But now as they readied themselves at the starting line, Caroline knew Shannon was behind her. She didn’t turn around to confirm her suspicion but could feel her gaze in the pinpricks on her back. She didn’t know what to say to her. Shannon had declared her love and Caroline had casually walked away. She had thought about Shannon constantly since that afternoon and still had no clue what to do, where Shannon fit in her life. Or even if she did at all. But she did know what she needed to do today, right now. She needed to win this race. She had a game plan and she needed to stick to it. Shannon would only be a distraction to her wining the championship. I will not let that happen, she repeated to herself.
She checked her gear one last time. She had an extra bike tube in her pack along with a tire pump and four energy bars, and her CamelBak
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was full to the brim with the energy drink she needed to fuel her body.
In the fanny pack strapped under her seat she stowed her repair kit, her bike wrenches, tube extractor, and the pocket knife she never left home without. In the pocket of her bike jersey was a pack of bubble gum and a tube of sunscreen ChapStick. Her face, arms, and the back of her neck were coated with SPF 50 sunscreen.
The race organizers intentionally started the race in the late afternoon. The excitement of the beginning and end of the race necessitated daylight hours. The riders usually made it through the darkness with minimal mishaps, but it was when dawn broke the next day that fatigue and lapses in concentration set in, resulting in falls, crashes, and flaring tempers.
It was 3:59 p.m. and Caroline was ready. She adjusted the fit of her gloves, the fit of her helmet on her head, and the snugness of her Oakley sunglasses protecting her eyes. The clock ticked down; thirty seconds to go. Caroline said a quick prayer. “God, give me strength and watch over all the riders today.” She took several deep breaths, and as the starting horn sounded, the final race of her career began.
v
Shannon was breathing much too hard and she knew it. She tried alternating her pace, slowing down, shifting gears. But she was still breathing too fast for this early in the race. The first three hours had been filled with jockeying for position around other slower, less experienced riders. Except for the burning in her lungs, she had settled into a comfortable rhythm, completing lap after lap without incident.
She glanced at her odometer secured just to the right of her left handlebar grip. She was struggling. Something was not right. Her gear was correct, her bike in top condition, but there was something wrong with her. Ever since she spilled her guts to Caroline, who had walked away without saying anything, she had felt like her world was collapsing around her. She couldn’t keep any food down and battled waves of dizziness. It was as if her body was in shock.
Shannon expected the years of training to take over once the race began, shutting out everything except the feel of the course under her saddle. But for the first time in her racing career, it didn’t. When the
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horn sounded, she hadn’t overexerted to get ahead of the pack. She was a seasoned enough racer not to get caught up in the adrenaline of the start of the race and burn herself out too soon. She had laid back, assumed the pace she needed to take. The trail was marked in half-mile increments and she knew the pace she wanted to achieve for maximum results. It was a long twenty-four hours, and pace and tempo were important. So far, she was on track, if not slightly behind. If she found herself ahead, that would account for some of the fatigue she was feeling, but that wasn’t the case. Rising out of her saddle gave her legs the extra push they needed to traverse a particularly nasty steep stretch of trail. She maneuvered around a rider repairing a flat tire and crested the trail. She barely noticed the breathtaking view of the Australian countryside before downshifting for the descent.
Shannon reached into the pocket in the back of her bike jersey and pulled out an energy bar. She used her teeth to rip off the end of the wrapper, then squeezed the coffee-colored bar out of the paper like a Popsicle out if its protective wrapper. She was careful to take only a small bite. She chewed it thoroughly and washed it down with her sport drink in the bottle cage between her legs. Again and again, she repeated the maneuver until she finished her energy bar and one complete bottle of her drink. She hoped she was able to keep it down.
After a sharp right hand turn, Shannon emerged onto a flat, dirt-packed road most people would consider a fire road. No wider than ten feet, it was used for fire suppression crews to get their machinery to the point of a fire as quickly as possible. It was on these roads that Shannon had first learned how to mountain bike and it was on these roads that Shannon had ridden the week before the championship series began.
The roughness of the road, the dirt kicking up between her legs, the grit layering over her face, her eyes, and in her mouth was comforting. It was what she knew. It was what she was and she struggled to find her groove.
Squinting against the setting sun, Shannon saw Caroline fifty yards ahead. She had kept an eye on her lap after lap, stopping and resting when she did. Faster and faster she pedaled, and within minutes she was inches behind her. Five more strokes of her strong legs brought Shannon directly beside her.
“I have to talk to you,” Shannon said between gulps of air. Caroline
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turned her head and by the shocked look on her face had not expected a conversation from anyone, let alone her main competitor.
“Are you out of your mind?” Caroline pedaled faster and Shannon easily caught up.
“I must be.” She thought she had convinced herself not to approach Caroline. Her pride could only handle so much and another rejection wasn’t included. But here she was, in the middle of the final race in the world championship, trying to talk to her. Another indication she had it bad for Caroline.
“I am not having a conversation with you. Get the hell out of here.
Get the fuck out of my life.”
Shannon tried several more times to talk with Caroline, but each time was met with staunch silence. Finally deciding their conversation would have to wait, she let up on the pedals and let Caroline slowly extend her lead.
v
“Bike left.” Caroline shouted the universal notification to riders ahead that there was a faster rider approaching. The line of riders stretched out in front of her for at least a mile, a cluster here, a group there, a single rider once in a while, but more often than not, at clusters of riders taking advantage of the drafting effect provided by the rider ahead of them. She hadn’t seen Shannon since she tried to talk to her over an hour ago.
She passed a rider on a red Trek, downshifted, and increased her pace. She was twenty yards behind another woman in a bright yellow riding jersey and a hot pink helmet and as they approached a tight left turn, Caroline watched as if in slow motion. The rider’s back tire lost traction and spun out from under her. She went down hard on the dirt.
Caroline was far enough behind not to get caught up in the crash and asked, “You okay?” as she passed.
“Fuck yeah,” came the reply. If the rider had been injured Caroline would have flagged down one of the race officials at the next mile marker.
She made it through the turn followed by another series of left and right turns, all the while pedaling faster and faster. She had to get
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away from Shannon. She hadn’t been surprised when she pulled up beside her, but was absolutely stunned when Shannon started talking.