Silk Road Mountain Race - Part III (last installment) -- days 8-12

 Days 1 and 2

Days 3 through 7

Day 8 (Saturday) -- camp below the pass of the 20 mile climb to somewhere between Kazarman and Naryn

I last wrote about having been concerned about being blown off the side of the road down a cliff heading towards Kazarman and the Yoda children.  I woke up this night in the middle of the night with intensely throbbing knees.  It was concerning but I went back to sleep.  Interestingly, this happened more than once where I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling pain (not my knees up to that point), only to wake in the morning basically recovered.  One thing I learned during this adventure is that I genuinely require sleep for adequate recovery and there is no cheat.  The difference between the middle of the night and morning was astounding.  I'm dating myself here, but I pictured little Doozers inside my body doing repairs, only for me to crunch their efforts the next day just like Fraggles did. 

When I woke in the morning, very early in the dark, my knees were not throbbing.  They were, however, grotesquely swollen.  I guess the prior day's 20 mile climb was more than my welsh corgi knees could bear.  We rolled out in the dark, and the ride to Kazarman was not entirely downhill -- there were lots of short climbs -- but it was no longer windy.  It was quite beautiful and I'm glad to have done it when I could see better.

Before getting to Kazarman, we ran into Rosa and Santi, the Catalonian couple, who let us know they were done with the race.  We rode with them a little bit and they stopped in Kazarman while we rode off towards Naryn.

The race description stated that this was a relatively fast section.  There was, however, some truly terrible road and two 10 mile long climbs.  I had initially hoped to make a hard push from Kazarman to Naryn, which may have been overly ambitious no matter the road surface or road grade, but not only did that seem less likely with two long climbs mixed in, I felt like garbage.  I had gone to sleep with congestion and had taken a Benadryl, which did nothing for it.  Barry assured me: "you'll feel better after your morning ice cream."  Well, I had my morning ice cream and still felt like shit.   

As the day progressed I started to feel alternatively chilled and crazy hot.  I was silently wondering if maybe I was getting The Vid or had a cold or some other sickness.  I told Barry that he should ride ahead and leave me.  He basically rolled his eyes at me.  I don't remember much of the day except it sucked and we stopped to camp before dark, though not excessively early, maybe 7:30 or so.  I'm also pretty sure this was the day I felt depressed about the race itself.  I hadn't bothered with race math but knew things didn't look good for getting to the next checkpoint on time.  I also didn't want to acknowledge this fact openly, even internally, so I was just vaguely depressed in addition to feeling horrible.

Almost immediately after beginning to set up camp, a shepherd appeared to let us know we picked a poor spot to camp and he encouraged us to move to a flatter, prettier area by the water.  We confirmed his suspicion that we are idiots and stayed put.  I slept hard.

Day 9 (Sunday) - almost to Naryn

When I woke, I could immediately tell that I wasn't feeling worse.  As I gathered my things and made breakfast and coffee, I was cautiously optimistic that I was actually fine (other than my still puffy knees).  As rolled out early, I felt ok, which in turn made me feel great.  I wasn't sick.  This day was lovely.  Barry tolerated me DJing part of the second 10 mile climb with my bluetooth speaker (how did he not know Tool?), and we enjoyed one of the funnest long downhills into the Naryn River valley.  In the village at the bottom of the climb, we bravely ate some sort of pink sausage product and "crab stick" sandwiches by a river while children practiced their English with us.  

We finally addressed the the topic of our race at some point and concluded that while we could theoretically just ride until Tuesday at 4, the cutoff for CP2, and see how close we were, that would be pretty rude to the checkpoint volunteers (and medical car) if they had to wait around for us.  We would be in the middle of nowhere with no way to actually communicate with them.  It did not seem that we were going to be very close to making it.  We had to be realistic.  So, we decided to ride close to Naryn so we could camp, then ride to Naryn the next day, find cushy accommodations, basically take a rest day, then make a plan.  

This was a really nice day, though it was somewhat bittersweet.  Maybe it's only bittersweet in hindsight, as I'm pretty sure at the time the wheels were already coming off and I was ready to call it.  It's sort of like women and childbirth -- it's hard to remember how it actually felt.  

The Naryn River valley was really kind of cool - very desert like with isolated old burial sites (I think that's what they were?).  We eventually found a non-swamp campsite in a farmer's field (clover?) about 50k from Naryn.  It was getting much denser with villages so it seemed a good spot to camp before we would run out of suitably quiet spots.  We didn't bother setting alarms.

Day 10 (Monday) - to Naryn

We rode into a headwind to Naryn and, at this point, the only purpose of the ride seemed to be to get to the nice hotel there.  Though we made relatively good speed, it seemed to take forever.  Finally we arrived in Naryn, though the fancy hotel was full.  We found a guesthouse and showered, I washed my clothes, we glued ourselves to our devices, and I emailed the race director that we were finally admitting defeat.  He suggested we continue on the route, skipping a loop that would take off a couple hundred miles or so.  Emily had messaged me that she and Brad were at the site of CP3, Son Kul, and that Brad had been super sick for several days.  They were just hanging out there but hoping to tour backwards towards CP2 when Brad was able.  Barry and I decided we would go meet up with them the following day by taxi.  Barry got super gut sick that night.  The Baltika beer we celebrated with, which is like 13%, probably didn't help.  We arranged for an 11 a.m. taxi the next morning, which would give us time to shop for food for our future tour and get breakfast.  

Day 11 (Tuesday) - to Son Kul

The whole taxi situation was strange from the beginning.  Our driver seemed to be incorporating various errands into our ride and while I showed him beforehand where we were headed, he was determined to take the long way to our destination.  He then decided 22 miles before our destination that he was dropping us off right there, wherever we were, in the middle of nowhere basically.  Barry demonstrated some Scottish fight and there was a heated exchange between Barry and the driver, neither of them speaking the same language.  I normally loath conflict but this was somewhat amusing.  Must have been the accent -- also Barry seemed so chill to this point it was funny to see him get riled up.  So, we reassembled bikes, enjoyed lunch, and rode to CP3.

This ride was quite beautiful and I am grateful that our taxi driver dropped us off where he did.  Maybe he should have dropped us off earlier.  When we arrived to CP3, we were greeted warmly and told that Emily had been waiting for us all day.  CP3 was a large yurt camp and a great place to be.  Brad looked the worst he has looked in many many years, but was reportedly somewhat better.  The energy was fun there - a couple who was just touring for 5 months and rock climbing stayed there and hung out with us.  Faster riders were filtering in and out.  Barry's "little Filipino guys" (what he called his friends) rolled through, which made Barry super happy.   The Swedish woman Anna was also there -- she had been recuperating there as well.  We had a phenomenal dinner and Anna, Barry, and I decided to tag along with Brad and Emily the next day and head to Issyk Kul (a giant lake) via the course route - backwards.  Barry and I slept in a yurt with a racer who was Canadian Mel's partner, Jake, and it was generally a good sleep.

Day 12 (Wednesday) - Son Kul to Intersection Cafe

We had a nice breakfast and rolled out of Son Kul mid morning.  It was a lovely day and the ride was really cool for most of it.  We descended 33 Parrots Pass, which looked like a bitch to climb.  It was confusing to riders coming our way, so we explained we were just touring backwards.  We met a Canadian man who was motorcycling all over Central Asia and Mongolia (is that Central Asia?) and chatted with him for a bit.  After a really nice gravel ride, we hit highway.

The highway was pretty shitty to begin with, but then it started climbing.  It turned out we had a lengthy highway climb to get wherever we were going.  Brad and Emily had taken off, and Anna, Barry, and I checked in and realized we were totally miserable.  It was somewhere on this highway that I realized I was DONE riding my bike for awhile and that touring wasn't bringing me joy.  Our day of touring ended up being something like 70 miles which isn't really vacation distance.  I informed Barry that I would be taking a taxi from Intersection Cafe to Bishkek, and he shared his relief and desire to do the same.  Anna still didn't feel great and was on board with our plan to be done with the whole bike nonsense.  When we finally crested the top of the endless climb, we did have a really nice descent to Intersection Cafe.  I was still tense with displeasure though.  When we got to our destination, Emily was pretty eager to join team "bail on bikes" and while Brad really wanted to ride more, decided to make peace with us ruining his plans.  In hindsight,  I have guilt.  But in the moment, you have no idea how f'ing done I was.  Like, I reached the end of my limits right there, in that spot (wherever it was) on that highway.  I'm not sure I've ever been so sure about having reached my physical and mental limits.  I do not look back on this and question it.  

We had a really nice dinner of dumplings and a nice taxi ride back to Bishkek.  There's a whole vacation aspect of my trip that doesn't involve bikes, but I'm not going to blabber on about any of that.  

Reflections

I actually read back on some blog entries from races years ago and realized I'm still asking myself the same questions and struggling with the same competing desires.  I sign up for these ridiculously difficult and challenging races, but why?  I am not some sort of super athlete - or really even much of an athlete at all.  I'm a Welsh Corgi who likes to get outside.  (I am not an Iditarod Husky).  While I can't really answer these questions, I can tell you one thing.  Goal driven people like me like to set expectations around what "success" looks like, and it's often pretty linear and lacking in nuance.  Maybe it's ok in this life to fail sometimes (or more than sometimes), and maybe it's not even a failure if the journey was meaningful and enriching.  I had a great time.  It was an indescribably amazing experience and also fulfilling.  I made human connections that I value deeply, and experienced Kyrgyzstan in an intense way.  I managed in have some regular Type 1 fun, in addition to plenty of Type 2 fun.  My friend Jill told me when I was emailing with her about this: "life is one long existential dilemma where we spin our wheels in search of meaning, only to eventually, finally, sorta understand that life has no meaning and all there is, is joy."  Well said Jill.