PMBAR '22 (part two of some more)

I wake up at 4:40AM to the sounds of a hootie owl.  I'm sure the scars from running late to the start last year (my bad) led to my inability to fall back asleep.  Eventually I do, but as soon as my dreams get interesting again, my alarm goes off at 6:15AM.

And because of last year and despite doing nothing the previous night to get ready, I'm 95% kitted and coffee'ed up before 6:50AM.  Dumbass.

At least the payoff was that Watts and I are able to be front row for the passport distribution.

8:00AM on the dot, and my tiny little old man hand has a passport in its diminished by age grip. 

I turn my back to the melee, skim the rules, flip through the checkpoints, come up with a plan (don't call me rash), and we're off on our way up Black Mountain.

I feel like all those moments took fifteen minutes, and we had to have been on our way behind so many teams, but I find that we're in good company.  I'm not going to take the time to name drop them all, but they're usually the pointy end of the field.  Now that I've settled into the idea that we're in the right group, it's time to start casting doubts on everything I thought I knew.

I don't think I saw any mandatory check points in the passport. ¿Qué?  Mebbe it doesn't matter.  Mebbe one of them isn't worth the two hour bonus (four CPs to finish, the fifth is worth two hours taken off your finish time).  I run them down in my head...

Something something South Mills... something Trace... something Slate Rock... something Fletcher so many yards down from something... one right in the butthole on Squirrel... one at the Pilot Rock/Laurel Mountain...

If you counted to six, you're already smarter than I.  

"Watts, I don't think the one up on Laurel is worth it.  It's an over two hour investment for us."

"Okay.  Fine."

These words mean nothing to him.  I know he just hears buzzing noises.

We soldier on up Black Mountain, complaining about being fat, not having any matches to burn, how we don't wanna be close to any other single speeders and please don't let us catch up to Chris Joice and his partner (our pick for the SS win) because actual "racing" sounds totally demoralizing.

We get up to Hot Dog Gap, stop, and with my fingers free from the bars, it's much easier to count to six.  

"Watts, I think I made a check point up.  I gotta check the passport."

"Okay.  Fine."

Dammit. 

"Well, the good news is..."

Watts would later point out that I say that a lot... "the good news is..."

As if everything I do wrong has some sort of silver lining.

Speaking of good news and things I do wrong, my bike is making a clacking sound with every bump I hit.  Since I've just strapped and mounted a bunch of things to my bike just this morning, I try to isolate the noise, but to no avail.  I even check things that were fine for three days of Moab chunk gnar.  I'm left with no option other than to assume that this claxon of doom is telling me that something made of crabon fiber would like to stop being a useful bike part at any moment.  This does nothing for my confidence going down anything steeper than a wheelchair ramp.  I like my teeth where they are.

Into the butthole of Pisgah, hit the checkpoint, take off, head towards Cantrell... and there's no tire tracks turning right and down. 

Odd. Woulda thought some folks would head down to South Mills that way.  Meh.  That just confirms that my Plan B is everyone else's Plan A, so we continue "down" Squirrel.

Squirrel to Mullinax to South Mills to Bradley to the check point.

Except it isn't there.  I swear it's always right here down past these weeds near the crick... but it's not.  We wander around for just a bit.  I pull out the passport for confirmation. I get the opposite.

"Watts, the checkpoint isn't here (sic obvs).  It's at the bottom of 5015."

"Okay.  Fine."

"We mighta lost ten minutes," I lie.  He won't know.  I feel the need to protect him from the sad truth.  He'll probably know soon enough.

Up Bradley, down Bradley, get taken out by a mountain laurel and thrown to the ground.  Rip my left knee warmer, which would probably make me sad, but I have another pair of the same brand with a ripped right knee so okay.  

I pad my lie to Watts and bump up my estimate of our losses to twenty minutes.  I really have no idea... until we get to the bottom of the trail we shoulda taken earlier and start running into people we should (in theory) be beating.

Niko, excite to see Dicky "in the wild."  Me, sad to see Niko "in the wild," knowing that he probably looked at the passport for ten or fifteen minutes before starting, and now here we are even Steven (not Stephen, he's still ahead of us) at our second check point.  

So as Watts and I trounce our way up Bradley Creek outta checkpoint two, I know that as we stomp through the seventy odd creek crossings and step over (or under) ninety downed trees to get around people we "should be beating already," he's gonna know how poorly my decision making has impacted us.

"I think some of those people mighta came straight down Turkey Pen and mebbe they're just four check pointers, so we're not doing so bad," I lied.  Again.

I know Watts won't connect the dots that we woulda saw tire tracks on the way here had anyone actually done what I just said, so mebbe his morale was still salvageable?

Then we ran into the back of the Ohio single speeders, Josh and Kenny.

No offense (it will make sense in tomorrow's post), but that's when I checked out for the rest of the day.