The fan hums to life, blowing cold basement air across my chest as I clip in. Snow presses against the low window of the basement. The house is quiet, but my eyes keep drifting to the baby monitor beside my trainer setup. My daughter lies awake in bed, staring into the camera. I hover for a second before taking the first pedal stroke, hoping she doesn’t descend into another coughing fit. 

Barely two minutes out of the warmup and I’m unclipping, starting the slow march towards her room. It’s my night to intervene. Another interval cut short. The podium I’ve quietly imagined moves a little further away. It’s a pattern that emerged late in the year. While I managed to sneak in a reasonable amount of evenings on the trainer in November, it felt like more nights were spent trying to help my daughter fall asleep. 

A race loomed, and every trip to the basement to log time on the trainer or a multi-hour ride on the fatbike carried the same question: was this time better spent being present with my wife and daughter? It’s easy to let the doubt creep in 90 minutes deep on a Thursday night trainer ride. 

The race? Cold Ride, a winter fatbike race outside Cranbrook, BC. Part race, part gathering of distant friends, it offers two distances: 60 kilometres or 130. I’ve learned my limit sits well below 100 in the mountains, so I had my sights set on the shorter of the two options. 

Memories of last year’s race still haunt me. The shorter distance ended up being an eight hour slog, swapping between riding and pushing through ten to fifteen centimeters of fresh powder. I still ended up one spot off the podium, though I felt like I hardly made it across the line. 

This year I secretly hope I can make one of those podium steps. I’m by no means a fast racer, but I figured it was good to have a goal, even if it was more of a dream. Still, January brought more illness and more nights rubbing my daughter’s back and keeping tissues close by. And it brought more questions: Was it selfish to spend my evenings and weekends chasing something that didn’t matter to anyone but me? 

By the time taper week arrived, I was fighting the urge to squeak in the intervals I’d missed. I rolled into Cranbrook with a lingering cough, legs that felt undercooked and a text from my wife that I left most of my race nutrition sitting on the counter at home. Another setback, though one I could overcome with a trip to a bike shop and a grocery store. 

Race morning arrived after a night of fitful sleep. I soaked in the camaraderie before the race, checking out everyone else’s rigs, catching up with friends I’d made at last year’s race and chatting about conditions. But then my phone chirped and an image of my wife and daughter at skating practice came through. Suddenly my mind was 350 kilometres away minutes before toeing the line.

People nervously moved into the start corral. I decided I might as well move toward the front, those podium dreams still dancing in the back of my head. I did my best to hang tight with the emerging leaders over the first five kilometres of pavement. The burning in my legs and lungs eventually won out, convincing me to pull back. As the leaders pulled out of sight and into the first singletrack section, I counted. One, two, three, four, five. I sighed. I was momentarily crushed, though a glance back revealed nobody else in view. This was a mental game now. Keep pedalling, and trust those fractured training sessions. 

The distance ticked by. While I made it to the first aid station nearly twice as fast as the year before, the frozen, packed snow meant everyone was riding a lightning-quick pace. I asked how far back from the leaders I was. One of the volunteers said fourth place had just left. I ditched an empty bottle and shot out of the aid station, chasing my ambition down the frozen gravel logging roads. 

As the course unfurled into longer stretches of straight road I scanned the horizon, hoping to lock in on the next rider, a rabbit to chase. No such luck. Three hours in and my legs were starting to feel the effort. My palms ached. I started to question why I keep signing up for events. I thought about my wife and daughter at home and I missed them, about how I wouldn’t be home until late Sunday, then head straight back into work Monday. Still, I kept turning those cranks over, smiling a bit as I realized I was on track to nearly cut my time in half compared to the year prior. It felt good, even if it was mostly due to the vastly different trail conditions. 

The final section of singletrack before the paved descent to the finish line was nightmarishly icy, a thick glassy surface waiting for me to make a wrong move. I carefully picked my way through, trying not to take any risks so late in the race. One of the final steep pitches nearly cracked me, the studs in my tires struggling for grip. A single dab of the foot led to a momentary stop. I thought about resting, eating more food, drinking more water, but the finish line wasn’t far off. I tackled the climb and emerged into a clearing. 

I did a double take. To the side of the trail was another rider. I asked if he was also racing the short course. I still don’t know if he didn’t hear me, or didn’t want to share, but he replied that the ice on the trail was treacherous. I took that as my cue to hammer. I’d been careful up until this point, but not fearful. It was my chance to move up. I shifted and started to put the power down. As I eased off the pedals to make it around a corner, my quads started to cramp. I could’ve screamed in anger. Seriously? Right now? I pedaled again and the tension eased. Next corner, the feeling came back. My thoughts were racing, and the only logical conclusion was to keep my legs turning over, even if softly, to clear the corners. As I pulled out of the last section of singletrack, I glanced back and realized that the effort might not have been worth it. The other rider was close behind, with only downhill pavement to go. More shifting. More hammering. I pull away. Final turns. Finish line. I crossed, having moved up a place within the last minutes. My heart was pounding. 

It’s Sunday night. I’m at home. My legs still ache. My lingering cough feels like it could resurface at any moment after Saturday’s effort. And here I am, game controller in hand, laser focused on a new race. I’ve been showing my daughter the ropes in Mario Kart the past couple weeks. I drop back to second place to practice hurling green shells as she zooms by. All three miss. She crosses the line and her character immediately dons a crown to celebrate the occasion. 

“I win daddy!”