The Endorphin FIX
“Almost Heaven, West Virginia!�
Christopher O’Connell - Team Water Turkey / 07.05.2003
I try to write about every race, but there have been only a couple that I never finished writing about – and those happen to be the few that were in one way or another difficult or frustrating. E-Fix 2001 was one of those races.
It was the first race I’ve had where one teammate had to drop out in the middle of the race – and it happened to be my close friend, Sean Smith. His knee was so badly injured, we had to walk our bikes the last few miles to the checkpoint where he pulled out.
I felt very guilty and stupid for not seeing the signs of his injury early on. And Sean’s absence, who had kept the team entertained and energized through the first half of the race with his crazy sense of humor and endless wit, was immediately felt by the rest of the team – like a sudden vacuum as we biked away, leaving him at the checkpoint. Still, the team held it together, and managed to cross the finish line, embracing Sean for the last few hundred yards, in mixed emotions of determination and lessons learned.
As I arrived at Camp Washington Carver to meet my two new teammates for this race, Vicki Mouw and Scott Fullerton, I was energized to attack this race again, with a year-and-a-half more experience and training.
Meeting Up
My teammates greeted me warmly even though I arrived past midnight. I was honored that they had stayed up waiting for me rather than simply heading to bed. I took it as a strong sign of our team’s cohesiveness, despite the fact that none of us had raced together – and in fact, neither Vicki nor myself had even met Scott in person.
We stayed up for a short time, talking and planning for the next day and the race. I was in the unique position of being looked upon as the team captain – a role that I have played many times in the past, but always with known quantities. It’s easy to be a team captain of a team that has worked together, trained, and prepared for a race for weeks or months ahead of time. Knowing when teammates are bonking, which members of the team need more time to get themselves organized, and which disciplines certain teammates struggle with makes it easy to plan and organize a focused team.
But in part because I did not know this team, I was sure that navigating the team and being team captain might be too much for me to handle alone. So I talked with the team, and we elected Scott to navigate the race. He, more than anyone else, had been focused on preparing for this race, ordering supplemental topo maps, trail guides and other materials that would potentially be beneficial to us as we faced the challenging 125-mile course.
SleepMonsters
