I’ve heard the HHH rest stops are great. Lots of food, fun times, helpful people. I assume all of this is true as I didn’t get to spend much time at any of them before Hell’s Gate and by the time I got to the ones after Hell’s Gate, they were in the process of shutting down. All of us there knew we were in the last group of riders, and I know the volunteers had been there for a while, but it would have been nice if they had at least pretended like they thought we had a chance to finish. Overall though, they were fine-with one notable exception.
At the 80 mile rest stop, there was a “carb station.” I use the word “was” because it was completely gone by the time I got there. The table was still up, along with the “carb station” sign and another sign for “cookies.” Considering that I had only eaten a smoothie and pieces of oranges and bananas, I was seriously in need of something more substantial. I asked one of the volunteers at the drink station if they were really out of cookies. Just as she turned around to ask someone else, I noticed a volunteer who could politely be described as extraordinarily large in weight and slight in stature who was sitting on bench under the drink station tent shove an entire tub of enormous oatmeal cookies into the bag sitting next to her. Normally, I would have just moved on, but I was not exactly thinking clearly and as far as I was concerned, those were my freakin’ cookies. I earned them. Hell, I paid for them. Just as the person turned back around to me to say that they were all out of cookies I started to point and stammer something about the fat woman in the back, but before I could say anything he said “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got some extra stuff on my bike. Come with me.” He must have seen what I saw and sensed my desperation, so I stood there, half pointing in general direction of cookie thief, completely blindsided by this man’s generous offer and said “Really?” I know, very eloquent. He hooked me up with some hammer gel and a Clif Bar. I have never been so grateful for the equivalent of $1.25 worth of food in my life. Also, I think he might have saved me from getting banned from the HHH for life. So really, I’m indebted to this man.
And that’s it. Those are my stories of the HHH. A week after the ride, I did a triathlon sprint with my dad and it was disastrous. My body had clearly not even come close to a full recovery, and I posted my worst time ever. Lesson learned. Now, whenever things get hard in my life, I can just keep my race day slogan in my mind: Winning means never having to do this crap again.
