Trial in the Desert
I dominated the San Diego Mountain Ranges and the deserts of the Southwest in my attempt to skate to Washington D.C.
But, it was close.
I suffered heat stroke as I made my 29 mile grueling climb up the Maricopa Mountains. My kidneys had stopped functioning correctly and I had started retaining water. I swelled up like a big balloon as my muscles started to go rigid.
I remember a stream of expletives that I spoke as I came in from the convection oven like reality of the desert on the same mountain that caused me to hallucinate that I received a cell phone call from God the previous year during that marathon of endurance.
29 miles straight up a mountain pushing a cool 109 degrees would prove to be my undoing. That coupled with a week-long pace that was exactly twice as fast as my previous world record pace and should have propelled me out of the most dangerous zones of the skate. I would find the end of the skate 50 miles from a 10 degree difference in temperatures and possible northern route over New Mexico.
The physical signs had actually been happening over the course of the week, but, when I finally became uncontrollably dizzy, I knew I had hit a wall of immense proportion. I shut down for the night, only to find that I still could not remain vertical the next morning, with the sun further heightening the vertigo effects.
It wasn’t even the first time that I pushed myself past the limits.
I may have also suffered heat stroke, back in California, while I walked 2 miles across the Imperial Sand dunes in my skates to reach a legal road for me to skate on. My wife agreed to call me every fifteen minutes as I made that trek.
I made the last call to her on the phone, “Come and get me. I’m almost out of water”. Knowing that she was two miles away, I began the climb up the hill that would lead me to the highway. I clawed and trudged through the sinking sand. She called me half-way up to let me know where she was.
I stared at the golf ball in my hands that I found on the ground. It became a makeshift tool in the small existence that I was occupying. I was using it as an object of focus to help maintain my calm. I made the final push up the hill as I sucked down the last of my cool water, holding on to that ball with every bit of determination I had. I made it to the top gasping for air and sweating bullets of precious fluid. I moved past focus and began to descend into a panic attack as my body struggled to function in the heat that unmercifully attempted to desicate me in the arid desert. I held on to that ball with every ounce of focus that I could muster.
I saw my wife driving down the road and watched her as she continued on past. I frantically called her, “where are you going?” She said that she was driving to the next turn around and the signs in the median said for “emergency use only”. I pleaded that this would constitute an emergency situation as I began to spin on my feet. I managed the only words that came, “Get here”.
Her arrival at the hill where I stood culminated in my ducking into the rear passenger door. I couldn’t speak correctly for several minutes. The muscles in my mouth weren’t forming words correctly. My head was spinning as I sat there in the back seat taking off my gear. The basic movements required to remove my helmet, pads, skates and camelback almost defied me.
My wife’s general annoyed state at my shortness of words abated to a realization that I wasn’t functioning correctly. Her annoyance became concern when we stopped at a rest stop 2 miles away for me to finish removing my gear. We sat there for some 30 minutes as I regained a semblance of composure after my experience in 113 degree heat.
I truly believe that it was the Clif Bar supplements I was using that saved me from any real damage. The nutrients and electrolytes in those products kept me from finding an earlier end to that skate and possibly my life.
Even when I wasn’t skating, I craved salt. I remarked the first time that I ate a meal and didn’t salt my food, after the skate. I was amazed that I didn’t want the salt anymore.
I tweeted once after I escaped California that my wheels were wearing abnormally fast. I skated on road surfaces that were literally melting my wheels. It was that hot. I’ve never seen that type of wear on wheels before.
I learned lots of great techniques to use on a desert skate. I packed my camelback pouch full of ice and drank the cold water and electrolyte as it melted. I packed the extra space in my camelback full of ice to let it drip down my back while I skated. I began to pour water over my clothes and “run wet” to make up for the later fact that I wasn’t quite sweating like I should have been. Even though I was coated in sunscreen, I still burned in the remote areas that I hadn’t built a base tan over the summer, i.e. under my clothes.
These are just a few of the lessons that I learned on my journey across the desert. Many more will be realized as I recapitulate the experience again and again.
In the upcoming days, I will begin posting blogs that reflect upon the journey, and, relate my observations in my own conservative belief system.
I invite everyone to return and leave comments.
