2007 Race Report #12: Mochi-Dado
Race Report #12, Thursday, July 26th, Superweek Stage 14 Pro/Am Criterium, Sheboygan, WI, 100K.
Waking in the RV Thursday morning it is a glorious dawn – sunny, warm but not hot. The creaking of the trees and fanning of the leaves have kept us company all night. After lolling around in the feather bed in the back of the RV playing with Katelina’s “lu lu’s” (her tiny little feet) I finally get up and westart our day.
I fire up the propane burners of the stove in the RV and spread our little white and green tablecloth over the picnic table outside the RV in the green drapery of the 100 year old forest canopy, and we make eggs and bacon to accompany our cereal, juice and yogurt, sitting outside to eat under the swaying trees.
Katelina wanted desperately to go ride her bike, so we mounted our bikes, Katelina straddling her little pink bike with the white tires and 16” wheels and we headed off around the damp, pine needle covered lanes tracing through the grounds.
Like her father, the tow headed 6 yr old appears to have an achievement orientation and asked me, “what’s the farthest I’ve ever ridden my bike Papa?” I told her she had ridden about 7 miles the night we got stranded in Elgin – the night of the fireflies.
“I want to do 7 and ONE-HALF miles!” she exclaimed and so we wandered the beachfront in order to put on the mileage she hoped to accumulate. There was a very light breeze off the lake, and we observed the oddest phenomenon when we traversed the dunes to the shore – the cool air off the lake meeting the warm damp sands of the shores was creating a golden fog – the condensation rising from the sands must have had minute sand particles in it – and for miles down the beachfront there were these sparkling billowy golden mushrooms forming and glowing in the distance.
Katelina: Katelina is my daughter and by that lineage alone is endowed with special consideration by her father. Of course she is the most beautiful little girl in the world – her blue green eyes, with those glints of yellow in the sunlight. Those mischievous wrinkles forming her underlids, the beauty mark on her upper lip, and the long golden tresses of brilliant white blond hair. Of course what she says has just that little special lilt of music, her laughter like chimes – can’t you hear it? Of course when she rides her bike, it is with style and panache, her pedaling rhythm suggesting all kinds of vaguely conceived future accomplishments (though without the accompanying realities of the long sweat-baked travels and am-radio-only loneliness on the Midwestern plains my father and I suffered through.)
I don’t have a son, so I can’t really speak directly to what the feeling of having a male offspring is like. But a daughter – who knew that it would be like this? I am certain – quite certain, that until now I never knew the meaning of courage. Not until her…
Sometimes at night after gazing at her delicate profile in the half light of our reading lights (yes she sleeps with us far too often) I will, move a stray lock of golden hair from her cheek and then lean back into my own pillow and after switching off the light contemplate just how precious that tiny form is next to me, and just how aggressive my response would be if her safety were ever in question…
The “movie sequence” goes like this: we are safely in bed – at home, camping, or in the RV – doesn’t matter. And then in the grainy half-light of night the intruder comes into this little screenplay. As always he’s faceless and nameless, black in the chiaroscuro of the dim backlight of the entrance. As always, there is malice in the air, and he threatens my family somehow. Prior to Katelina, responses would have been about strategy, about bargaining,, but not any longer.Something about having flesh and blood of Eve’s line begets a kind of clarity that eliminates choices. The scenario always plays out the same. Without fear, without doubt, without vacillation I edge to the edge of the bed, and then in one fluid, swift motion, I accelerate and launch my body full on into the intruder – I can feel the spring and speed in my strides and my leg muscles involuntarily clench. Surprised, the attacker reaches – but, regardless of weapon, there is nothing he can do that inertia won’t override – and even as the gunshot explodes, or the knife enters my flesh, I can always hear my voice shouting with clear authority, “Run!, out the door! NOW!” as I bowl the attacker over and begin to ransack his limbs with my face, elbows, hands and legs – anything to buy time – without a single care to myself. Of course, I do hope this never happens and believe that it probably never will. But this clarity – this ability to have this one confidence in my own courage… it provides me some semblance of understanding of my place in the scheme of things. I used to wonder about war… I’d sometimes imagine myself sweating in muddy khakis, crawling along the jungle floor, wet leaves brushing my face as I wriggled uphill in the rain. Then, when the bullets started to rip, wet leaves and mud spraying my face, and my commanding officer shouting “TAKE THE BUNKER!”… I’d have to really think about it… “What are the odds? “What’s in it for me? “Why do I need to die NOW? “Seriously – isn’t this whole thing stupid anyway? “Why are we shooting at each other anyway?” It wasn’t until I had a daughter that this same screenplay runs differently – and… isn’t it the same for all men? Deep down, isn’t it that the men (and women) that throw themselves in front of bullets for some cause or another – isn’t it because they can somehow characterize the other side as capable of my previous delusion: of malicious intent toward a tiny, precious child?
Katelina rides in front of me down the hill – until I see a car coming at us, and then I ride up outside her. It is usually a simple transaction – just protective cover. But once in a while I conceive that the oncoming car may not provide ample space and I consider just how hard I will hit that windshield in order to get the driver to veer away from Kat. For this one thing - courage.
We continue on our way, investigating the dunes, stopping so she can take pictures of the beach. Then we turn to head back to our camping spot in order to pack up and head for the beach. Suddenly I hear the bells of her little voice – “papa! Papa! – come look!”
I stop and see her crouched next to the road. Even from the distance I can see that she’s observing yet another insect in a long parade that day. But something about this one catches my attention – even from 50 feet away I can see that its figure is unusual.
“What is it?” I ask as I get closer. “Not sure,” she answers and then casually extends the finger that the brightly colored caterpillar with the odd tooth shaped white bristles on its back has marched its bristly little legs right up and onto. She was very excited, and immediately named him/her Mocho Dado (female version is Mochi Dado).
Weeks later, during U.S. Cellular®’s “Bring your child to work day,” Tyler Carroll graciously helped Katelina figure out that the extremely odd caterpillar was that of the “Whitemarked Tussock Moth”
The morning turns to noon, and then mid-day to afternoon, and I do the thing I usually do – wait until the last possible minute to leave behind the paradise of the beach, the golden fog, the sand, and playtime with Kat to travel to the race. Thunderheads are building to the north and that makes it easier to finally clear the beach. As we head out of the state park, the sky grows darker, and I begin to remember what it is like to race in the rain with Category 3’s or Masters and realize that the Pros will be oh-so-worse.
After a short warmup I lineup on the same start/finish where I finished 2nd last year in the “Cat 3” category – to the teammate of the rider who had died the day before at the Tour of Holy Hill – and I began to consider the course, and the downhill corner – turn 3, and how it might be with 100+ pro riders in the rain… I wasn’t afraid – I was full of dread…
We set off – 80 laps, 62 miles. The pace was high, but the course was dry – for about 10 laps. Then the light drizzle set in and it started getting slippery. Every corner a rider or two went down but mostly by themselves. The pack began to string out, and riders started abandoning and I had to close gaps – which I did – but my own motivation was dwindling as the sky continued to darken and thunder boomed in the distance.
Meanwhile that odd facet of human existence that seems to occur during repetitive but mundane suffering (like having the flu) began – a word, or in this case, a pair of words got stuck in my head. This happens often in races. The word starts playing in a repetitive loop in my head – I analyze it, turn it upside, down, backwards, just the vowels, just the consonants – and then just the picture of the word itself, and then – as always – it suddenly loses all meaning.
One race a long time ago in New Jersey, the word was a long one “anthropomorphism” – I quickly lost the meaning of the word and then began to be frustrated by this long set of vowels and consonants. I remember the long drive back to Michigan and being annoyed the whole way that I couldn’t remember what the word meant. I even broke it down to the latin roots and while knowing it had something to do with “change” and “man” I had no memory of what the word actually meant (it means the attribution of human traits to non-humans).
Another, really, really bad day, and the word was “the” and as I mulled it over and over and over, by the end of the race I no longer recognized the word, had no idea how to use it in a sentence, and was pronouncing it in my own internal dialogue just like Jeff Daniels in “Dumb and Dumber” according to its visual spelling: “ta, heh… ta teh”. What the hell does “ta heh mean? What a stupid stupid word – I hate it.”
For 25 laps in Sheboygan, as the rain began, every pedal stroke was either a “Mochi” or a “Mocho”, and then the corresponding downstroke was “Dado.”
“Mochi-Dado, mochi-dado, mochi-dado, mochi-dado, mochi-dado…. (pause, turn left…), “Mocho-dado, mocho-dado, mocho-dado, mocho-dado, mocho-dado.”
I officially reserve and trademark this name for some future product or service – 2 months later, and they are still sticky…(I wonder how long I’m going to have these words going in my head today.)
20 laps in, 60 to go, the big drops start and now it is pouring – I begin to hope they’ll call off the race. Surely with these gusts of wind, these flashes splintering the sky? The pace escalates and I’m running full out in the rain, with hardly anything to see. Why am I doing this? Who am I trying to impress? It all doesn’t matter… I have a family, a job, I’m ‘important’… all the thoughts of a quitter begin to enter my brain. Now, left turn and “mochi-dado, mochi-dado…”
I continue on, pressing the pedals smoothly to keep traction, braking gingerly, accelerating hard, and closing the gaps as rider after rider abandons in front of me, next to me, behind me.
Turn 1, 30 laps down, 60 to go. Two riders go down just after the turn, their tires suddenly losing grip on the ¼ inch of water on the road surface, their wheels swooping up, torsos bouncing down. They slide on their backs - almost accelerating like as if they were on black ice, their bikes up in the air, hands slapping at the pavement to try and stop their velocity as skin and skinsuits give way and rent, skin taking on that black burn of wet pavement.(Road rash in the rain is actually quite minor – mostly dirt and that light zinging sting of a minor abrasion.) I pick my way through and then another rider gives up right in front of me and yet another gap opens that I’ll need to close to stay connected to the pack and the protective cover off the draft.
Suddenly I stop attacking – and the release of that pressure on my legs and lungs creates instantaneous relief. It is not a conscious decision, but by the time my rational mind connects to what my body has done, there is no time left to reconnect to the pack. My mind berates my body briefly and then shrugs its shoulders. “Mocho…..”
the “dado” never comes.
The wind stops roaring through my ears and the rain decreases its rattling on my helmet. I coast through turn two and sit up. A few riders sprint by me, and a few more coast up near me and sit up themselves. 6 or 7 of us drift, pedals motionless, down the backstretch into the coming storm, the huge drops bouncing off the pavement, the grey of rain replacing the green of the suburban landscape surrounding us.
We all abandon the course halfway and split up, making our way back to our cars and loved ones. In my case I’m luckier than just about all and return to the large well lit warm interior of the RV.
I coast up and dismount shaking my head. I mount my bike to the back of the RV as they duck back into the calm of the RV interior. Nothing is said. I drive off, and the storm gets worse, thunder booming close by. The road is so dark I turn on the headlights. It turns out that only 33 of the 108 starters actually finish the race.
Courage? Maybe I have it, maybe I don’t. What is it anyway?