It had been a long day for Bryan Lewis. Walking bowlegged and clutching a can of Coke, he patted his forehead with a hand towel before sinking into a plastic chair. He had just spent 7 hours, 16 minutes and 7.4 seconds on a mountain bike.

It was time well-spent, though. He was the first rider to cross the finish line Saturday at the 2018 High Cascades 100 — an endurance mountain biking race that runs 100 grueling miles through the Deschutes National Forest. Lewis set a course record in the process and bested his closest competitor by nearly 14 minutes.

“The experience was great,” said the 28-year-old from Charlottesville, Virginia. “The course was marked really well, a lot of good folks here, and the trails were just really fun.”

While some of the 370 cyclists who started the race coasted through the home stretch, others made it to the end and doubled over in agony, falling to their hands and knees in a field full of pine needles and fist-sized pine cones near the Athletic Club of Bend. Cody Peterson, a 39-year-old Bend resident and former member of the U.S. national cycling team, fit into the latter category.

Thankfully for Peterson, his wife and young daughter were there to provide support while he peeled off his sweaty jersey and rested his legs. Peterson’s fourth-place finish made him the first Oregonian to complete the 100-mile journey in this year’s race, an accomplishment he was “pumped” about.

“I did this last year, and it hurt,” he said, cracking a smile. “I fell apart, made a couple mistakes. This year, I knew a little more what to expect and spent a lot of time focusing on this event.”

Between 80 and 85 percent of competitors typically finish the High Cascades 100, according to Peterson, who works for Bowen Sports Performance as the sponsoring coach for the event. The first woman to finish, 32-year-old Larissa Connors, of Davis, California, used that statistic to shape her perspective. Instead of focusing completely on her victory, she also found a communal bond with the hundreds of riders who completed the race after her.

“My sense of accomplishment is the same as every other finisher,” Connors said. “All of us did something incredible today. Everyone did something super cool, they did it together, and it was super fun. That’s why I love it.”

Many of the competitors end up the worse for wear after a race of this distance. Some, like Connors on Saturday, fell off their bike and were left with scrapes and bruises. She refused to let it faze her, though, and did not notice the blood on her leg until after it dried.

Blood, sweat and tears is not some tired sports cliché for these athletes. It is the expectation.

“You are in so much pain sometimes, and you want so badly to quit,” Connors said. “The fact that, at the end of the race, you’re like, ‘Wow, I finished the race even though I was literally dying’ … how cool is that?”

Lewis breezed through the final 40 miles all by himself, but he said the hardest part came at about the halfway point, when the competitors reached the base of Mount Bachelor. Mountain biking at 3,600 feet above sea level around Bend is a challenge in itself. But the upper portion of the High Cascades course, at roughly 5,700 feet, provides an extraordinary test.

“There was a steep uphill after that and I was like, ‘Whoa, I don’t feel good,’” Lewis said.

In the High Cascades 100, pushing through increasing altitude, crashes and cramps leads to a relatively smooth ride down — one that allowed Lewis to pull away from the competition and emerge victorious. Peterson knew what to expect on the back half, having ridden these trails dozens of times. Connors, taking in the beauty of Central Oregon for the first time, reveled in her pain and powered through. Her next stop, she said, was Sparrow Bakery.

Lewis’ plan for the rest of his Saturday? Sinking into a plastic tube and floating down the Deschutes. No pedaling required.

— Reporter: 541-383-0307, rclarke@bendbulletin.com