The Beast

About six years ago I was in the middle of an adventure race (as one half of a two-person team) and was racing with a male team-mate in West Virginia.

We had been on the go for two straight days and were in the middle of our third night.

We were grinding out a long steep climb on our bikes up a paved mountain road.

It was the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, very windy and cold, and freezing rain was coming in sideways at us.

As we were close to the top of the mountain a kitten came running out of the woods along the side of the road and unexpectedly followed us the entire rest of the climb.

We crested the top of this isolated place in the dark and began looking for a side road where we knew a check point was placed.

The small kitten was still with us.

We found the side road without problem and my team mate went down the road a couple hundred yards to collect the point while I watched him.

With my head lamp mounted to my bike helmet I also watched as this little kitten eagerly followed my team-mate down the road.

And then I watched as the kitten got underfoot while my team-mate dismounted from his bike, punched the point, remounted and returned to where I was waiting.

By the time they both got back to my spot I looked at my team-mate and said "We can't leave him up here.  He's gotta come with us."

There were no houses up there.  It was freezing.  It was freezing rain.  This little thing would never make it up there by himself in that weather.

My team-mate did not say a word.  He just looked at me.

I had raced a few races with this guy and over the years had come to recognize that look as one that wordlessly said "Are you outta your mind???"

We had places to go and days to race and we were standing in very awful weather in the middle of the night on some mountain top in West Virginia.

Thankfully he did not expend energy arguing with me.

So the next question was how were we going to get this sweet thing safely off the mountain? 

Both our packs were too full.

He wouldn't fit inside our jacket pockets.

Finally I stuffed this kitten inside my jacket hoping the chest and hip straps of my pack would keep him in one place.

So there we were.

Riding mountain bikes down the back side of a mountain, on winding switch-back filled gravel roads, in the middle of the night, in freezing rain, with me carrying a kitten inside my jacket.

I could feel him squirming inside my jacket but the straps did indeed keep him in one place.

I eventually handed him over to race volunteers at the next manned check point hoping that someone - a racer, a volunteer, one of the race staff - would adopt this beautiful little thing.
He was adopted by the entire race staff for the duration of the race.  
Nick-named The Beast, race officials posted updates not only about the race but also the status of the race's new mascot online.

And then after the race he was indeed adopted by a racer from Florida.

Hopefully he is still living a long happy life in the sun.............