Trans Iowa Stories: Four To Go

GT (L) with Travis (M) and Al Brunner. The only father-son duo to finish a T.I.

  "Trans Iowa Stories" is an every Sunday post which helps tell the stories behind the event. You can check out other posts about this subject  by clicking on the "Trans Iowa Stories" link under the blog header. Thanks and enjoy! 

By 2:00pm Sunday I was packing up my stuff and plucking the last stakes that Tony and Mike had placed into the ground marking the route into the finish for Trans Iowa v12. Once I had all of that cleared away, you wouldn't have ever known we had been there. I was very satisfied, not only with this particular finish area for T.I.v12, but for all of the 14 versions of stopping points we had during the history of the event, because we never trashed the places. We picked up after ourselves, and for that, I have to thank all involved. I'm pretty proud of that fact. 

Anyway, here I was, in the truck, scanning my finish line data taken down for me by Paul Toigo, who sat dutifully for the entire morning taking down names and times for me. At the end of his volunteering, he showed me that I had four missing people. Not good! While I was physically exhausted after being up for 34 plus hours already, and after being drug through the knothole emotionally for all that time as well, I had to pull on my big-boy britches and go look for the lost. I felt that was my duty, despite the event being 'officially' over. Leaving folks out on course was fine with me if I knew they were still out there. However; I hadn't heard a peep from any of the four I had missing on my list, and no one connected to the event had seen any of them for hours. 

Jon Vandis, (L) and Crystal Wintle at the vacated finish area, post T.I.v12. Image by Vandis.

 It didn't take long for me, as I backtracked the course, to find two of the missing four. Jon Vandis and Crystal Wintle were riding together and were about five or so miles away from the finish when I crossed their path. It was hot by now, and the wind was strong out of the South. They were confident that they would get back to Grinnell and thanked me for looking out for them. So, 50% down, now onward to find the rest of them! 

Backtracking a course by reading cues meant to take you the opposite direction can be tricky. Try that on a sleep-deprived brain and it gets really difficult! It was slow going, but I didn't want to miss anyone. I got well back from the finish line, nearly 20 miles, and did not see anyone. I was getting pretty concerned. I stopped at the end of a Level B Road and assessed the situation by doing some math and thinking things through. It wasn't as easy as it sounds. Being in the state I was in, it was a process that took many minutes, instead of a few moments. 

I stopped here and sat a while trying to think things through.

It was also a very emotionally trying time. I was already in the throes of 'Post Project Syndrome', and waves of sadness would overtake me at unawares. I went through my first one trying to process what I was doing at that moment in tracking down two missing riders. After a while, I gathered my thoughts again and determined that if these two riders were still on course, they were so far off target to be anywhere close to the official finish time as to be definitely 'on their own recognizance' at that point. 

This was after 4:00pm, a full two hours post T.I.v12, and judging from the conditions, had I seen a rider at 20 miles out, they would not get to Grinnell before 6:00pm, a full four hours post T.I.v12. So, with some regret, some bit of disappointment, and some anger at not being told by people that they were 'out' of the event, I decided to cut my search short and head for home. I had been up now for nearly 37 hours without sleep and I had an hour and a half drive home yet to do. 

Scott McConnell, in the distance, the last rider out.

I decided to drive the Level B Road and hang a right to get to Highway 14 and then navigate my way home from there. This happened to still be the T.I.v12 course, and when I got to the intersection with the highway, I discerned a figure off in the distance toiling away on a bike. Could it be? I drove across the highway, stopped, and awaited the rider's passing. Sure enough, it was Scott McConnell, the last rider on the T.I.v12 course! 

Scott was tired, but he was okay, and he was determined to finish. I asked him if he thought he was the last person, to which he replied that he was really pretty confident that no one was left behind him at that point. Satisfied that Scott was okay, and understanding his feeling that he was the last rider, I felt a whole lot better than I had a couple of hours earlier. My mind at ease, I bid him farewell and through a mind-fog a thousand meters deep, I somehow made my way back home. 

But what about that last rider of the four missing riders? Well, it was Will Ritchie, and Will was a very responsible and capable rider who I knew would have called me or made an effort to contact me if he was out or in trouble. I trusted that he had done that, or had tried to get a hold of me. I also had resources that I could access once I arrived back home to ascertain how and when Will might have tried to reach out. In the end, his call to Trans Iowa Radio, made Saturday evening, was his DNF call when it should have been called in to me. This resulted in reaching the goal of having 100% of the riders accounted for. 

After Trans Iowa v12, I wrote a post on this blog called "Heroes" which dealt with those in this event, and other Trans Iowa events, that finished 'beyond the time limit'. It was my way of acknowledging those folks who decided to stick it out and finish, since they had the directions, despite missing the time cut. Many people thought I should grandfather these folks in as 'official' finishers of Trans Iowa. Some who completed the course, but fell outside the time cut, declared that for themselves without my blessing. In the end, my take is that there is a boundary- the time window for the event- and you are either outside or inside. There is no 'grey area' in that. While making such seemingly harsh distinctions may seem arbitrary and unnecessary to some, I have been on both sides of that as a rider. So, it isn't like I have not been subject to such distinctions, or that I don't know how that feels. To my way of thinking, it is much how 'life' is. Fair? Maybe not, but neither is life. It's a lesson worth living through, if you happen to find yourself 'living'. 

I would suggest that those 'heroes' who made the commitment to finish despite not gaining 'official recognition' were doing a bang-up job of 'living life'.

Next: No Rest