Huston, We Have Liftoff!

This is it.  The time has come.  The long, brutal hours of training, the endless research, the perpetual agonizing over gear…it is all finished.  My singular, two year grind towards this moment in time has come to an end, and finally, I stand on the precipice of the most extraordinary adventure of my life.  At long last, it is time to carve my own amazing saga into the pages of history.

The toughest mountain bike race on Earth begins in 7 days, and I’ll be all up in it.  Here are the two important links for tracking racers:

The Tour Divide online leaderboard:  http://tourdivide.org/leaderboard

MTBCast, where racers call in and leave recorded messages during the race:  http://mtbcast.com/

Also, I am still gratefully accepting your generous donations, as the costs of this behemoth of a race continue to mount.  Click here to donate. 

I’m having a little trouble sorting through my emotions right now.  Obviously, I am ultra excited to have finally arrived at this point, but a plethora of mixed feelings are swirling around inside me as well.  Nervousness, anxiety, jubilation, fear…they all have their moments in the forefront.  I expected as much as “The Riding Hour” drew near. 

However, one feeling I didn’t count on was disbelief.  I just can’t believe that I am about to become one of those guys that I’ve always wished I could be.  A guy who I’d only ever read about before while longing from afar to be in his shoes.  A guy who waved goodbye to normalcy and went off to accomplish something great, something magical, something impossible.  You always wonder what it would be like to be that guy.  You hang on that guy’s every word, his every story, because he has experienced something that you yearn to experience as well, but probably will never.   Your soul lives through that guy while your body sits in a cubicle.

I left my cubicle.  I am about to become that guy. 

It’s just so surreal.  Getting to this point has been my goal for so very long that it feels weird to finally stand on the threshold.  I still feel like I should be training next week, going over gear, researching the route, things like that.  I mean, that has been my life’s focus for almost two years.  Now, that ever-present pursuit is gone, and it will never return.  To be sure, it is about to be replaced by something greater, but it feels like I just gave birth, and now I miss the baby that was growing inside my body!  Sorry to get all amniotic on you, but its an accurate way to describe what it feels like.  

I have been asked by many people if I feel “ready.”  This is a difficult question to answer.  How could anyone ever be truly ready for an extreme undertaking of this epic magnitude?  Veteran riders say the only way you can truly be “ready” for the Tour Divide is by actually racing the Tour Divide.  When your body stops fighting you and realizes you are just going to keep pushing it harder every single day… when your mind finally relents and clears itself of cumbersome, worldly thoughts in favor of just one simple precept: “ride, ride, ride”… when your bones, your muscles, your brain, and your spirit are forced to succumb to the shocking rigors that you have thrust upon them, and everything that is you slowly harmonizes to become one big, efficient  pedaling machine…only then can a person be truly ready for this race.  Hopefully that will happen with me!  Until it does, I can say only that I have trained hard, mentally and physically, and now I can but saddle up, clip myself in, and hope for the best as I ride into the dawn of adventure.

My bike is boxed, and my gear is packed.  I have a few loose ends to wrap up over the weekend, and then on Monday, my wife and I blast off for Canada.  In all likelihood, this will be my last post until after the race.  I’d like to say that I’ll post from Canada, but I suspect I will be too busy.  And I just don’t see myself posting from towns during the race.  I know how I feel after riding 120+ miles in a day, and it ain’t “typey!”

And so, friends, family, and fans of the race, I hope you have enjoyed my unlikley story up to  this point, and I hope you have a great time watching the action!  Fate willing, I will have a monumental tale of triumph to regale you with in a months time.  Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who has offered me support and encouragment.  I couldn’t have made it here without you.

This is Tony Huston,  Tour Divide 2010 racer, signing off.

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