When you’re someone who always takes care of everyone else, it’s not easy to let someone take care of you. Just ask Gabriela Williams.

Gabi is a professional soigneur, or “swanny,” as the English say. French for “healer,” soigneurs are the pro cycling world’s human Swiss army knives. They prep and hand out feed bags, water bottles and extra layers during a race. They serve as massage therapists, van drivers, breakfast makers, kit washers, confidants and mind readers. In short, they are the unseen, unsung heroes of the team. And God help them if they eff up.

As a soigneur for pro teams like Sky and Cofidis, as well as a former pro mountain bike racer herself, Gabi understands the job of swanny from the inside out. So recently, when she asked me and three other friends to be her support crew for the Park City Point 2 Point race, we all knew we’d better bring our A game.

Held in late August, Point 2 Point is a grueling mountain bike race that showcases some of our area’s most gnarly terrain from Round Valley to Deer Valley to Park City Mountain to Utah Olympic Park. Covering 75 miles and 12,000 feet of climb and ripping descents, Point 2 Point is almost all singletrack and never veers onto the same trail twice. While there are a few aid stations, riders are mostly on their own, providing their own on-course nutrition and navigation.

When Gabi started training for PCP2P three months ago, none of us had any doubt she would crush it. She’s one of the most good-hearted people I know. Originally from the Czech Republic, Gabi is also a first-class badass who’s tough as nails. When she sets her mind to doing something, you’d best get the hell out of the way.

It felt like an honor when Gabi asked me and three other friends — Melinda, Isa and Krista — to be her swannies. But then came the 300-word text with all the details. “On top of Town Lift, you will have to hike up the left black trail — John’s. First section is fire road. I might be walking cuz it’s a bitch,” she texted. “In the video, it shows the spot.”

Yes, the instructions included a video where she indicated the exact spots we would need to be and the exact time we’d need to be there. No pressure. “Second feed zone you walk down from the first spot by Town Lift and go up towards the big building. There, I will probably grab another water and probably ice sock.”

Even with the narrated play by play, I was a deer in the headlights. Where did she want us? What were we supposed to do? And what the hell is an ice sock? Two minutes later, Isa was calling me to say, “Is she actually thinking we’ll ride our bikes up there?!”

“Don’t worry,” Gabi said the next day. “I’ll get you guys tickets for the lift if you don’t feel like riding up.” We were all meeting at Melinda’s house to go over our swanny duties in person, including a detailed ice-sock tutorial. (For the record, it’s a pair of pantyhose cut into three sections, each filled with ice and knotted at the top that swannies hand out on the course to keep riders cool.)

On race day, Krista picked up Gabi at dawn and drove her to the start. I met Melinda and Isa at Payday lift around 10:30. We figured we had plenty of time to get to our designated positions, even with the glacially paced scenic lift ride. We took advantage of swannying ourselves on the lift with cans of champagne Melinda had in her cooler pack — along with Gabi’s expertly prepared ice socks, water bottles and gel packs.

“You know where we’re supposed to go, right?” Melinda asked while the lift plodded up through the trees and we sipped champs from plastic flutes. Suddenly, the clock was ticking.

“Wait,” I replied hesitantly. “I thought you said you knew.” Even after a panicked rewatching of Gabi’s video, we were still feeling a little clueless after breathlessly hiking up a steep fire road to the spot that we prayed was Gabi’s first feed zone.

I’d brought a cowbell and used it to cheer on the other riders while we waited for Gabi to come through. “Number 409, cleaning the trail like a boss!” I shouted to one rider. “Number 247, straight to heaven!” I shouted to another. I assumed swannies must also be fluent in dad jokes.

After successfully helping Gabi through three feed zones, Melinda, Isa and I met up with Krista at the Park City Mountain aid station, where Gabi had instructed us to “yell at her to keep going.”

From there, we drove to the finish in the Skullcandy parking lot. We nervously watched Gabi’s progress on our iPhones. In that moment, we were all that tiny blue GPS dot ripping toward the finish line.

At last, in just under 10 hours, there she was, a blaze of hot-pink fire with an enormous smile. She’d finished fourth in her group. It felt like a victory for all of us. As Gabi says, the reward of being a swanny is “seeing your athlete fight for the podium. It’s an amazing feeling to see your athlete win.”

Moments later, Melinda, Isa, Krista and I gathered around her, hoisting Offset Bier Czech Amber cans and yelling Nostrovia!, the Czech cheers. We all smiled at Gabi, her face covered with dirt as she took a long pull off the can of beer.

“Never again!” she cried, implying she was one and done. This was her P2P swan song. But as every athlete — and every swanny — knows deep down, nothing could be further from the truth.