Down With The Sickness

Endurance athletes (if I may deign to label myself as such) are a pretty twisted bunch of people. This is a group of people that like to punish themselves with exercise. It's almost like we are the modern day ascetics.

A really good endurance event might be referred to as a "suffer-fest". And instead of discouraging people from signing up, the use of this term might actually bolster attendance. You might even find these people talking about going in search of their "Pain Cave".

Quoth "The Everyday Athlete"

It’s that place you go where you are enveloped by a complete and raw brand of pain. You reach it after feeling the seering inside of you and then ignoring it. You reach it when every voice inside of you has screamed for you to stop and you have silenced them all. The quiet of the pain cave is eerie and horrific.

If there really is such a thing as a pain cave, and you knew that you had one, would you really go looking for it?

I would. I am.

It's not good enough to have ridden the Nebo Loop. It's not good enough to have ridden the Alpine Loop. How about I get together with a bunch of other lunatics and take a day off of work to ride them both in the same day. Now that sounds like fun!

The event is called R.A.N.A.T.A.D. - Ride Around Nebo And Timp in A Day. 170 miles, 13,000 feet of elevation gain. The ride starts at Sundance resort on the Alpine Loop. You descend into Utah Valley, ride to Payson, up and over the Nebo Loop to Nephi, come back through the valley to Alpine and then end by climbing up and over the Alpine Loop back to Sundance. I get chills just thinking about it :)

The ride is on Monday, July 9th. If all goes well, I hope to still be alive on July 10th :) Wish me luck!