Mistakes were made.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that any endeavor conducted around the clock for seven straight days is bound to involve incidents of human error ... potentially epic ones.  Happily, none of our mistakes, and we did make some, were “fatal” to the team’s goals.  Here’s a sampling of some of our more noteworthy blunders:

- One bicycle dropped from a moving vehicle. With hundreds of bicycle transitions accompanying racer exchanges and a couple dozen team exchanges, it was a virtual certainty that something on one of these fast, light, sensitive machines was going to get broken.  Amazingly, that never happened, at least not during any of the exchanges.  Instead, in one team exchange we failed to properly fasten down Don’s (very expensive) time trial bike, and it worked itself loose from the rack as we were rounding a ramp during a rare section of Interstate mileage, sliding to the ground at about 40-50 mph and, incredibly, doing almost no damage other than one shredded tire and one damaged (but still usable) pedal.  The frame, fork, drivetrain and both wheels escaped completely unscathed.  As Taylor Keating, one of our team mechanics put it, if you’d simply laid the bike down carelessly from a standing still position, chances are you’d have done more damage.  Humorous post script:  When Don woke to the news that his bike had parted company with the RV (and its ultimate fate was still in doubt), he responded saying, “I never liked that bike anyway.”  Whew!

- One missed time station report.  Each team is responsible for reporting when its racer has crossed through one of the 50+ designated time stations across the country.  Failure to report within 15 minutes of the crossing can result in assessment of a time penalty, starting at 15 minutes and climbing in severity with successive failures.  Some teams have been assessed time penalties of an hour or more, which can be significant if you’re racing against another team or, as in our case, a record (or two).  Fortunately, on the one occasion the guys in our follow vehicle got distracted and neglected to make the call, the RAAM officials took pity on our panic-stricken crew members (nothing worse than a crew mistake costing riders hard-earned time) and only issued a warning.

- Countless wrong turns.  Even though RAAM publishes a route description that included 127 pages of detailed maps and turn-by-turn instructions, calibrated to tenths of a mile, and even though we had GPS units in every one of our vehicles, we still missed a lot of turns.  Well, to be more specific, the RVs missed a lot of turns, which was a pain in the neck (turning around a 28-foot RV with a 6-foot bike rack hanging off the back is a chore under the best of circumstances, never mind on a narrow country road), but the racer vehicle/follow vehicle combination reportedly only missed two turns … which means our racers only missed two turns.  Over nearly 3,000 miles of racing on secondary roads through daylight and darkness, that’s a remarkable feat.

- One unlatched RV compartment.  We carried a lot of stuff in the compartments under the RVs – racer and crew luggage, tables and chairs, shower tents, water bottles, etc.  Typically, those compartments were opened and plundered at every team exchange site, so one of the responsibilities of the RV drivers was to ensure that the hatch doors on each compartment were properly latched before rolling out of camp … and, here’s the important additional caveat, immediately before rolling out of camp.  Leaving Oxford, Ohio, yours truly did the latch check about 10 minutes before we actually rolled, leaving some innocent 10 whole minutes to open that compartment, grab whatever he wanted, and saunter off leaving the hatch closed but unlatched.  We discovered the error only after making a “distribution” of 30-40 empty United-4-Health water bottles around the outskirts of Oxford.

More significant than the mistakes we made were the mistakes we didn’t make.  Those are worth mentioning here, too:

- No injuries. This was huge, and particularly significant in light of this inescapable fact:  RAAM is a dangerous event.  Cyclists, in general, recognize that our sport is inherently dangerous – 15 lbs of carbon and rubber just don’t stand up well to 2 tons of steel going 60 mph (and let’s not even think about whether the driver of that missile is distractedly texting or tuning in the radio when he or she is hurtling up on your backside).  But RAAM is even more dangerous.  First, RAAM puts a lot of bicycles and vehicles on the road at once; picture this: on our first overnight section, leaving Brawley, CA, dozens of RVs and other support vehicles leap-frogging their way through dozens of riders, followed by their follow vehicles … and countless bewildered “civilians” … the driver of the semi who got stuck behind our RV most of the way to Parker, AZ (not too far from Area 51) must have been convinced that the alien invasion had begun.  RAAM is also dangerous because it runs at night … cycling is dangerous enough during daylight hours; it’s really dangerous at night.  Finally, after running day and night for close to a week, the sleep-deprived riders and drivers inevitably become a danger to themselves and each other.  Given all these factors, notwithstanding the best efforts of RAAM’s organizers and officials to establish and enforce safety standards, it’s amazing that there are as few injuries (or deaths) as there are.  We were certainly fortunate to escape with none.

- No penalties. Except for one close brush (see above), our team happily avoided imposition of any penalties … a fact that not only saved time but also helped maintain our morale and conviction that we were competent to tackle the task at hand.

- No viral sickness. We worked hard to keep our living/working environment as clean as we could, but having 19 people living in 2 RVs and 3 vans for 7 days is not calculated to produce a germ-free environment … and it didn’t.  Still, we managed to dodge the virus bullet all week.

- No "missed" team exchanges.  Not all of our team exchanges were studies in synchronization, but they were mostly pretty smooth, and we didn’t completely bungle any of them … though we did have a bit of a scramble in La Veda, CO, when we thought we had time to grab a “real” dinner at a local restaurant and instead found ourselves running out the door with sandwiches in hand to make sure the incoming racers weren’t waking up the sleeping racers who should have been dressed and ready to go. 

- No one left behind after a team exchange.  With 15 crew members rotating through the crew RV and three other support vehicles, it’s not surprising that past crew members have been left in the bathroom when “camp” pulled up stakes and moved on (at least the racers are pretty easy to account for on a four-man team).  Happily, we managed to gather all our assets before rolling from any team exchanges this year.

- No vehicle damage.  Vehicle damage was apparently a given for many of our repeat crew members (including one RV that seized up when the transmission fluid ran dry and one van that was completely incinerated after its hot exhaust ignited dry grass in a roadside transition), but this year we returned both RVs and all three support vans in nearly perfect condition.

Mission Accomplished … well, mostly.

If you’ve been following the RAAM site, you already know our boys came in during the wee hours of Saturday morning at a total elapsed time of 6 days, 13 hours & 13 minutes, and an average speed of 19 mph.  That’s good enough not only to beat the 70-75 record which was the “official” goal of Team United 4 Health, but also the 60-69 age group record (which was, as an open secret among racers and crew, the real target for our ambitious team)!

Here’s a pic of racers and crew at the finish line, as the sun was dawning over the Annapolis harbor:

The “mostly” caveat above refers to an unexpected (and, as yet, unresolved) twist revealed to our team for the first time at the finish line.  It seems that some individual who intends to enter a 4-man 70-75 team next year decided the torrid pace our gang was setting would not be equaled anytime soon, so they reportedly did some birthdate math and, on the contention that our four racers’ average age was actually below 70, lodged a protest with RAAM officials about the purported new record … even before it was set!

Leaving aside questions like whether a future, potential entrant even should have “standing” to challenge a current (or soon-to-be current) record, or how our team was allowed by RAAM officials to enter and race in the 70-75 category without, apparently, confirming that they qualify for that category, the decision by the race director to “allow” the protest and to announce it to the team as they crossed the finish line after a grueling week of racing to set the record reflected remarkably poor judgment.  Needless to say, the news cast a bit of a pall of confusion and disappointment over what should have been an unequivocally joyful occasion.

The controversy will be worked out in the days to come, and United 4 Health should have both titles to which they are entitled properly bestowed upon them.  But, whatever the outcome, the significance of their feat will not be diminished:  these four men, averaging approximately 70 years of age, rode their bicycles continuously across the country – 2,993.5 miles – in under 7 days.  Words like awesome and amazing simply cannot do justice to the enormity of the undertaking or the accomplishment.

Update on Annapolis arrival time

Michael & Dave are out on the course now.  They left our final team exchange in Mercersburg, PA at approximately 8:20 p.m. and went through Time Station No. 50 about an hour later at 9:19 p.m. (averaging better than 20 mph!). From Time Station No. 50, they'll have about 125 miles of race-paced riding to do, before they get to Annapolis and the beginning of the 6-mile "parade" route.

If Michael & Dave can keep up a 20 mph pace, they should arrive at the beginning of the parade route around 3:30 a.m., and, assuming no hold-ups in the parade procession, Michael, Dave, Don & Dur ought to hit the City Dock sometime between 3:15 a.m. and 4:15 a.m.  (RAAM is now projecting that United 4 Health will cross the finish line at 4:13 a.m.).

A word about records

I've made a couple of allusions to the 4-man, 70+ team record our team has set out to break.  As you can see from RAAM's record page, the existing record for a 4-man, 70+ team is 16.03 mph (the record is measured in average speed, rather than time, because the course is varied slightly from year to year).  That record was set in 2004 by Team Grand PAC Masters (Dr. Ron Bell, Bob Kash, Lee Mitchell, and Chris Stauffer).  Two of those soon-to-be-former record holders, Ron Bell and Chris Stauffer, are back this year with another 4-man team, Forever Young PAC Masters, competing in the 75+ category.  As they were allowed by RAAM officials to start the race early (on the Tuesday or Wednesday prior to the official team start), they're likely to finish sometime tonight and be in Annapolis when the new record-holders roll in.

By the way, if you're checking out RAAM's record page, take a look at the record for a 4-man, 60-69 team.  Just sayin' ...

Honing the arrival time projection

At 3:57 PM EDT, Don or Dur checked in at Time Station No. 48, in Cumberland, MD.  We're presently waiting for them in Mercersburg, PA, about 26 miles beyondTime Station No. 50.  Once we complete the final team exchange in Mercersburg, Michael & Dave will have another 150 miles of racing to Annapolis, where they'll be joined by Don & Dur for a 6-mile "parade" to the Annapolis City Dock.

So what time will they get to Annapolis?

The going has been tough today.  Climbs through the gaps of the Appalachians in West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania combine for, probably, the toughest day of racing in all of RAAM (including the day of bucking ferocious winds in Kansas).  Speeds are slowing accordingly, but our guys are still putting in average speeds in excess of 16 mph, which, in light of these steep and repetitive climbs (we drove through them today, ahead of the racers), is amazing.  As of the latest time station, the team's cumulative average speed is still above 19 mph - 19.22.

RAAM projects United 4 Health will finish the race at 3:11 AM EDT tomorrow, Saturday, 6/23.  I'm not sure what their algorithm is for predicting arrival times, but they've been pretty consistently too conservative on their time station predictions.  On the other hand, assuming this day in the mountains reduces the team's cumulative average speed to something in the 18.9 to 19.0 mph range, that's probably a reasonable prediction.  Still, I think it wouldn't be surprising to see our boys rolling up at City Dock earlier than that, say 2:00 AM.

Under any scenario, it looks to be an inconvenient time, but these guys have been riding around the clock for nearly 7 days.  If there's any chance you can make it to the Annapolis City Dock for a middle-of-the-night arrival, we can promise there will be much cause for celebration.

I'll try to update my estimate again later this evening, or, check the United 4 Health Racing site for updates.  Also, I'm sure the RAAM projections will be continuously updated as the racers cross through additional time station checkpoints.

This is no way to "see the country"

It would be tempting to think that RAAM would present a great opportunity to "see the country," moving across it at the seemingly leisurely pace of 19+/- miles per hour (as of this writing, our boys are relentlessly pushing their average speed up ... by turning in consistent time segment speeds above 20 mph, they've moved their cumulative average speed up to 19.39 mph ... in a word, they are animals!).  The reality is there is virtually no opportunity for "touring" in this 7-day speed fest.  As one of the earliest posts to the United 4 Health Racing site succinctly put it: "This ain't no tour."  No, it's not. It's a bike race.

Consider, first, the perspective of our four racers.  Half of the time, they're trying to sleep in a fly-infested, barely air-conditioned RV that's as dark and quiet as a hearse and smells, well, worse ... ain't no site seeing going on there.  When they're out on the road, they alternate between 20 minute shifts of racing (not riding), most of the time (so far) on so-called "time trial" bikes, which are engineered to get the racer's butt up, and head and hands down & forward, like so ...

... so as to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible.  Views?  What views?

When the racers on their "on" shift are not pedaling their bikes like a bat out of hell, they're being popped in the "Racer Vehicle" and shuttled up the road 6-8 miles to ready themselves for their next segment of pedaling, all the while trying to force down food and fluids, tweaking equipment and getting peppered by support crew with questions and suggestions.


And the support crew don't really have any better opportunity for site-seeing.  As I've noted in previous posts, the two guys in the "Follow Vehicle" are first and foremost watching the racer in front of them every second, and, like every sled dog following the leader, that view never changes.  When they do look beyond the cyclist in front of them, it's only to recognize upcoming turns, obstacles or other hazards, and to bark out warnings to the rider over the PA system mounted on the Follow Vehicle.  A third Follow Vehicle member is always rotating through the "Crew RV" for rest, but let me tell you, those guys are so exhausted they sleep when they're off duty.

The guys in the "Racer Vehicle" don't have it much better.  As they leapfrog the second racer up the road to the next racer exchange site, they're (a) making sure the racer in the vehicle is staying on top of nutrition and hydration, (b) selecting an appropriate site for the next racer exchange (right distance up the road, considering the terrain, weather, time of day or night and racer condition, with a good spot on the shoulder to enable a safe, smooth exchange), (c) taking care of any necessary equipment maintenance or repairs, (d) shuttling bikes on & off the Racer Vehicle every 20 minutes, or so, and (e) communicating with the crew in the "camp" (the Racer RV, Crew RV and the crew chief) about the whereabouts, condition and spirits of the racers on the road. 

Finally, even though life in "camp" is somewhat more leisurely (compared with the racers and support crew out on the road), as described in my previous post on the subject, the activity during the hours before and after a "team exchange" is steady, intense, sometimes even frenetic ... and even if we have a bit of down time, it's likely to be "enjoyed" in a scenic location like this abandoned gas station lot ...

Here, Michael Scholl and Karen Scheerer take a load off with Dur Higgins.  Benzene, anyone?

For the RV drivers (there are four of us -- Michael Scholl & I drive the "Racer RV" a/k/a the hearse ... also notorious for its pungent aroma ... while Howard Conway & Lewis Runnion share duties for the "Crew RV"), there are more opportunities to enjoy the sights of this great and diverse country of ours, since it is our "job" to be looking ahead and around while we drive.  But half the terrain we cover is shrouded in darkness, and even when it's daylight, we're moving a 28-foot motorhome over winding two-lane roads, frequently picking our way around other RAAM racers and their support vehicles, not to mention other traffic.  This still "ain't no tour."  I will say that I've enjoyed some truly spectacular sunrises and sunsets this week from behind the wheel of the Racer RV, but I wouldn't recommend this as a good way to "see the country."  There clearly needed to be (needs to be) some other motivation to volunteer for RAAM support crew.  More on that topic later ...

What time will we arrive in Annapolis?

I didn’t even allow myself to think about arriving in Annapolis for the first few days we were on the road.  But now that we’ve passed the half-way mark – late yesterday afternoon, somewhere between Cunningham, KS and Calista, KS – I’ve begun to think about not only arriving but what time of day our guys will roll over the finish line at the Annapolis City Dock.

Of course, this is a total SWAG, and the actual time will depend on events unfolding right up to the moment they actually arrive.  On the other hand, it makes sense that we ought to be able to ballpark the arrival time to some degree, since it will be a function of average speed (which we’re watching closely), and, anyway, I’ve got hours on the road behind the wheel of an RV to think about it.  Plus, I know some readers of this blog are planning to show up to cheer the team to the finish line, so it might be helpful to have at least some feel for when the festivities might come off.

So, at the risk of tempting the gods of weather, road conditions, injury, and a host of other potential fates, here’s a stab at projecting our potential arrival time on Saturday, June 23, 2012.  Remember: this is a ballpark estimate (and, please, check my math & let me know if I’m way off base ... everyone here, including me, is way too sleep-deprived to be trusted with even simple math).

Based on a departure time from Oceanside, CA of 12:35 p.m. PDT on Saturday, June 16, 2012, if the team makes its goal of 18.0 miles per hour over the entire route, they’ll arrive at the finish line at about 11:00 AM on Saturday, June 23, 2012. 

For every tenth (0.1) mile per hour their average speed ends up above or below 18.0, the arrival time will be shortened or lengthened by about an hour. Here’s a table, based on rounded figures and rough calculations:

Avg Speed	Arrival Time (Sat., 6/23)
19.3	Midnight Friday
19.2	1:00 AM
19.1	1:00 AM
19.0	2:00 AM
18.9	3:00 AM
18.8	4:00 AM
18.7	5:00 AM
18.6	6:00 AM
18.5	6:00 AM
18.4	7:00 AM
18.3	8:00 AM
18.2	9:00 AM
18.1	10:00 AM
18.0	11:00 AM
17.9	Noon Saturday
17.8	1:00 PM
17.7	2:00 PM
17.6	3:00 PM
17.5	4:00 PM
17.4	5:00 PM
17.3	6:00 PM
17.2	7:00 PM
17.1	8:00 PM
17.0	9:00 PM
16.9	10:00 PM
16.8	11:00 PM
16.7	Midnight Saturday

You may have noticed a couple of slots where the arrival time stays on the same hour, even though the speed varies.  That’s because of the rounding function I used in my spreadsheet.  Also, remember that this is just a rough guide … something to think about if you’re planning to travel to Annapolis for the finish (or if, like all of us, you’re already traveling there and have time to think about it!).  I’m sure the official team web site will be updated with much more accurate information about projected arrival as the event comes closer.

P.S.  At the rate these boys are flying along – averaging 19.3 mph through time station 33 (in Jefferson City, MO), which they went through at 3:49 CDT this afternoon – I may have to revise this chart to add potential arrival times on Friday night!  We're expecting to be in Illinois before morning!

Maybe we should start a little pool to guess the team's arrival time.

Did I mention that it's WINDY in Kansas?

Update from my previous post:  the sustained winds are now 36 mph, with gusts reaching 50 mph!

Here's a tree bending in the sustained wind:

That tree is probably 25 feet tall, has a trunk diameter of 8 inches and a root system going several feet into the ground, horizontally and vertically.

Now, take a look at this picture (taken in San Diego last weekend):

The guy on the right weighs about 150 lbs (dripping wet).  Toss in another 15 lbs for his bike, the tires of which have "contact patches" -- the amount of surface area in contact with terra firma -- less than an inch square.  What do you suppose that 36 mph wind (never mind the 50 mph gusts) is doing to his forward progress?

This is gonna be a tough day.

Life in "camp"

While we're waiting for our racers to catch up with us - Michael Patterson and Dave Burnett are out on the road now, as Don Metz & Dur Higgins snooze in our air-conditioned "Racer RV" - I thought I'd give a little sense of the life of the race away from the race course.

First, calling this a "camp" is definitely a misnomer.  This caravan is so itinerant, never sitting still for more than 3-4 hours, it would give a gypsy vertigo.  But it's the closest we have to "home base" for our entire team of 4 racers and 15 crew.  The most important function "camp" fills is to provide a place for off-duty racers and crew to sleep and recharge before jumping back on duty.  Every 8 hours, or so, two racers will come off the course, get showered, massaged and fed then popped into bed in our "Racer RV."  At the same time, two of the on-course support crew - one from the "Racer Vehicle" and one from the "Follow Vehicle" rotate out of their vehicles and into a flat (hopefully soft) spot in the "Crew RV" for a few hours of sleep.  The rest of the crew catches a nap whenever time and space permit. In addition to being our traveling hotel, the crew camp also provides food, supplies, equipment and all other support needed to sustain four bicycle racers in continuous motion for a solid week.

Each time the race moves on from "camp", the RVs pack up and move down the road to "stage" for the next team exchange, usually 150 miles +/- further along.  We've staged in abandoned gas stations (coveted for their shade-offering canopies), gravelly desert washes and the parking lots of Wal-Mart, unofficial supply HQ for all RAAM teams:

Here's a brief travelog from our most recent stopover in Pritchett, a windswept wide spot in the road on the eastern plains of Colorado.

2:30 AM - The Racer RV rolls into town last ... we're usually last, because (aside from the fact that Michael Scholl and I drive like little old ladies on the way to church ... an attribute our occupants, at least, seem to appreciate) we wait for the racers who have just come off the course to get showered, fed and settled into bed before we roll.  This morning, Michael Patterson and Dave Burnett are already asleep in the back, as is Lydia Brewster, our soigneur nonpareil, so Michael Scholl & I just lean our seats back, pull down our baseball caps and try to catch a few Zs before the action resumes.

5:15 AM - We get the call from the "Follow Vehicle" that the racers on the road are "an hour out" ... the factory whistle for sleeping crew and racers in both vehicles.  Manny Casillas, our nutritionist, chef and general scold, cranks his kitchen into action to whip up breakfast for the racers -- incoming and outgoing.  Manny is usually assisted by Janice Smolowitz, who, as team nurse, has thankfully had few calls for her professional skills since Sunday's topsy turvy day.  Here's Manny, showing off his kitchen:

As Michael & Dave start pulling on their cycling kits, Nate Keck -- former pro racer, current cycling coach and exercise physiologist, who happens to be the "Racer Vehicle" crew member who was most recently off duty -- helps them to ready their "boxes" for transport to the Racer Vehicle.  The boxes will contain everything personal they'll need for the next 8 hours ... extra clothes, an extra pair of shoes, two helmets (one time-trial helmet and one regular helmet), plus whatever assortment of energy powders, gels, electrolyte solutions, etc. their particular racing regimens require.

Someone else (typically me) will unlock and get off the rack all four of Michael & Dave's bikes -- one TT bike and one road bike each -- and ready them for the day ... check & fill tires; check to ensure headlights and taillights (all mandated by RAAM rules) are attached & functional, etc.  One bike will go out on the road immediately with Michael, as he's to be the first to ride today.  The other three will be mounted on the Racer Vehicle rack as soon as it pulls in and the bikes belonging to Don & Dur are removed from it.

Lydia readies her massage table, primarily to give the incoming racers a good rub down but often to loosen up stiff muscles for the guys getting ready to go out, too (and occasionally, if there's enough time and no immediate demand for her services, a special treat for one of the other crew members!).

Other members of the crew check fluids in the vehicles and ready them for another leg on the road, clean up around "camp" and perform other duties as assigned, readying for "the transition."  If we're ready to roll and there's time before the incoming racers and support vehicles arrive, we sit.

6:00 AM - We get the call that Dur is on the bike and 15 minutes out.  Within a few minutes, the Racer Vehicle pulls in bearing Don, the three bikes that aren't in use at the moment, and Don & Dur's boxes and other gear.  As Lydia (and, usually, one other crew member) attends to Don, other crew members fall to executing more-or-less preassigned tasks -- removing Don & Dur's gear from the vehicle and replacing it with Michael & Dave's gear; restocking general supplies of water, energy bars, fruit and other foods in the vehicle; removing the three bikes not in use from the vehicle and replacing them with Michael and Dave's bikes.  One or two other crew members walk Michael and his bike to the edge of the road to await Dur's arrival and the transition to a new racer team for the next shift.

6:15 AM - Dur rolls in on his TT bike.  Because it's before 7:00 AM and still considered "night" under RAAM rules (even though the sun is already well above the horizon), Dur must pass Michael and come to a complete stop before Michael can roll out (during daylight hours, the racers execute rolling transitions to minimize loss of time).  Also, because racers cannot ride at "night" without a "Follow Vehicle" immediately behind, Michael must wait for the go ahead from the Follow Vehicle, which is rapidly changing out crew and supplies at the same time, before he can roll out.  As seconds are precious, even in a race expected to take a week, this can be a stressful time.

Once the first racer is on the road with the Follow Vehicle behind, we have a few minutes of breathing room to get Dave settled in the Racer Vehicle, then check to make sure all the gear has been swapped and the remaining bikes are on the rack and ready to go, before the Racer Vehicle pulls out and heads up the road to leapfrog over Michael and get Dave ready to replace him, probably 20-30 minutes after Michael originally departed.

With the fresh racers and crew back on the road, the incoming racers fed, bathed and massaged, and all gear packed up and readied to move to the next staging area, we head out for another 3-4 hours of driving, maybe interrupted by stops to resupply along the way, then begin the cycle all over again.  And on that note, I just got the call from the follow vehicle that Michael and Dave are an hour out, so here we go!

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday (Monday), we woke up in Montezuma Creek, UT.  The guys rode into Colorado, past Durango and up over the continental divide at Wolf Creek pass ... picking up speed all the time!  Despite a lot of climbing, the team's average speed after crossing through the Rockies was 19.2 mph ... amazing what strong riders and a powerful tailwind can do when they work together!

Talk about a change in terrain, too.  Here's a look at what the riders saw as they huffed it up Wolf Creek pass yesterday afternoon:

After crossing into Kansas early this morning, here's a sampling of their view today:

And they're going to be seeing a lot of views just like it for a while ... Kansas is a biiiiiiiiiiiig state.  It's also a hot & windy state.  At 1:00 p.m. CDT in Ford, Kansas, it's 90 degrees with brutally tough winds coming straight out of the south at 30 mph, gusting to 40 mph.  If those winds were coming out of the west, we'd shorten this race by a day, but from the south they'll be hitting our boys right in the side all day.  Ouch.  Still, at the pace they're maintaining, we should hit the mileage halfway point -- 1,496.7 miles, somewhere between Cunningham, KS and Calista, KS -- before nightfall today.

How are we doing?

First, as promised in this morning's dispatch, a photo:

Dur Higgins, "time trialing" out of Flagstaff, AZ, yesterday afternoon.

Many of you have been emailing me, asking "How are you guys doing?"

Well, that depends on what you mean by "doing well" ... In light of Sunday's saga, if everyone is healthy, resting reasonably well and riding consistently, then we should consider ourselves doing well; and, in fact, by that standard, we're doing great right now!  As of Monday morning, all four racers are in the rotation and we're back on our original schedule ... not something we all would have predicted confidently as of mid-day Sunday.

If you mean, how are you doing against the other race competitors, that depends on who we designate as "competition" for the United 4 Health team.  There are no other 70+ four-man teams in RAAM this year.  Our team is competing against a former 70+ four-man team that set the existing record of 7 days, 16 hours and whatever.  To beat that record, narrowly, our team will need to average 17-point-something miles per hour for the duration of the race.  But, because no one can remember what the "point-something" portion of the figure is, and because we want to break the record with a comfortable margin, the team has set a target average speed of 18 miles per hour, which, if we achieve it, would break the existing record by more than 16 hours.

Against a target average speed of 18 mph, we're doing very well ... as of our last time station check-in, a little over an hour ago, the team had ridden about 850 miles at an average speed of 18.9 miles per hour (by the way, you can update yourself on the team's latest time station check-in and average speed by going to the "RAAM Teams" link and the official RAAM site). A word of caution about looking at cumulative average speed:  it only looks at the terrain (and other conditions) already encountered, not at the terrain, wind, heat, rain (not to mention exhaustion) still to come, and there's a lot still to come ... for example, we'll be crossing the continental divide at Wolf Creek Pass sometime later today or tonight; that will almost certainly reduce the team's average speed; on the other hand, coming off the front range of the Rockies, it's pretty much "downhill" all the way to eastern Kansas, and if we're lucky enough to get a tail wind, these four guys will fly.  All in all, we're pretty happy about where the team is right now.

Even though there are no other teams in the same competitive category as United 4 Health in this year's RAAM, it's still interesting to compare our guys' performance against other teams on the road.  Again, take a look at the "RAAM Teams" link.  As of about noon today, our guys were faster on the road than both of the four-man 50-59 teams in RAAM this year, and they'd be in the top half of the four-man, under-50 teams ... not too shabby!

The best laid plans ...

Racers spend the better part of a year obsessively planning and training for this event, honing their time trial skills, boosting their watts/kg and testing & selecting the particular concoctions of energy powders, electrolyte replacement formulas and recovery drinks that will maximize their ability to perform, hour after hour, day after day and night after night for a week straight. 

The crew chief likewise invests untold hours in planning, planning, planning for every racer exchange, every team exchange and every driver exchange, plus all the meal prep, massaging, showering, bike swapping & fixing that has to go off like clockwork to ride this race at a record-breaking pace.  Elaborate, multi-page, multi-color, multi-level schedules promise to befuddle but, ultimately, deliver the goods. 

Then, in one fell swoop, we are at “Plan B” … which is: makin’ it up as we go along!

During the first night of the race, one of our racers fell ill, apparently from an electrolyte imbalance created by the intense effort and heat of riding across the California desert the first afternoon.  Pulling in to what should have been the site of our second racer exchange, a cool spot in the desert where the resting racers should have been able to sleep and gather strength for their next leg, he started vomiting violently.  Our crew chief made a quick decision: take the sick racer to the hospital for evaluation and, probably, IV rehydration; move the RVs down the road another 55 miles; and tell the crew supporting the two racers on the road that those racers would need to tack on another two-plus hours to their current shift.

Two hours later, our sick racer still isn’t back from the hospital, and we have two racers coming in who’ve already spent over two hours more on the road than we planned or they anticipated.  What do we do?  We can’t squeeze any more out of the two racers coming in, but we can’t sit still either, so we send out the one healthy, rested racer we have left and let him ride a solo “time trial” for 55 miles, about three hours, uphill, rather than riding in 20-30 minute shifts, to allow reasonable rest and recovery for his legs and lungs.  Then, so we don’t completely incinerate that racer, we send out the stronger of the two other healthy racers, to give him some relief … only problem: the “stronger” racer has now already got two extra hours in his legs and only three hours off the bike, instead of eight, as planned.

At the end of the day, our sick racer still isn’t 100%, but we have three racers who have been picking up the missing quarter of the workload … one of whom has been out on the road for about 18 of the last 24 hours … and if we’re going to get to Annapolis (never mind break the record), we can’t lose another racer.  The crew chief, who readily accepts input from all but ultimately makes the call (this is no place for democracy!), dispatches minute-by-minute decisions, constantly changing course, sometimes even reversing himself, all in the hopes that we’ll cobble together the resources we have to reach the goal we set for ourselves, notwithstanding the impediments thrown in our path.  In the end, he decides to put the original team back on the road for a full shift ... it's night, so the conditions will be better - cooler temps and less traffic - and the route for tonight's section is more downhill than up.  All in all, a good opportunity to break our guy in "easy" ... we'll see.

What makes this the “world’s toughest bicycle race” is not the “mere” fact that one, or two, or four, or even eight riders have to string together continuous rides for 3,000 miles … that’s a given, a known, a monumental but surmountable challenge.  What makes this race so damned tough is that all the training, preparation and planning in the world can never adequately anticipate or plan for the inevitable fact that something will go wrong that you hadn’t planned for … Lots of things go wrong in this race, like every bicycle race, many of them even predictably so, but there is always something, something that’s almost sure to happen but not predictable anyway, that challenges the whole game plan.

[P.S. Not enough bandwidth here in Montezuma Creek, UT to upload pics … more later]