Last (adverb AND verb)

There's a poem that has been circulating around the Internet for the past, oh, about fifteen years ago that ends in the lines (and I'm misquoting here): "Victory doesn't always go to the swiftest or fastest man," and today, looking back on what happened in the Marcha Cicloturista Iñigo Cuesta yesterday, I can't entirely say I disagree.

What happened? Hell, what didn't happen? The weather report was way off-base (to our advantage, luckily.) I got dropped by the pelotón within the first five kilometres, ended up making a new friend, got thrown in the sag van by the Guardia Civil so as not to be run over by a rally car derby (thereby missing one of the climbs), went up one of the longest climbs in Cantabria, got my period in the middle of the following climb, did NOT finish last, but finished enough last that I had the opportunity to hang onto the wheel of one of the most experienced pro cyclists in the world. It was just one of those days that you had to live, because otherwise you would never get the full flavour of the weirdness of the contrasts. But I'll give it my best shot.

Up at 6:30, a full half-hour before David. Laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, mustering all the greatest hits of "Mind Gym" so as not to get too freaked out (Rahsaan Bahati: "The race ain't in yo' legs, it's in YO' HEAD!!"). At seven he gets up, we get dressed. In the muss and fuss of the days leading up to the Cuesta I have somehow forgotten to put my maillot in the wash and it has developed an embarrassing sweaty pong. I can't find any hair elastics. My stomach isn't jumping around, and I can't decide if that's a good sign or not. Breakfast. Car out of the hotel garage, water in bottles, neoprene booties on feet, anything to keep our minds off the task at hand. David tells me to go ahead to the start line; he's got some final things to do. I ride ahead and in a group of nearly 400 cyclists, I see exactly two other women and a lot of very young guys with very ripped legs who pay no attention to me, which is good in a way - the last thing I need is someone getting in my face with some smack talk. Cuesta himself is at the front, giving an interview to the local press: you can tell it's Cuesta, not only by his distinctive profile, but because he's the only one who's not nervous.

The race is due to start at 8:30 but it doesn't get started until 8:43, which is still not enough time to find David. The group takes off like a shot and no matter how fast I ride, I'm still being passed left, right (and almost centre) by guys who are young enough to be my son or men old enough to be my father. How the hell fast are we going, anyway? I flip the computer over to the Speed function. Nothing. At some point, the magnet on the spoke has gotten twisted around. Damn, damn damn damn. At what point will I remember to check for this stupid stuff BEFORE the races start, instead of standing around like a catatonic teenager?

I stop, flip the magnet. The rest of the pelotón shoots off. I hammer to try to keep up, but it's not enough - my heart rate is climbing too fast, my athsma is starting to give me trouble and it would be ridiculous to kill myself in the first ten kilometres when there are still 140 to go.

We turn off onto a secondary highway after six or seven kilometres, and the first DNFs start to show up. One guy's hit something and has taco'ed his front wheel. Another older gentleman is being pulled out of a ditch by a Cruz Roja ambulance team. I start doing yoga breathing: better to finish last and in one piece, rather than go like hell and not make it at all. When they start paying me to do this shit, then I'll start doing crazy shit to beat the kids and the hammerheads. But this is my first year of riding - it's not even a year yet, more like eight months - and there's no sense in risking injury this close to Quebrantahuesos.

At some point, I catch up with a guy who's wearing a QH jersey, and I stick with him; he keeps looking behind him every so often, and I can't tell whether or not he's annoyed that he's got a chick on his wheel. We get to talking: his name's Roberto, he lives and works in Bilbao, and he did the Cuesta last year: "It's a LOT faster this year." We stick together through the first climbs, and make it to the Alta de la Magdalena, on the border with Cantabria, together. We're pretty much the last ones to show up, but we're still 45 minutes ahead of the final cutoff time. Roberto is a little flipped out: "I'm doing the same as last year, and when I got here last year, I was in the middle of the bunch. I can't believe how fast it is this year." Roberto takes off after Magdalena, but I take it a little more slowly: I don't know this road, and since I've never been to Cantabria, I want to enjoy the views a bit.

Cantabria, for those of you who are looking for a bit of green Spain, is gorgeous. It's amazingly beautiful. It's frightfully hilly. It's lush and green and friendly and requires a degree of concentration on the downhills that I haven't had to exercise since I left Kemptville - not because the curves are closed and dangerous (they're no worse than anything in Madrid) but because there's a surprising amount of cow plop on the pavement - not something you have to watch for in the capital. On the way down, Ellie's back wheel starts fishtailing a bit on the curves, something which I think is due to having caught a bit of cow pattie, but which turns out to be a fast-developing flat....which, of course, we discover on a closed, 3m-wide highway near Vega de Pas.

I say "we" because, at that point, I was last, and had the luxury of having the sag van, the mechanics AND the food van behind me. "Don't worry," yells Manolo, the sag van driver, "we gotta be behind somebody!!"

We get through Vega de Pas and up the second climb when, one kilometre up, Manolo scootches in front of me, slams the brakes on and yells, "Get in the van!!"

"What?!" I yell back. "Am I that far back!"

"NO!" he yells. "I just got a call from the Guardia Civil and they're closing the road in five minutes! There's a rally car derby scheduled for two PM and the first practice sessions start NOW!"

"Does this disqualify me?" I yell.

"Just get in the van!" he hollers back.

He's got a 24-pack of Coca Cola and eight kilos of Martínez pastries in that van, and going with him saves me eighteen kilometres of riding. He's not gonna get any arguing out of me.

We pick up Roberto and another guy from Cariñena on the way up the hill and drive down to the next village, where we're dropped off and sent up the Alto del Caracol. By my calculations I'm probably an hour behind David, but not so far back that I'm going to get disqualified.

And this is where the really annoying problems start. At some point something sharp has gotten embedded in the €35 Kevlar rear tire, making the rear wheels floppier than Sylvester Stallone's jowls; the mechanics, glad for something to do, cheerfully change the wheel in three minutes. I start again, ride a couple of kilometres with the mechanics behind me (Manolo's headed off to the next intersection to drop off the Coke we didn't drink) and then I start feeling those sharp pains in my back that every woman dreads.

One note to organizers of races and sportives: If you want to increase the rate of female participation in your events....PROVIDE TOILET FACILITIES. I don't care if they're Port-a-Potties or calling up the owners of the bars along the way to ask them to let the ladies use the loos. There is NOTHING more embarrassing than having to drop trou (culotte?) on the side of a highway, behind a pile of gravel, Tampax in hand, praying that no one happens to drive by at that moment...and it's even worse when you've got the unfortunate luck of having a van full of mechanics who genuinely care about you arriving safely, but don't hang back enough to allow you to pee in private. Luckily, the mechanics I was with had to stop for the same reason, so that gave me two minutes of privacy. That said, I'm pretty shameless with stuff like that; I can't say that most other women I know would be as willing to attend to nature's call in the middle of a road as I am.

Which is a shame because, really, you CAN go faster with an empty bladder. Surprisingly more quickly, really. Make it over Alto del Caracol ten minutes later, quick downhill to the turnoff, where there are now eight guys waiting for me with Aquarius, pastries, gels and Coke in hand; I now have an entire entourage waiting to see if I can get my butt over that next climb.

The entire climb up Lunada, when done in its entire 32-kilometre length, is rated at 220 on www.altimetrias.net, making it an HC if it's included in the Vuelta. The final 15 kilometres up to the ski resort really isn't THAT bad if you take it easy - something which not everyone is able to do. I haven't let my competitive gene come out much this year simply because I don't want to blow up that close to the end. Especially when it's not terrain I know well. Technically I should have gone up the first three climbs with a cadence of 75, keeping my heart rate below 150, but since I didn't do the second climb, I consider Lunada the third climb and try to maintain the same stats, which I manage to do by repeating, like a mantra, in yo' head, not yo' legs, in yo' head, not yo' legs, in yo' head, not yo' legs, for LITERALLY twenty minutes.

(I'm gonna knock you out. Momma said knock you out.) In yo' head, not yo' legs.

(Enfer du nord, Tourmalet, Tour de France, Tour de France....) In yo' head, not yo' legs.

(The only one I know is waiting to take me away....Most of the time you are happy; you're a weirdo...) In yo' head, not yo' legs.

I'd rather listen to the fight between my mental iPod and my inner coach rather than think about what's happening to me.

The further higher I go, the more empty packets of PowerBar gels I see. A little further on, small puddles of vomit start appearing on the edges of the pavement....

(I'm gonna knock you out. Momma said knock you out.) In yo' head, not yo' legs.

I pass a guy from Hondarribia CC who is paler than my untanned stomach and looks like he's going to suffer a coronary any minute now. I offer to stick with him but I don't think I can go that slowly. He just looks at me like he can't decide whether he should say "yes" or hurl.

The mechanics have gone ahead and are sitting on a curve about five kilometres from the top.

"How you feeling?" they yell as I brake and stop and pull out what's left of some PowerBar candies.

"I'm all right, to be honest," I say.

"That's good," says the cute one with the long curly black hair, "'cause that poor bastard is really suffering." He jacks a thumb towards a guy who I think passed Roberto and I at the first feed station. "You might want to ride with him and make sure he makes it to the top."

I nod and push off. "See you at the top."

Going up Lunada presents one other problem that I hadn't anticipated: the view down. On most climbs, you get a pretty good view of the surrounding scenery, but because the climb up Lunada basically follows the inside line of a crescent of mountains, your view of the scenery is basically limited to the surrounding peaks and a bird's eye view of the highway you just climbed. All. The. Way. Down. All. Eight. Hundred. Metres. Down. This is where my vertigo, which I manage to keep in check on most occasions, kicks in big time. I literally cannot look down because it makes me nauseous in a way that climbing itself does not manage. I keep my eyes focused on the guy suffering in front of me because I know that looking over my shoulder will make me seize with fear.

"Hi," I say, pulling up beside him. "Want to hang on my wheel for a while?"

He nods. We make small talk, about as much small talk as you can when one person is totally blown and the other is afraid to look side to side. His name is Nacho. He's one of the organizers of the Clásica de Bilbao. He looks a lot like Yago. Do NOT look down whatever you do. He freely admits that he only got about two hundred hours of riding before this. Don't look to the right. Don't even look at the billy goats feeding by the side of the road. Nacho is surprised by the calibre of rider who's chosen to take part "It's a lot like a race but without prizes." Boy, does he ever look like Yago. Does Yago have a brother who lives in Bil--Christ Almighty, Dawn, do NOT look to the right --

"How much longer?" he puffs.

"Two kilometres," I lie. This is how the Arabs got Lawrence through Arabia: they never told him the truth about how much further there was. Maybe they lied to themselves, too, in order to survive.

We make it to the top at 14:42, three minutes before the cutoff time, to applause and cheers from twelve different people, including a couple who are hiking in the area. They cannot force enough Aquarius or Martínez pastries or Coke on us. There is no sign of Hondarribia Man; the Guardia Civil on a motorbike who's waiting there says that the man refuses to stop.

All I want to do is get off this effing mountain and get down to Villarcayo and hope David's not too pissed off that I'm taking so long.

Snowplows have basically scraped the living bejesus out of the surface of the road, which makes the six kilometres down to Espinosa de los Herreros a living hell on the ankles and hands; I keep under 40 because I'm not sure who's likely to be sent flying by a pothole first, me or Nacho. Both of us are pretty frigging shaky.

And we get down to the bottom, where the mechanics are waiting for us with a thin guy wearing Cervélo team gear, and it doesn't hit me immediately just WHO this guy is. It doesn't hit me, honestly, until I see the Cervélo bike and see the profile that we're being led home by Iñigo Cuesta himself, who traditionally has accompanied the final riders home on the last 35 kilometres. Cuesta is gracious enough to keep the average speed down to about 35 kilometres, though you get the sense that he wouldn't think twice about riding up this road to go to Santander, oh, to do something simple like have breakfast with a buddy.

The mental iPod gets shut off and Yago's voice comes on: Stick to his wheel!!!

Bloody damn flipping well RIGHT I'm sticking to his wheel!! You think I'm gonna give up bragging rights to something like this??? Hang for an hour on the wheel of the guy who helped Carlos Sastre win the Tour de France last year??!?! SIR, YES SIR!!!

We make small talk on the way down - you enjoying the ride? What do you think of the jerseys? Think you'll make it back next year? - and I'm impressed by Cuesta's personal involvement in the project. Frankly, aside from the lack of toilets for the ladies, I'm impressed by the whole setup. The entire town of Villarcayo has gotten involved in this to a degree I haven't seen since I was in college and Canton would back St. Lawrence's hockey team.

Cuesta breaks into a grin. "Hey, I forgot to mention...we've got one more climb before we make it back to Villarcayo."

"Cat One?" I yell back.

"Of course!"

"Well, let's get it done now before the effects of the Coke and gels wear off!!"

Cuesta laughs. Nacho looks like he purposely wants to take a header into the ditch.

It occurs to me later that maybe I should have made more of an effort to converse and be funny and witty and stuff like that, but it's not every day that you get the chance to follow the line and the wheel of someone who's got more than twenty years of pro experience under his belt. You can watch pro cycling on TV to try to get ideas on what to do (and what not to do) but there's absolutely nothing like riding with a pro to learn. Cuesta is the very image of calm on his bike, and in my pre-bonk mental state I focus intensely on trying to pick up hints: Don't move your hips so much. Focus on the fluidity of your pedaling. I take his line through curves: he pedals through curves, I pedal. He drops his outer leg, I do the same.

I hope I'm not making him nervous staring at him like this, but I know that it will be a long time before the next time I get the road handling lessons that I will get in these 35 kilometres. And let's not kid ourselves. We all want to believe in the magic of being with someone special. We want to believe in the transfer-ability of an experience like this, hoping that we get touched with some kind of magic touch, hoping that something like this will prove to be transcendental and career-changing. I want to impress him, too: "Wow, there's this chick who rides with Chamartín who's not all that bad...." As if: If I were really that impressive, I wouldn't be third from DFL. But if I weren't third from DFL, I wouldn't be getting a lesson like this. I wouldn't be riding with the guy whose name everyone mentioned when I bought Ellie last year: "Why can't you ride at 40? Look at Cuesta: he's the same age as you and he's still enjoying a pro career."

We make it into Villarcayo just after 4, when they're in the process of taking everything down. David's at the finish line, camera at the ready, and he breaks into an enormous grin when he sees Cuesta and I come in together. Cameras are out. High-fives are exchanged with the various guys who manned feed stations, the various support vans. Photos are taken. I manage to get off the bike without falling off. At some point, Nacho disappears and I don't see him during the post-race meal and raffle. I can't even think of taking a shower now: I'm so out of it that if I submit myself to a flow of hot water I will fall asleep on the spot.

Roberto's sitting by himself in the sports centre for the post-meal ride (I win an Orbea mountain biking shirt that will look good on my little brother). We invite him over to sit with us, have a good laugh with some of the other cyclists and volunteers. We pile our stuff into David's car at the end, swap, exchange numbers so that we can go for coffee at Quebranta this year. The drive back is uneventful, since we manage to stay ten minutes behind most of the thunderstorms that are blowing through Castile.

And it strikes me that even though cycling has come very close to breaking me physically and emotionally many times in the past year, I have never seen so many rainbows as I have while on my bike.