Anthony Williams stepped off his bicycle late Saturday morning and let out a soft groan as he sank into a red folding camp chair on the side of a gravel road. A fine layer of brown dust covered him, from his pink helmet all the way down to his patched, black leggings.
Someone handed him a paper plate with two tortillas filled with peanut butter and honey. He slowly took several bites then paused, too exhausted to notice the honey dripping onto his lap.
“I’m having a really hard time staying awake,” he said.
The 25-year-old St. Paul man had just bicycled 124 miles in roughly nine hours — but he was only halfway to the finish of The Day Across Minnesota, a 242-mile ultra-endurance cycling race known as “The DAMn.”
The goal is pretty straightforward: Push off at midnight from Gary, S.D., a hamlet on Minnesota’s western border, and pedal to Hager City, Wis., just across the Mississippi River from Red Wing, Minn., before midnight strikes again.
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I did the ride across Indiana (RAIN), 160 was tough but doable. Lots of training and preparation. I didn’t have to contend with the dark and lack of sleep though.