He looked away and jabbed the needle into the flesh pinched up on his left thigh. The air drifting through the front screen of his one-man tent was cold, though it was a summer dawn in Iowa, and his thigh burned. He heard scattered doors of other tents in the vast campground zipping open in the dark.
For eighteen months he had done it every day, and he still wasn’t used to it. The burning subsided, then he worked up some spit, patted the floor of his tent until he felt the small bottle, twisted the child proof cap open, popped 200 milligrams of Provigil in his mouth, and swallowed. The pill caught in his throat, he worked up more spit, swallowed again, and the pill slid down his esophagus.
He zipped open his own tent door and stumbled out.

Four hours later, 9 in the morning, after leaving a river valley rimed with corn and soybeans and bicycling up six multi-hundred foot high hills, surrounded by hundreds of other bikers, a long descent opened up below him. He had lived with constant fatigue for over two years, but all of his planning and training hadn’t really prepared him for the numbing exhaustion that now almost overwhelmed him. He gave a small smile as he realized he could relax at last, for a little bit. He gazed at the computer on his handlebars, as its readout went from eight to ten to thirteen mph. He saw the stones in the pavement beneath him pass in an accelerating blur. Why were so many of the rural roads in Iowa paved with concrete? Was it all that gypsum in Fort Dodge? The rushing air felt good, and he closed his eyes trying to focus on the sensation. He momentarily blended into his environment, became part of the background, the wind, the sun, the air, the hiss of bicycle tires as they sped up down the concrete.
He opened his eyes. Gazed at his speedometer. Twenty-eight, thirty-five, forty-three. Someone shouted “Hey!” A bicycle to his right swerved towards him. He abruptly swerved to his left.
Suddenly, immediately in front of him, a crack opened up along the center line of the road. Just a little wider than the width of his thin road bike tires. At the instant the crack was about to swallow his front tire and pitch him over his handlebars, he turned his front wheel again and crossed the crack at a slight angle.
His heart was pounding. Shit, he thought, that was close.
“Someone could get killed,” a bicyclist behind him yelled.

THOSE HILLS WERE BIG
YOU NEED A SWIG
TAKE A BREAK
AT SCHLESWIG – FOUR MILES

consecutive Burma Shave-like signs informed riders on the approach to the town.
Josh took his corn-on-the-cob, cherry pie slice and Gatorade, and walked up the small hill overlooking the food stands set up in the park by the local churches. At the top a young woman with a good voice was karaoking pop country songs on a portable stage.
He leaned back on his elbows in the grass, letting go after all the bicycling. He stared into the bright blue mid morning sky. I can do this, he thought. I can bike across Iowa. Though it was only the first day of the seven day, 490 mile ride, he had already biked 45 miles and climbed over 2,000 feet. Hell, no one would even know what he had. He would hide it, and they’d only know if he told them.
Josh drifted off as a helicopter high overhead whooshed whooshed whooshed up the road he had just biked down. He didn’t notice the medical evacuation crosses on its sides.

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