He's no Doofus

Nope. He's a Duffus.
I spent the weekend in Reddick, Fla., supporting several local bike "brothers and sisters" as John Parnell calls them. I traveled with Jake and his 4-man team of Monte, Eddie and Mike; the 4-person team of Courtney, Chris, Ryan and David; and Mark Duffus going solo. I was there to hang out and support the crew, refill bottles and bowls of pasta, and get good pictures while I was at it. I had time to squeeze in a killer run, but that's not the point of today's post.
The point is the amazing Mr. Duffus. It's one thing to be an endurance athlete and dedicate your entire life and training schedule to preparing you to do a race or even a few races. It's entirely another to do it as low key and on the fly as Mark does. To my knowledge, he doesn't go out and train to race for 12 hour events. He doesn't do anything except get fit at the gym and ride his bike whenever he can. No super crazy protein diet, no big hulla-balloo about gearing up for the event. The man didn't even ride the trail before making the decision to race there. It's RAZORBACK for Christ sake!! I refused to even be on a team.
But no, Mark shows up, rides the day before, acknowledges it's challenging, and is on the starting line the next day. He gets 6 solid non-stop laps in before his bike breaks (in 2 places) and he can't continue. I suspect that if the bike had not broken, he'd have continued riding, as he didn't appear at all delirious -- and i you were at the 13 Hours of Santos, you know what I'm talking about.
I admire people like Mark. People who don't get all worked up about training, but instead just show up and do it, and have fun doing it. He just rides his bike. And if it happens to be in a few 12 hour events, then all the more fun for him.
I want to be that way. We should all be so fortunate to have genetics like his on our side, and lucky enough to adopt his attitude.