the first flight to Mexico City. Where we met up with Stacie, Steve’s wife, and Logan, a seventh month year old who has shit his pants in more places around the world than you have visited. We explored the airport, enjoyed a few mojitos before we caught our next flight to Santiago.
The layover between Santiago and Balmaceda was short, but with an unspoken plan to divide and conquer, we thought we had a chance. Steve and Stacie were further back on the plane, so I decided to rush ahead to pick up all of our luggage and be ready for them when they caught up with me. As I was stacking their last bag onto the luggage cart, they walked out and we were off to catch our flight, or so we thought.
Because we booked with multiple airlines, we had to return to the check-in counter to get our tickets and recheck our bags. The logjam that greeted us when we walked into the terminal should have been our first clue that we weren’t going to make the flight. A thousand blindfolded ten year olds swimming in a cheap hotel pool were more organized than that shitshow. To save space and time, I will skip this mess and tell you that we missed our flight but eventually we made it to Balmaceda in our cozy cabin for the night.
With no problems, Steve checked into the race the next day. His travelers’ stomach was a different story. I have two friends that won’t ever complain about a damn thing. Ian, who I damn near killed in the Oregon outback, is one of them and Steve is the other. If it wasn’t for the bathroom’s thin walls and his unusually low food intake, it would have been hard to figure out the dude was suffering. It got to a point that I wasn’t even sure if he should be doing the race and gently pointed that out at 2am while I drove him to the starting line, where he would swim over two miles in sub-fifty degree water, cycle 112 miles of rough roads, high winds, and over 6000 feet of climbing, then run a marathon. In short, not the kind of race you want to start feeling sleep deprived and dehydrated, which he was. Severely. With him being one of the first ones out of the water, it clearly didn’t affect him too much at the start.
The bike had to have been my favorite and least favorite part of the day. As the support team, Stacie and I drove ahead to meet up with Steve on different parts of the course to get him food and water when he needed it. It was a blast to be a part of the race in this capacity, and with good company, Stacie and Logan, and amazing scenery, the seven hours went by quick.
What made it stressful were the other drivers running support for their riders. Many of them were respectful to the racers, but there was a handful that either blocked traffic so they could stay with their rider or got dangerously close to other riders when passing or following. It was terrifying to watch. And, as someone who just spent close to seven months on a bike across the United States, I couldn’t help but take it personally!
So, when Stacie and I couldn’t find Steve at the eighty-five mile mark, we were deeply concerned. Did his body finally give out on him or did one of these Mario Andretti wannabe’s clip him as they passed? We had no way to know for sure so when he finally showed up after along climb, beleaguered by headwinds and his body’s revolts, we were elated to see him. With slumped shoulders and an out of rhythm pedal cadence, Steve didn’t look well, but he still smiled when we spoke.
When we saw him again at the transition, every sign of weakness left him. The beaten man who passed us a few miles ago was nowhere to be found, but he still had twenty-six miles ahead of him. The way the course was setup, he would be on his own for the first eighteen miles. We wouldn’t be able to offer him any support once he left the transition area, so there was concern in making sure that he had everything he needed to get to the final bit where I would be able to run with him into the finish line, which I was dreading.
It’s hard to bitch when Steve had done so much that day but I really didn’t want to run those last eight miles but knew I had to. As ridiculous as it sounds, I didn’t know how my body would handle it. I was still recovering from my ride. My legs were sore and my back was very displeased from being upright after months of being hunched over my handlebars. All that being said, I came out to be support so I was going to do it.
When Steve made his appearance at the final checkpoint, he didn’t really stop. I just joined in and started switching out bottles and passing him whatever food he needed. His bowels had him in rough shape but the man refused to quit. We chipped away at the last eight miles together through beautiful mountain scenery that reminded me of the barren mountain scapes that I rode through in Wyoming and Montana. We talked about the geological conditions that created the scenery and did our best not to acknowledge the remaining distance that never seemed to shrink, no matter how fast or long we jogged that loose gravel road.
In the final thousand meters, you could make out the finish line. Well, that’s a lie. You could see the lake on the horizon and understood that the finish line had to be before that. Right before the line, Steve stole Logan from Stacie and crossed the line with him, which made him the youngest male participant to cross the line.
I ducked off to the left and got a strong helping of french fries, ketchup, and mayo with a gatorade on the side.
The rest of the trip would require a book’s worth of notes instead of a blog entry—something I am not willing to commit to just yet. I will say this though: I will go back, and hopefully, with my bike.
