Epic 8 Hour Race

Hello Everyone,

In the final epic fight scene of the Iliad, when Hector realizes that the gods are against him and are helping Achilles, he doesn't sulk away or complain or yell in frustration. He draws his sword and rushes his opponent like a badass. He knows it's going to suck, but he won't turn away from the challenge. It's like, a metaphor, or something. Anyway, I felt that way recently, only my semi-deity opponent was a big hill and I was in a bike race voluntarily, not defending my city from invaders. But otherwise, the parallels are striking. As we did last year, Dave and I signed up for an 8 hour bike race. Again, like last year, there was a big hill at the end of the course, one that came at you when you were at your weakest. But like Hector, I went at it with abandon every time, and I have to say, I think Hector could take a lesson from me. I made it cleanly to the top every time. Take that, Prince of Troy. While we didn't finish quite as high in the rankings as we did last year, we were still respectable, finishing comfortably in the middle of the pack. In the unofficial '35+ weekend warrior' category, we kicked ass. But then, I get to define who is in that category, and coincidentally, it's anyone faster than me. Why would I call it an Epic 8 hour race though? Well, for one, that's the official name of the race. But more importantly, what made it epic for us was that we did it all - travel to, race, and travel home - in a single day. Due to Dave's responsibilities as a father and small business owner, we didn't have the luxury of traveling the night before or the day after. If we were going to do this thing, we had to do it all in one shot. Given my morbid curiosity, I agreed. Why the hell not? We woke up at 4:30am, drove as fast as legally possible to get through Toronto traffic without incident, then hurriedly got ready, raced, then made our way home. It was 2 am when I got back to Winchester. Quite an Odyssey, to reference another Homeric work. Except that guy took forever to get home. We made it in far better time. wes

#Biking #Attemptathumour