Wildest Dreams (Thunder Point #9)(47)

He had hours left to this race.

Out of the water, he dried his feet and got into the cycling shoes. He bent to adjust the tightness, took a gulp of water, got on and shot away. And although he tried, he could not get the number out of his mind—one hundred and twelve miles. His quads would begin to ache twenty miles in and burn at fifty miles. Running somehow set him right. His long legs fell into an easy, fluid stride and a relaxed, fleet pace. No matter how much he trained, the bike was his challenge. No matter how light and customized the bike, his legs would rather run. He was convinced it was all mental.

He had an image of Charlie taking off on his bike at warp speed. The kid who might’ve grown into adulthood without ever owning a bike, never really appreciating one or riding one. He saw the joy on the kid’s face even while he was huffing and puffing. He caught a glimpse of Lin Su glowering at him, pretty much telling him to butt out of her business, her son’s asthma, her life. And it made him smile. The first time he’d ever smiled on a ride. He wasn’t aching or burning; he wasn’t pumping. He was gliding almost effortlessly, so he assumed he was falling behind.

Someone sailed past him. Griffin. Australian. He had a reputation for taking early leads and had never won a race, though he’d placed very well in a few and was going to win one pretty soon. But Blake decided to just indulge himself, let himself think a little about a kid with asthma so damn grateful to be able to ride a bike for a little while, so apparently unaffected by the trouble in his ’hood, so protective of his mother.

The kid who wanted to know who he was.

His pace steady, he passed Griffin and shot out ahead, so of course he worried that he’d lost his pacing, but it was too late now—you don’t drop back unless you’re out of steam and he felt strong. He had some tough competition for the run, though. Those hills.

He was gaining on the last curve, feeling a little disoriented, grabbed his bottle of water and squirted some in his mouth, swished, swallowed and bore down. He could hear a dozen cyclists on his tail and forced himself not to think about them—this was traditionally his worst event and he’d make up for it in the run if he didn’t totally deplete himself. His legs were always quivering after the ride. But before he could even think about it, he came up on the transition and his support crew was ready to intercept him.

“You shaved two minutes!” Nigel whispered excitedly.

Blake used his toes to peel off his shoes, wiped off his feet, stuck a few gel packs in his pockets, tied his running shoes quickly but carefully. Nothing worse than starting a race with a shoe that pinched. He swallowed some water, stretched out his legs and off he went.

And yeah! This was his home turf. He fixed his pace, moved his arms all over the place to stretch them out, then got comfortable. Within ten minutes seven runners had passed him and he just thought, Go for it, boys, go for it. You’ll regret that...

An hour and a half in, he got to the climb—two thousand feet in five miles. This would take out the best of them so Blake remembered the smell of pine, the softness of the breeze, then the ferocity of the wind through the mountain pass and he told himself he was just visiting this place. His pace slowed because the work he did here was monumental, so he congratulated himself on staying steady and strong. Then it was level and his pace moved up just slightly—it was tempting to take advantage of the level track and push too hard. When he did that, the last five miles were deadly. Just before the trip down, there was a water station and he stuck out an arm. Five miles more and he stuck out his arm for water again. Then he was headed down and he maintained his constant speed. He could feel the pain in his heel and he concentrated on fluidity of movement and reminded himself not to hit the trail but caress the trail. And the hours moved by steadily and his long legs ate up the distance.

There were three runners ahead of him. He nudged his pace up a notch, then another. He passed an Austrian he’d raced before, then an Italian whose legs were too short for the trek, so he was moving them like mad at the end, pumping his arms and panting like bloody hell. The finish line came into view, three-quarters of a mile down the track, and he thought he could hear those pimps and gangbangers on his heels and he pressed into a solid canter, stretching out his stride, flowing over the ground. He wondered where he was in the pack; he wondered how many had crossed the finish line. Then he heard the screams, the shouting, the chanting, the cheering. He stretched it out, pushed into the nearest thing to a sprint he had in him and, arms over his head, he crossed the line and tore through the tape.

Holy Jesus, he wasn’t supposed to win this one; he was just supposed to scare the living shit out of the rest of them. But what happened?

“Nine-fifteen!” Nigel bellowed. “Nine-fifteen! On a f*cking mountain!”

He braced his hands on his knees and leaned down for a second, concentrating on not puking, and when he was sure he wasn’t going to, he slowly stood and began pacing, walking it off, pushing his way through an encroaching crowd.

He had a towel around his neck, a bottle of electrolyte-laced water in his hand, Nigel in his head telling him how close he’d come to a Tahoe record, people crowding him with congratulations. He’d done that? Someone said Griffin had come in fifth; Abraham Cadu, a well-known African athlete who was the favorite for this race, was behind him by a minute and a half, which meant had he not trimmed two minutes from the bike he wouldn’t have won.

Which meant watching Charlie and Lin Su in his head had been like holding a carrot in front of a stampeding horse.