I don’t know why this is the phrase that came to mind as I started the Marji Gesick 100-mile mountian bike race in Marquette, Michigan last weekend, but I grabbed onto it and added it to “Stay Curious” and “Be Patient” as my mantras for the day.

This spring, as I was determining my race schedule for the season, a friend from Marquette reached out and said that I should race Marji–and that I should try for the buckle. In Marji’s long history, no woman (spoiler: until this year) has ever broken the 12-hour mark to claim a belt buckle. Ben thought I might have a shot at it. I was hesitant, as, at the time, I’d never even ridden 100 miles on a mountain bike, and wasn’t sure a race of that distance was even within my capabilities.

Fast-forward to June, and I had successfully completed the 270-mile Rockstar Trail route, which meant that I now knew that I could at least ride 100 miles–even if not fast (and technically, not all at one time, since I “slept” before reaching 100 miles on Rockstar). In order to at least get some sense of the course, I stopped through Marquette on the way home from my PNW trip to ride with Ben–and fell apart. The first day that we rode together may have been my worst day on the bike all season. I was exceptionally fatigued from riding nearly 6-weeks straight and it had reached the point where physical fatigue had leeched into emotional fatigue. Add into that some awful stomach cramps and my own poor choice to ride Aspens on wet trails for the first time that season, and I was up front driving the struggle bus. (Sorry, Ben–I still feel bad for how poorly I rode that day). Over the two days, we rode a mixture of trails that were likely to be on the Marji course, as well as some other fun trails in the area. Despite mostly hating myself for how incapable I seemed to be at riding a mountain bike, I was in awe at the variety of the terrain (big Squamish-style rock slabs, janky rock gardens, flowing singletrack, etc.), and even more concerned that I wouldn’t be able to manage 100 miles through such slow, technical trails.

Then I returned home and suffered through two cross-country marathon races in the blistering summer heat and humidity of the southeast and wasn’t sure I wanted to do Marji at all. I’ve always echoed Dave Coar (one of my first mtb mentors) in saying that “if you stop having fun, it’s time to quit” and I was seriously considering whether my career in endurance mtb racing was over. Neither of those races were “fun.” I was to the point where, if I had only gotten into XCM World Championships and not Enduro, I was not going to go (which would have been a huge mistake in hindsight). But, I got into both disciplines, and despite struggling to find a positive, open mindset for XCM, ended up having fun (despite breaking my saddle) and really enjoying the course that is often described as the hardest XCM course in the world.

Something about finally having a “good” XCM race (even though I finished last, so not really a “good” performance/result) made me finally get excited about Marji. I knew that getting a buckle, especially in my first attempt and relying fully on neutral support, would require an absolutely perfect day–and even then, was going to be a stretch. But I was committed to try.

I had no idea how to pace for a 100-mile event that was likely to take me 12+ hours, but knew I’d have to just “send it” if I wanted a chance at that buckle. Simultaneously, I didn’t want to rush any passes and risk crashing, so told myself from the start, “Be Patient.” I pushed the power and effort where I could, but focused mostly on riding smooth. Cues from recent lessons with Harlan centered me: full-body pumping, flow through the corners, set up wide, active scanning, etc. I was determined, if nothing else, to maximize my ability to flow through the singletrack and get some solid skills practice in.

One of the sections of trail that I did remember from my pre-ride with Ben in June was the “top of the world” slab, and as I approached it, I was in a group of guys that split as they approached the climb up to the slab. I saw people walking on the left, and chose the right line which zig-zagged up, but was able to keep riding, looking for the line as I reached the top. All I remembered is that it was rideable if you went straight down (even if intimidating from the top), so I followed the sound of the hecklers, weaved around people slowed and walking their bikes, and pointed my bike down the slab–only to find more riders walking down the main line. I rarely yell in a mtb race, but my request of “Rider back,” escalated to a yell of “Riding this–MOVE!” as I attempted to hold a near-track stand while rolling the slab in order to not have to dismount–or take out the riders who were walking their bikes in front of me. Apologies to whoever it was I yelled at…and thanks for scrambling out of the way to let me by.

During that first ~30% of the race, I rode near a handful of local guys (one on a drop bar singlespeed?!) who clearly knew the trails, and benefited from being able to follow their lines and keep a really steady pace. Eventually though, our paces varied enough that we ended up spread out–and I was having so much fun rallying down all of the singletrack that, solo, I missed a turn and ended up off-course. My singlespeed drop bar friend somehow ended up off-course behind me and gratefully knew the course well-enough to realize that we were not in the right spot, and after a few mis-starts, we managed to backtrack and get back on course. At that point, I knew deep-down that any shot at a buckle was gone, which was all the more disappointing because I really had had a perfect day up until that point, but I buried that thought with a “stay curious, you don’t know what could happen” and kept on pushing.

My little off-course adventure did, however, contribute to me miscalculating my water supply, and then riding a solid 30-45 minutes without water. When I did finally see some people waiting to support their riders and asked desperately if anyone had water, it was a godsend. Shout out to all of the many people who were providing support along the course–and especially to Clare (who I met the day before the race, but when she saw me, asked if I needed anything, and I asked if she had a Red Bull, literally gave me the second half of her own Red Bull). I was a bit shocked throughout the day to hear people along the course shouting my name and cheering for me, as I really didn’t expect to know anyone all the way up in the UP of Michigan–what a fun surprise to see so many people that I knew!

In the last ~10 miles of the course, after it got dark, it started raining, which, honestly, was the conditions I’d initially expected for the whole day based on weather forecasts. Instead, we got hero dirt and perfect conditions for 90% of the ride–and some proper “East Coast” conditions for the last 10 miles. At that point, I was past the time cut off for the buckle, so had eased up just a bit–enough to choose to walk some of the steepest, punchiest climbs–especially as traction became questionable. My arms and hands were screaming at me by that point in the race, but I was still having a blast ripping the singletrack descents, and perhaps the most fun moment of the entire day came when I dropped into a wet slab (that I didn’t realize was rock until I was on it), immediately felt my tires losing traction, and just hung on and prayed there was a solid catch at the bottom. There was, my tires caught, I nailed the left turn at the bottom of the slab, and hooting and hollering something along the lines of “that was spicy!”, passed a bunch of dudes who had walked down.

When I crossed the finish line, my official time was 14:15:43, over two hours past the buckle pace. Riding without specific support did mean stopping at aid stations to fill my bottles, so I ended up with ~20 minutes of stopped time. That, in addition to the ~15-20 minutes off-course wouldn’t have put me in buckle time by itself–but it would have been really close (especially as it might have saved me from getting rained on, which would have sped up the last handful of miles)–and I think that I’d have been more willing to completely bury myself in the last half of the race if a buckle was still within reach. Still, three women did buckle this year, which is incredible–and I loved the race. What a fun day out on epic singletrack!