Sometimes the race you think you’ve lost ends up becoming the race you remember the most.
After injuring my pinky tendon during the Yukon 1000, I was told to completely rest my hand until we knew exactly what was going on. No bike, no paddling and no racing. What’s more is that I got told this new 24 hours before I was planning to race La Pine Loop, a 6 hour local race that was going to be the warm up for Nationals and India.
I was pretty devastated. There was a lot of uncertainty around what the rest of my season might look like.
However, after sitting with it for a little while, I realized, the Dr did not say no running. So why not run the whole thing? It took a bit of convincing of Matthias, but with in a few minutes we had a new plan.
We ran every bike section. Matthias did the paddling while I basically doggy-paddled up front. We bushwhacked, navigated, redlined it, suffered, and somehow managed to stay up front.
After 4.5 hours of racing, we crossed the finish line less than 30 seconds ahead of the next team.
First overall.
The win was pretty incredible, but what meant the most was getting to experience that feeling again — being out there, figuring things out as they came, pushing hard, and racing with a teammate. I had been so worried this injury was going to take all of that away, instead, it just made us find another way.
I’ll share a full update on my hand soon, but the short version is: I CAN RACE NATIONALS AND INDIA. Racing is on.
It’s just going to involve a little more creativity, a little more discomfort, and probably a whole lot more figuring things out along the way. And honestly, I’m pretty damn grateful for that.
The full La Pine Loop story is over on Bend Racing — including the bush-bashing, one-handed swimming, navigation, and a very close finish: BENDRACING BLOG.
