Mmm...Mmm...Good

Shivering in the cold pause between the dark of night and the light of day with only a hot cup of chicken noodle soup to keep me warm, I wrap my hands around the container and absorb its warmth with my palms. My second wind came and went less than half way through the inaugural 24 Hours of Temecula, leaving me standing in the pit area with the hollow void of exhaustion and fatigue gnawing at my body. It’s exactly cold enough to freeze and one of my teammates is riding his third lap, but he’s 10 minutes off his pace and I wonder if he wrecked, had a mechanical or is struggling with his own hollow void.

I charged into my third lap hours ago with the hedonistic recklessness of a person setting a car on fire to see if the gas tank will explode, but I quickly blew up. In the aftermath, I relied on a beam of light to push aside the darkness and pull the wreckage of my body through a trail that had become a twisting cave of shadows and obstacles. With thousands of tires churning and skidding along the same course, the trail changed hourly and left no familiar lines, no comfortable grooves to settle into and no forgiving slopes--neither up nor down.

I glance at the pit area clock and do the math. My teammate is now 15 minutes off his mark and I am overriding my instinct to not worry. Bad things can happen when you combine darkness, weariness and racing on intense trail at the limits of exertion.

The sky softens with each passing minute and details of the landscape become increasingly distinct. I can see racers rounding a bend and pedaling through a passageway that leads to the pit area where I am waiting with a crowd of eager people, each of us straining our eyes to find teammates. My concern grows stronger as each new racer comes out of the dim obscurity of daybreak and reveals that they are not the person I search for.

Five more minutes tick by and I begin pacing back and forth. If another 10 minutes pass, I will take a lap and search for him. I will scour all of the bushes, the rock piles, the bottoms of all the cliffs lining the trail. Ten more minutes.

A familiar helmet comes into view and makes its way to the pit area. Moments later my friend reaches the finish—hurting and relieved at the end of his lap, steam rising from his damp clothing and disappearing into the cold morning air.

“I brought you some soup,” I say, handing him the warm cup. “I figure you must have been pretty cold out there.”