The Gutterball - The Quest for the perfect game

I could hear the wind howling outside of my tent when I woke up late on Sunday. Anxious to see the direction it was blowing I crawled out of my tent to find strong winds from the south, exactly as we expected. The good news, the wind would bring warm weather from the south, the bad news was severe crosswinds, which would certainly hurt our chances in the days quest.

300 miles in 24 hours. Could it be done? The distance from Grand Junction to Fort Collins. Most thought it was 150 miles too far for us. It was about 170 miles farther than our previous days best.

We were in Ericson, NE, 300 miles outside of Des Moines, IA, and the starting point of the gutterball. Little was said as we packed up and headed out to meet Ray, who would support us and drive behind us during the night. Our first priority was to eat. Lately when we go to a restaurant we order at least two entrees each. What would happen today? We needed something big, real big. We scanned the highway for some sort of diner or buffet, there was nothing, I went into the gas station to ask some questions. I explained our situation briefly to the lady at the counter and she handed me a sheet of paper for a pancake feed at the local gym. It must have been destiny I thought, not just a breakfast but a feeding and exactly the fuel we needed. We annihilated pancake after pancake while making some friends and scoring an interview with the local newspaper.

The sirens rang outside of the fire station, it was noon and our start time. We would ride until noon the next day, hoping to reach the 300 mile goal in that time. Our initial thought was a 15 mph average for 20 hours, leaving us with 4 hours off of the bike to cram in as much calories as possible. The first three hours on the bike was a constant math problem going through our heads. Taking our average speed and comparing it to the watch on Justin's bike. At three O'clock we covered exactly 45 miles.

We soon developed a system on the bike, going off of the mile markers on the side of the road, we each took two mile pulls at the front. It was always disheartening to see mile marker one, once we turned on a new road, a constant reminder of how many miles we had to go.

The miles slowly ticked by two at a time, and before we knew it we were in the dark. At first it was exhilarating, the wind had died and our speed, although the same, seemed so much faster. That feeling however quickly faded and was overcome by exhaustion, fatigue and pain. We struggled to hold a straight line, weaving from side to side in our sleep deprived state.

A mile marker passed indicating Justin’s turn for a pull at the front. Nothing happened, did he not see the marker? I kept going, looking back occasionally to see Justin’s head staring down at his pedals. He was in his own world, the pain cave, an all encircling state in which there is no escaping. He rode up next to me, ‘I don’t think I’ll make it, I’m down to one leg’ he said. His achelis tendon was making pedaling a nightmare. I looked down at my computer which read 210 miles. Our speed was slowly decreasing to a crawl, I stayed in front to try to lift the pace, but it was useless our legs were not responding. This could be it I thought, we’ll never make it at this rate. All of a sudden our speed started to increase, 14, 15, 16, 17 mph. We were being pushed along, I looked to the side of the road and noticed the rows of wheat lining the road swaying, the wind was back, and for once in our favor. Justin came in front with new determination, there was still a chance.

We made it to Panora and the beginning of the bike path that would lead us the last 60 miles into Des Moines. The sun started to rise and we hit some of the first flat ground of the whole day. We were hungry but didn’t have the time to sit down for a proper meal. It was going to be close, with 2 hours 15 minutes we had 30 miles to ride. We weaved in and out of bike paths and back roads at full speed as Justin navigated the route through Des Moines. We were going to have to ride past the city to make 300. We kept heading east, it was 11:30 and we were about to hit the mark, half a mile to go. Sick of the awful road we ended up on, we rode into a safeway parking lot to do laps, hands raised in victory we rode our personal champs-elysees, and ended the gutterball with a perfect score of 300.