"Now if yer lost, and I'm lost, whatcha gonna do?"

So said a little old man with a fluffy white santa beard and one arm, who tolerated our trespassing. He was mighty friendly like, trying to help us find the elusive Gay Sharp's Knob. We were about five hard hours into the race as "The Hebrew and the Hari Krishna," that is, my boyfriend Patrick and I.

The idea of the Wild 100 is to find your own way to these 6 checkpoints (in order) marked on a topo map, in the mtb mecca of Slatyfork, WV, with some limits as to where you can use the road, but pretty much anything else goes. They toned down the course this year to keep us off the wetter-than-usual trails. Our goal was to beat our buddies Jen and Brian ("Mayor Barry's Minions") from DC, but after four hours of hammering, they dropped us. We join our heroes trying to find checkpoint three, as they are starting to chew each other out for not being able to read a map.

The one-armed Santa sitting on his porch was not lost. He said, "You don't wanna go up the back way. Not on your bicycle." Because of the way we had approached the knob, and the fact that most stretches of pavement were off limits, we had no choice. We were screwed. I cried and threatened Pat idly. I really wanted to quit right there, as it was a straight downhill on the highway back to camp. My neck was killing me-a little nerve was pinching on and off, and there was no one anywhere around. Pat said, ok, let's turn back, and I said, "Ok, but let's just go down here.."

Somehow I led us to the entrance to the trail. We climbed the fence, and found the 15 kids who we had blown away earlier, all way confused and tired, wandering the grazing hill, following pointless cow trails and coming back down saying they ended nowhere in brambles. Pat suddenly caught sight of a cross-country ski sign that said "trail" and started following---leading everyone, including one of our other competitor couples, through the cow pies, nettles and scrub. We climbed through a barbed wire fence and wound around the absurd knob and when we finally arrived, Pat said, "Look who's here," and looked up to see our friends and rivals were flying out of the checkpoint. It had been about ½ hour that we spent lost, but even so, they were just leaving as we began the slog straight up the dag knobule. Blast this bloody knob!

After stocking up on H20 and PB&J at the checkpoint, getting the low down from some friends on how to get to the next checkpoint, we bombed back down the knob, grabbed the road and formed up a four person pack with the Sobe kids---till they dusted us. I was so toasted at this point. Way discouraged, neck killing, body dragging, looking for that second wind and approaching the day's toughest climb. I think we probably had gone 50 miles or more at this point, including some rugged singletrack, rippin' roads and a whole lotta mud.

The Tea Creek Mountain. Sigh. It was a push up for me,'cause I had long since "begun to deliquesce into languid jelly.*" It was all I could do to stumble through the rock garden. We were coming up on the 8-hour mark. A miracle happened, and a package of Tylenol appeared in the trail. "I can use this," said the jelly at this point, popped the pills and wobbled off at high speed.*

Pat said, "It's just like the off-camber downhill at Gambrill," and I tried to imagine the familiar trail, which I still can't ride very well. The guy behind me was laughing, "Man, you are bouncing all over the place, but you aren't falling off the trail! Sweet riding! Nice line!" I was happy not to crash or slip off the ledge on my little steel hard tail, in a bleary state of too-long racing. We had to make up time there, and indeed, they told us the team ahead only had 5 minutes on us when we hit check 4.

Pat wanted to chase after them, and I wanted to rest. Guess who prevailed? So we ate homemade banana pudding, (thanks Bush) and greeted the guy who rolled in about 3 minutes after us, even though he had taken the long way. We knew we were home free at this point---at least we were going to finish. A storm was brewing.

Another hour plus of gradual climbing would take us to check 5. The music in my head had petered out. I had begun the day at 8AM climbing like a maniac to Jailhouse rock, then after a bad N-sync period, lapsed into a slow Elvis Costello dirge until I lost the station. When the food kicked in, I got a little power back, and Pat said by way of encouragement, "Come on, you can take this guy," so I took my favorite spot on Pat's wheel and we worked our way outta the woods, up the dull doubletrack, quiet in the lovely dense, remote forest. It started to rain.

We were definitely riding through some bear's neighborhood. I found out later that Mike Buchness had seen two bears, one right there on Bannock Shoals and one on Sharp's. Later at the bar he told me, "That bear was checking me out, so I yelled at him, Aaaargh! You Bear! I'm not food!" Mike ended up taking second-no wonder he rode so fast. Ray Clark won, wearing his DirtRag jersey and hailing from Fredrick, MD. He unseated three-time winner Chris (what a super-cutie) Scott. Ray had been at the first Wild 100 in something like 1987, so it was about time he won one.

When Pat and I finally hit that last gravel road that would lead us home, I had forgotten the 9 hours just past and felt like a new woman. He said it was just like a normal day at work for him as a bike courier. He said he could ride another 10 hours. Whatever. Anyhow, he convinced me to latch onto a pace line of four guys on the road---I think they were team "Four Lost Crackers," and we let them break the wind for a moment as we wound around the ridge, way high up, with the sun beginning to reemerge after the rain shower, and the mists floating up out of the hollows. I started to get dropped.

Suddenly, I got a spurt, as if it were just a quick sprint to the line, and Pat and I stood up and put away the four guys on the last climb. We flew down the gravel for three miles, until the bottom, where we had to pull out the map again. As usual, Pat wanted to take the wrong trail. As usual, I was coaxing him gently onto the right one, when the Four Lost Cracker Guys caught us, and, for the millionth time that day I was asked, "Is this the right trail?" And yet again, I had to say, "I don't know," and my hands were frozen and I couldn't zip my jacket, so one of the Crackers helped me! Thanks, buddy.

Pat and I ducked in the woods in one spot, while they tried the other. On our way out of five, we saw the Crackers bushwhacking through to get back on track. Off and running again to the final checkpoint at the Elk River touring center (ertc.com). Done! We came in after 10 hours and 30 minutes, vanquished by 11 minutes by our betters from DC. They ended up second and we were third, out of 6 CoEd teams, one who beat us but got DQed for taking some illicit pavement. We did beat the 4 guy Cracker team, which I was pretty ok with, even though they were sweet and tried to help me zip up. And then we got drunk. The End.

* from Salman Rushdie's "The Ground Beneath Her Feet."