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6-12-24 Hour World Time Trial Championships Race Report

24 Hour Time Trial

As has been the case with many people, the last year and a half or so hasn’t gone according to plan for various reasons. After a long year of working through various issues including a chronic injury to both knees, I was finally able to get on my new Specialized Shiv TT bike and start training for an ultra-distance race a few months ago. My training mostly went according to plan, minus a couple of frustrating trips to Borrego Springs for long training rides on the race course that didn’t go well. I tried not to dwell on those setbacks and was able to put in a solid three week training block leading into race week.

It was a bit of a mental challenge going into the race knowing I wouldn’t be able to ride nearly as many miles as I have in the past. I was fairly certain that I could hit 400 miles if everything went smoothly and conditions were favorable. I had a solid crew coming out to help with Rich and Terry Walsh and Pat Hurter. My friends Susan and Tim were also planning to come out on Saturday morning for backup if needed. All of them have either crewed for me in the past or are familiar with the race so I felt very comfortable that they knew how to take care of me.

Overall, I felt pretty calm leading up to the race start. They placed me in the first start wave based on my previous results, but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to keep up with anyone in the group. Despite all my mental preparation knowing this would happen, I still struggled to get into the right headspace for several hours, feeling like I wasn’t living up to everyone’s expectations. It took awhile, but I finally got there and was able to focus on enjoying the race experience and riding for no one but myself.

Lining up at the start with a bunch of people I had no intention of trying to keep up with (like the overall winner Marko Baloh directly in front of me)

As anyone who did the race has already mentioned, the wind was brutal for the first 10-11 hours of the race, and blowing in the typical direction from the west so that we were fighting a headwind up the steady 1-1.5% grade on Borrego Springs Road. In spite of the wind, I was keeping a steady pace and staying on track for my goal of 400 miles. I was also staying on top of my race nutrition and hydration, which seemed to be working really well for me. My plan was to take in a 600 calorie bottle of Spiz every two laps and to take a new water bottle every lap. I knew Rich would give me a hard time if I was handing back Spiz bottles that weren’t empty, so I made sure to finish them off before coming into the pit. It seemed to be working well – my stomach was feeling good and I was surprised to find that I wasn’t really craving any solid food.

I knew that the key to hitting my goal would be to stay on the bike as much as possible while keeping my pace steady. For the first 12 hours, I did a great job of both. I had only stopped for about five minutes for a pitstop and my lap splits were pretty consistent, but the wind had taken a lot out of me. My legs felt decent because they were well trained for this, but the rest of my body was feeling strained from the effort it took to keep the bike upright against the wind. I promised myself a short break at the halfway point and looked forward to getting off the bike for a few minutes and lying down to take some strain off my back and neck. I had asked for a PBJ during my break, but I found that I still wasn’t really wanting to take in any solid food. The only thing that sounded appetizing at all was plain street taco flour tortillas so I ate a few of those while I rested and my crew gave my bike some TLC and Rich worked some of the knots out of my back and neck.

Getting back on the bike, I was a little disappointed to see that I’d just burned about 20 minutes off the bike and my goal was to keep my off the bike time to less than 30 minutes. I figured I could stay on track if I just took one more short break after another six hours, but didn’t make any effort to increase my pace to make up the lost time. I’m not sure I could have if I wanted to anyway. After another hour the sun came up and I looked forward to feeling more awake and a little warmer. Unfortunately, it got a little warmer than I was hoping for within a few hours. But on the plus side, the wind had definitely died down.

I was feeling pretty miserable, but all things considered I was in better shape than I typically am at the halfway point of a 24 hour TT. I had been battling hot foot on and off for a few hours and was occasionally feeling like my legs were on the verge of cramping up, but I was working through everything pretty well. My stomach still seemed to be tolerating the Spiz just fine. I had brought a whole bin filled with fig bars and Clif Z bars and I ate exactly one of each, a few flour tortillas, and a handful of grapes. Other than that it was just Spiz, a few gels, an iced coffee drink, and a few small cans of soda.

Susan and Tim made it out around mid-morning to cheer me on and give my tired crew a little help. It definitely gave me a little boost as well to see them in the pit. I was still on track to hit 400 miles with about six hours to go, but it was really starting to get warm. I really wanted to stick to my plan of staying on the bike, but with about five hours to go I found myself feeling a little disoriented and nauseated. It was early in the lap, so I figured I’d take it easy and see how I felt when I heard from the crew toward the end of the lap and tell them I needed another short break if I still wasn’t feeling so great. I was trying to troubleshoot to figure out what I might need. I wasn’t terribly hungry or thirsty and figured I’d probably just feel more nauseated if I tried to force down more calories or fluid. I decided to come back in for a short break when I got back to the pit. I spent about 15 minutes lying on my back with my feel elevated and an ice sock cooling me down. I knew the 400 mile goal was slipping away from me, but I had also known all along that the conditions might not allow that goal to happen. I was confident that my fitness level combined with the race conditions necessitated more time off the bike than I’d anticipated and I was at peace with that.

A short pit stop to take in some extra fluids between laps towards the end of the race

The break seemed to help me feel a little more comfortable, but I was definitely starting to feel like I was running on fumes. Although the wind had changed direction and was now pushing us up the shallow grade, it was also about 10 degrees warmer on that section of the course so I still dreaded getting onto that stretch of road every lap. After another lap, Rich let me know that they would be switching to the short loop with two hours to go, so I really only had time to do one more long loop. He encouraged me to just take it easy and then come in for a short break again before going out to finish on the short loop, where it wouldn’t be as hot. I took his advice and I think that was by far my slowest time on the long loop, then cooled off for a few more minutes before finishing strong with about five laps on the short loop.

My total for the day was 388.8 miles, a bit shy of my 400 mile goal and even a few miles short of my mileage from my first 24 hour time trial in 2017. Despite that, I’m very happy with both my performance and the outcome. I maintained the speed and effort I had planned for when I was on the bike. I just spent more time off the bike than anticipated, which I feel that the conditions necessitated. I may not be back to my peak race fitness, but I feel like I put together an almost perfectly executed race for where I’m at right now. And it was great to be back at a race again and to see lots of familiar faces. It was a huge emotional boost to hear so many people cheering me on as I rolled through the pit almost every lap.

My crew got my car packed up and got me back to my hotel within about an hour of the race fitness, which was crucial as I only had about 17 hours to rest up and recover for my next event, the 6 hour time trial on Sunday…

6 Hour Time Trial

I registered for the 6-12-24 Hour WTTC about a year and a half ago, as it was supposed to occur in October of 2020 then was cancelled due to the pandemic. It was the first time they were putting on the 6 hour time trial on a separate day and making it possible for someone to race in two events. I decided to go ahead and register for both because it sounded like an interesting challenge. Registration for both events rolled over to this year when the race was cancelled last year, and I decided to go ahead and stay on the roster for both events even though I wasn’t sure earlier this year whether I would even be healthy enough to do the 24 hour event. Leading into the race, I had been feeling pretty good on the bike. I wasn’t sure how it would feel to get back on the bike the day after a 24 hour race, but I was willing to give it a try.

The plan was to prioritize rest, hydrating, refueling, and spending as much time in my Air Relax compression boots as possible between Saturday night and Sunday morning. I took an Epsom salt bath in the hotel room and put the compression boots on while I ate some dinner. After I finished eating, I was struggling to keep my eyes open and it wasn’t comfortable enough to get to sleep with the compression boots on, so I only spent about 15-30 minutes in them. But I did get a pretty solid 6-7 hours of sleep. I think I woke up and ate a snack at some point. I naturally woke up a little earlier than I needed to, so I was able to spent a full hour in the compression boots before leaving to park in the pit area. I got there with plenty of time to get all my gear and nutrition re-organized before the race started at 10:00 am. Aside from a couple of people who were doubling up the 12 and 6 hour events, I was the only one crazy enough to show up for the 6 hour race after finishing the 24 hour. It was an entirely different crowd of people for the 6 hour race. None of them had any idea who I was or that I had just finished racing for 24 hours the previous evening.

I was placed in the first starting wave once again, which felt kind of silly since I had no intention of trying to keep up with anyone in that group. I had made the decision to ride my Cannondale System Six aero road bike with clip on bars rather than the TT bike. I was more concerned about being comfortable than being fast, and it was definitely the right decision. My legs did not feel fantastic as I left the starting line, but it didn’t take too long for them to warm up. I was also feeling a cramping sensation in my right side that lasted for an hour or so. I wasn’t pushing myself hard at all and opted to switch over to the screen on my Garmin that only shows elapsed time, heart rate, and cadence so that I wouldn’t even think about any other data. Because about 95% of my training the last few months has been on my TT bike, it took me almost the entire first lap to remember that I had drops on my road bike, which gave me a whole other position to use.

I carried a water bottle and a Spiz bottle on the bike and figured I would need to stop each lap to refill the water bottle. I was riding self-supported, so it meant taking a couple minutes each lap to ride over to my car. I found myself trying to think about making it through two laps before stopping, but realized there was really no point in killing myself just to save a minute or two. By the end of the first lap, I realized the Spiz was going to get too warm on the bike, so I’d be better off carrying two water bottles and either eating solid food on the bike or chugging from the Spiz bottle between laps. I was riding at such a low intensity I wasn’t sure I’d need that much nutrition anyway. I figured with two water bottles, I could probably go two laps without stopping, but I ended up draining both bottles on the second lap and went back in to refill them again. I also realized that I definitely needed to keep taking in calories even riding at the lower intensity.

After a few hours, I was surprised to find that I was actually feeling really good. I felt like I was able to start increasing my effort just a bit and my heart rate was actually going into Zone 2. I knew I could bonk at any moment so I still wasn’t pushing too hard. When I came in after the fourth lap, I saw some other cyclists coming in from the short loop, so I was glad I wasn’t going to have to make the choice to go back out for a long loop or kill time until they made the switch. I started trying to crunch numbers in my head and wasn’t sure how accurate I was, but was pretty sure I could put in 100 miles before the time limit.

The field for the 6 hour race was pretty small so I didn’t see too many other racers out on the long loop – mainly a few of the faster ones who lapped me on my 3rd or 4th lap. But on the short loop I was starting to pass a bunch of people who looked like they had gone out too hard and were falling apart. It felt surreal to see all these people in salt-soaked kits fighting off cramps while I probably could have been holding a conversation with someone the entire ride and was just starting to get into a groove.

I finished my final lap with less than 10 minutes on the clock and had just hit 100 miles. As I was packing up my car, another racer walked by and sounded annoyed as he made a comment about how I had way too much energy to burn when I flew by him on that last lap and that maybe I should have used that energy earlier in the race. He obviously had no idea what I’d just done and was probably more annoyed about the fact that he had gone out too hard and blown up, so I just let it slide.

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with how things turned out this weekend. I felt as strong as I could have hoped for both events and it was a huge confidence boost that I am going to be able to continue racing ultra distances. As I started my way up the Glass Elevator (Montezuma Valley Road) on my way back home on Monday, I thought about how defeated I had felt the last couple of times I’d made this drive after aborted long training rides. I smiled with satisfaction that I’d faced my demons and put together a great weekend of racing. I haven’t made a firm decision about what my plans will be for 2022, but I definitely think I will be putting at least 2-3 races on my calendar and hope to have a good plan within the next few weeks.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and support over the last week. It felt great to know that so many people were cheering me on virtually and to feel so much support at the race itself. I am extremely grateful to Pat, Rich, Terry, Tim, and Susan for working together like a well-oiled machine to keep me on the bike. Thanks as well to my coach Rachel for putting together a training program that got me to the starting line as fit as possible and for talking me through a couple of rough patches during the race. Also, I would never have been able to put in the training that I have in the last few months without the assistance of Paraic at Cyclologic in Scottsdale, AZ in setting up my bike fits so that my knee pain is almost completely eliminated. Thanks once again to The Bike Shop for their support and for keeping my race machines tuned up, to Vertix Ultra for an awesome communication system, and to Randy Ice at Spiz.

A New Adventure

It’s been awhile since I’ve been motivated to post any updates. The last year or so has been crazy for all of us. I thought I was holding up pretty well up until my world record ride last November, but all the stress finally took its toll on me physically, mentally, emotionally, and professionally over the last few months. I made the announcement earlier this year that I would be deferring RAAM until 2022 without going into too much detail for my reasons. I’ve been thinking for awhile that someday this will all make for a great comeback story, but I really didn’t have much desire to talk about it until it looked like there would actually be a comeback. There has finally been some progress that has encouraged me over the last week or so. I mentioned to a friend this weekend that the comeback is finally starting to shape up. She told me not to think of it as a comeback, but as a new adventure.

Hopefully this will be the first of a series of updates on my progress as well as an explanation of everything that’s been going on for the last 5-6 months. The easiest thing for me to talk about at this point is my knee pain, so I’ll start with that.

I first starting noticing some knee pain associated with my cycling 3-4 years ago. I believe it was just in my right knee at first and it came and went for a year or two. It seemed to improve in early 2019 when I changed my diet, and I don’t recall having any issues with my knees during Race Across the West that year. Both knees seemed to start flaring up again about a year ago. I specifically remember really struggling on the two long indoor rides I did during the early days of the COVID lockdown. Interestingly, both knees did okay when I did VRAW in June on the indoor trainer. I attributed that to the lower intensity riding I was doing over those 12 days. Both knees started getting irritated again at some point over the summer as I ramped up my training for the Borrego Springs WTTC, which turned into my 24 hour world record attempt once the race was cancelled. The long stretches of constant pedaling would usually start to cause some irritation, and sometimes it would be quite painful to go out for my Sunday long ride after putting in a long session on Saturday. They never prevented me from riding, mostly because I was too determined, which may have been my downfall.

By January, I was starting to really struggle just to get through day to day stuff – going up and down stairs, kneeling down to tie my shoes, demonstrating exercises for patients at work, even standing up from a chair sometimes. One of the most painful things for me was to sit with my knee bent for a long period of time. When it was really bad, even my 12 minute drive to work would be painful. I let my coach Rachel know what was going on. I had already deferred my RAAM registration, so we backed off on the training, and I reluctantly started working on getting my knees checked out after insisting on trying to take care of them myself for several months.

I had some X-rays done and the radiology report came back showing no abnormalities. Because I’d been pretty consistently trying to rehab the knees myself, my primary physician put in a request for an ortho referral without going through the usual first step of physical therapy. When I actually got a chance to look at the pictures of my knees during my ortho consult, it was obvious that both kneecaps were laterally displaced and laterally tilted so that the outer portions of my kneecaps were being compressed against the femurs. There were bone spurs on both femurs as a result. The surgeon was also concerned about a shadow on the undersurface of my left kneecap that he thought might be a defect in the articular cartilage, so he ordered an MRI of the left knee. I was able to read the MRI report before speaking with him and was pretty discouraged to see that I had “diffuse loss of articular cartilage” on the kneecap as well as a “partial tear” of the quadriceps tendon. I was pretty certain I was going to be having surgery on at least one of my knees. I spoke with the surgeon about a week later, and was a bit surprised that he didn’t have any recommendations for surgery or further treatment. He also mentioned that the partial tear really looked more like tendonosis of the quad tendon. He advised me to continue backing off on my training and consider taking time off the bike completely if the symptoms don’t improve. He also approved a course of physical therapy so I could get another set of eyes on my knees. It was a relief to not be headed for surgery, but it also felt like I’d reached a dead end. My knee pain wasn’t any better after weeks of decreased mileage and dedicated rehab to strengthening my quads and glutes. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to stop riding my bike for 8 weeks if they didn’t get better. I knew I could pursue some other non-surgical options, but I decided to try a few conservative options first.

At some point in the middle of all this, I listened to a podcast featuring Nate Koch, a physical therapist who owns several physical therapy clinics in Arizona that specialize in treating endurance athletes. Their facility in Scottsdale works in conjunction with a bike shop next door to provide medical bike fits. I’d spent plenty of time having my bikes fit for me in the past, but I was intrigued. I got in contact with Nate and Cyclologic, the bike shop, and set up an appointment. They recommended spending three days in Scottsdale, one day for the initial assessment and fitting plus two days to go riding and follow up as needed. It would cost me a full week off work, travel expenses, and the hefty cost of the bike fit itself, but I figured I wasn’t in any shape to be racing anytime soon so I might as well spend the money I’d be spending on races on this instead.

I was super frustrated and didn’t have much reason to look forward to the trip to Scottsdale. I had just had the conversation with ortho letting me know he couldn’t do anything for me. I’d spent weeks trying to rehab on my own. I hadn’t done a ride longer than 50-60 miles in two months. I would get frustrated watching other people ride without pain, watching other people do things that made me think about how much my knees would hurt if I tried to do the same thing, watching patients at work doing exercises that I wouldn’t even bother attempting to do. I was convinced these guys in Scottsdale would see how out of shape I was, not want to take me very seriously, maybe make a few tweaks to my bikes, and I’d come back and not notice any difference. Obviously, I was not in a very good mental state at this point.

The first morning in Scottsdale, I had an appointment with Ian, a physical therapist at Endurance Rehab. He spent 30 minutes or so doing an assessment to collect some information to pass along to my bike fitter. The most compelling thing to come out of this interaction was when he had me do a series of mini single leg squats to see how painful they were. He spent a few minutes using a Gua sha tool to scrape some of the ever present knots in my quads. I tried doing the single leg squat again and it was almost completely pain-free!

I spent most of the rest of the day in the fit studio at Cyclologic, the bike shop next door, with Paraic, the owner of the shop. He spent a great deal of time just collecting information from me on my cycling and injury history, making sure I mentioned any issues I might have been having, however minor – saddle sores, hotfoot, obviously the knee pain. He was impressed with what I’d been able to accomplish in my short stint in ultracycling and clearly wanted to help. After several hours of measuring my feet, taking and analyzing video, and mapping saddle pressure, we decided to shorten my crank length, try a new saddle, and get some new shoes with arch supports to match my arch index. After a late lunch, I headed back to Endurance Rehab to go over the exercise program Ian had prescribed for me, then went out for a short ride to see how the changes felt. I wasn’t expecting a miracle, but I could clearly notice the difference. My cadence had increased about 10 rpm without even thinking about it and it felt like so much less effort to get my knee over the top of the pedal stroke. The knees were still aching by the end of the ride, and they weren’t too happy when I had to stand up to accelerate from a stop, but I knew there was some chronic inflammation that wasn’t going to go away overnight. Paraic instructed me to head out for another 2-3 hour ride on Tuesday morning before coming back in for my follow-up in the afternoon.

I felt great riding on Tuesday morning and again on Wednesday. By the time I left Scottsdale, I had one road bike completely dialed in with the new fit and planned to incorporate the same changes on my other road bike. I realized on Wednesday morning that I had ridden seven days in a row for the first time in two months and my knees were feeling better than usual. Ian had set me up with a new exercise program that was a little different from what I’d been trying on my own, along with the idea to try scraping my quads a few days a week. Paraic seemed excited to continue helping me get my bike fit dialed in as I get my fitness back over the next several months. I headed home with a completely different outlook than I’d had earlier in the week.

In the month since my bike fitting, I’ve been riding 6 days a week, gradually increasing my mileage, and doing my rehab program religiously. The changes have been gradual, but I am absolutely noticing some improvement. I noticed within a couple of weeks that I could actually feel my sit bones getting a little sore from putting pressure on them after years of unconsciously doing everything I could to not sit on my saddle. I was starting to feel my glutes getting a little sore during and after rides, instead of the typical burning in my quads that I had gotten so used to feeling. There are still some knots in my quads when I do my foam rolling, but they’re not nearly as bad as they were a month ago. Some days are better than others, but I’m fairly consistently able to kneel on the floor and stand back up without grimacing. Sometimes I’m so surprised at how easy it is for me to demonstrate a squat or a lunge or a step down to a patient that I find myself doing a few extra just to make sure it’s not a fluke.

It had been so frustrating watching my fitness dropping precipitously on my Training Peaks profile between January and March. Now its kind of fun to see the gradual climb back up, almost back to where I was 90 days ago.

There’s still a lot of fitness to build back and recovery that needs to happen before I’m ready to race competitively again, but I’m happy to see that things are finally moving in the right direction. And hopefully when I am fully recovered I will be even stronger than before, mentally and physically. Having the chance to step back for a few months has had its upsides. For the last two years I’ve been putting in long solo training rides almost every weekend. I’ve been able to reconnect and ride with friends again and enjoy the social side of cycling. I was able to help a friend train for her first triathlon. I’m going to be crewing for my friend Rick Zwetsch in RAW in June.

If all goes well, I’m hoping to be back on my TT bike over the summer to start training for the 24 Hour WTTC in Borrego Springs in October. I will keep the updates coming. I appreciate everyone who has reached out over the last few months to check on me and give me some encouragement.

To Be Continued…

Three years ago I set my sights on a long-term goal to complete solo Race Across America (RAAM) in the year 2020. At the time I was a rookie ultracyclist who had qualified for solo RAAM on a whim at the 6-12-24 Hour World Time Trial Championships (WTTC) in 2017. I had no other real ultracycling experience and no idea of the journey I was about to undertake. Since that time, I won the 24 hour solo female division of the 6-12-24 Hour WTTC in 2018 and won Race Across the West outright in 2019. Assuming I could put together the funds and support crew, things were looking good for a successful outcome at RAAM 2020.

As the COVID pandemic shut down the world in early 2020, it was looking less likely that RAAM  would happen. I had spent the first few months of the year focusing all of my spare time and energy on training, fundraising, and administrative tasks to prepare for RAAM. The thought that I had possibly done all that work for a race that wouldn’t happen was devastating. By the time RAAM was officially cancelled in late March, I had talked myself into believing that it was for the best. With everything shut down and the economy crashing, it would have been extremely difficult to continue to prepare and fundraise anyway. I decided to look at the cancellation as a blessing in disguise, giving me another year to prepare for possibly the most challenging thing I will ever attempt in my life.

I was able to stay positive throughout most of the year and focused my training on some events later in the year, most notably a fun 4x relay at Hoodoo 500 in August and a 24 Hour World Record attempt in place of the cancelled 6-12-24 Hour WTTC. 

After my world record attempt, I knew I needed to get moving on putting together a new RAAM support crew and somehow try to finish raising the funds needed to race across the country. With surges in the pandemic resulting in further lockdowns around the world, it has not been looking promising that RAAM will happen in 2021, either. It became very difficult to stay motivated to put in the work for a race that might not happen. I’ve also been very hesitant to ask other people for their time and resources to support me. With strict restrictions on social distancing in California, fundraising events will be next to impossible.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with some friends and was asked what my plans were for 2021. I mentioned that I was theoretically supposed to do RAAM in June, but that I wasn’t too hopeful it would happen and therefore not very motivated to prepare. It was suggested that maybe I should just put it on hold until next year. I think that the was the first time I seriously considered rolling my registration over another year. I spent several weeks deliberately and discussing this option, as it was a decision I did not intend to take lightly.

Logically, I knew the best decision would be to postpone RAAM until 2022. Even if the race is able to happen in June, I am not confident that I would arrive at the start line adequately prepared and properly funded given the current circumstances. Going into my rookie attempt at solo RAAM with anything less than 100% commitment and preparation would be asking for a disastrous result. Emotionally, I had a very difficult time letting this reality sink in. I’ve been preparing for this race for so long. It’s heartbreaking to have to put it off yet another year. But I finally made it official last week and have deferred my RAAM registration until 2022.

I do hope that RAAM and RAW are able to go on as planned this year, even if I won’t be racing. If it does take place, I definitely plan to be at the start in Oceanside and may even look for a spot on a RAW support crew. I’m sure it will be somewhat difficult to watch the race as a crew member or spectator, but for now I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I am confident that having an extra year to prepare will give me the best chance of a successful Race Across America.

I’ll have to wait another year to get to the Race Across America starting line in Oceanside.

24 Hour World Record Attempt

Borrego Springs, CA

November 7-8, 2020

The idea to plan an attempt to break the World Ultracycling Association (WUCA) 24 Hour World Record came to me at some point in the last few months as I realized that there was a very real possibility that the 6-12-24 Hour World Time Trial Championships (WTTC) would be cancelled. After the cancelation of Race Across America in June, my focus had turned to getting myself as fit as possible for the WTTC originally scheduled in early October. When the race was rescheduled for later in October to allow more time for the permits to go through in the midst of the COVID pandemic, I knew I needed to start seriously thinking about a backup plan. After all the work I’d put in this year, I couldn’t bear the thought of watching another “A” race being cancelled and just deciding that racing was done for the year and hoping things would improve in 2021.

I began looking into the WUCA certification process, which was initially very daunting. Yet the fact that I had already beaten the mileage of Nancy Raposo’s 24 hour solo female record of 439.65 miles, set nearly 30 years ago, when I rode 456 miles at the WTTC in 2018 gave me the confidence to start planning. When the WTTC was officially canceled on September 25, I spoke with my coach Rachel and settled on the date of November 7-8 for the attempt, started communicating with the WUCA to begin the application process, and began recruiting support crew. My original thought was to keep the plan somewhat under the radar, do my best to coordinate the record attempt, and figure that worst case scenario I could just go out and do a self-supported or minimally supported low key 24 hour ride that may or may not go down as an official record. I realized over the next couple of days that the more I talked about it, the more I wanted it to happen, and started blasting my plans across social media. I’d made a big enough deal of it that now I was committed to following through. Within days, I was overwhelmed with the number of people offering to come out and be on my support crew. My friend Dee Mann had offered to help manage the crew to take some of the work off my hands. I was also able to appoint Curtis McPherson, the crew chief from our HooDoo 500 relay team, to be the crew chief, and Mark Weidhase had demonstrated to me that he knew enough about the officiating process to be my head official.

Next up was the task of settling on a course for the record attempt. A lot of factors went into the decision, but ultimately I decided to use the north half of the 18 mile WTTC course to create a 10 mile loop. Having spent many hours on the 18 mile course training and racing, it seemed that the north portion of the course didn’t seem to be impacted by the potentially fierce desert winds and also had less elevation gain/loss. Once the course was surveyed and approved by the WUCA, I just had to spend another month wrapping up my training. I tried to spend as many weekends as I was able to on the course in Borrego Springs, acclimatizing to the dry desert air and getting to know every turn and bump in the road on the 10 mile loop. Looking over my training rides, there really wasn’t any question that I should be able to maintain the 18.31 mph average needed to break the 24 hour record. Unfortunately, as race day approached, the weather forecast appeared to be working against me. I kept hoping the projected wind forecast and possibility of rain might change. When we were 48 hours out and a full wind advisory was in effect projecting 20 mph winds with gusts of up 50 mph and a very real potential for rainstorms, I realized that breaking the record would be much more difficult than I’d originally anticipated, and that it would require all the mental skills I’d be honing this year to stay on my bike for 24 hours.

I made the trip to Borrego Springs on Thursday and checked into my Air BNB rental by myself. Most of my crew planned to arrive Friday afternoon or evening, so I had about 24 hours to relax a bit and get some of the final organizational tasks completed. Once a small group including Mark and Curtis arrived on Friday afternoon we went out for a quick pre-ride of the course to test the communication system (Vertix Ultra between the follow vehicle and myself, and two-way radios for communication between the follow vehicle and the rest of the crew and officials). Rachel made dinner for the crew that was able to arrive on Friday evening. Many of the crew members were meeting for the first time and so far, everyone was getting along amazingly well. I was able to get to sleep early feeling confident that I was physically and mentally prepared for the ride and that my crew had everything else under control.

Jairus and Rob doing some final checks on my bikes while awaiting my arrival at Christmas Circle on Saturday morning

On race morning, I woke up feeling good physically and focused mentally. It was a little nerve-wracking to hear the howling of the wind outside the house as I tried to relax while my crew went through final preparations. Rachel drove me to the start at Christmas Circle shortly before the ride was scheduled to begin at 9:00 am and I could feel the car being battered by the wind and watched dust storms swirling around in the distance. When we pulled up to the start I could see a sign being whipped around. I did at least enjoy the less stressful environment of my own solo ride compared to the frenzied activity happening just before the start of a race with dozens of other cyclists.

I started pedaling away from the start at exactly 9:00 am and braced myself for what I knew could be a very long and frustrating 24 hours. The race plan that I had discussed with Rachel was based on maintaining a steady power output while keeping my heart rate under control, rather than attempting to maintain an average speed. I found myself settling into my race effort very comfortably on the first lap and the wind didn’t seem to be blowing me around too much initially. But I could tell by the time I was halfway around the loop that the wind had affected my speed. When I made the final right turn back towards Christmas Circle I had to ride directly into the wind for the last 1.5 mile of the course. I did my best to stay in the aero bars, put my head down, and keep my effort under control to avoid overexerting myself early on.

A picture taken by my friend Tet in the first several hours of the ride, in between the periods of rain.

The wind seemed to pick up a little over the first several laps, and it was raining on me intermittently. At one point, a gust picked up that almost blew me off the road and caused me to instinctively clip my left shoe out of the pedal. It passed before I had to put my foot down and I was able to stay upright, clip back in, and continue. As miserable as it was, I kept telling myself that I had to keep riding because I would kick myself if I stopped and the weather improved once the storm passed through.

My friend Rob and Dee Mann were in the follow vehicle for the first six hours of the ride, with Mark Mitchell riding along to officiate. We were able to communicate through my Vertix Ultra system, and we could hear each other perfectly despite the winds. They were communicating with Curtis and Mark Weidhase at Christmas Circle via a separate two-way radio so that the crew always knew when I was approaching and were always out and ready to take some pictures and cheer me on as I rode through. As we hit the six hour mark, Mark Weidhase came on over the radio to let me know I had just broken the six hour world record. I had purposefully not bothered to look at any of the records aside from the 24 hour record as I wanted to stay focused on that one number. But I was surprised at the sense of relief I felt upon hearing this news. Knowing that the 24 hour record was far from a slam dunk at this point, I felt like even if I achieved nothing else on this ride, I now had something to show for it.

Rob and Mark keeping me safe in the follow vehicle and using the Vertix Ultra for communication

After about six hours, there was a crew exchange as Nathan took over driving the follow vehicle, Simon took over as the official in the vehicle, and Tina and Rachel took turns riding in the back and getting water and nutrition bottles ready. It was starting to get colder around this time, so I made a very quick stop at Christmas Circle to put on my vest and some arm warmers. Or more accurately, I stopped so that the entire crew could surround me and put all that stuff on much quicker than I would have been able to do it myself. Just before dark, I made another longer stop for a bathroom/hygiene break while the crew checked out the bike and put lights on for the long ride through the night. I believe I also put on a rain jacket and knee warmers as we anticipated another storm coming through.

Understandably, people weren’t pulling their phones out to take pictures while the rain was pouring down. Riding through Christmas Circle after putting on the rain gear for a brief period of time.

Not long after dark, the storm hit and this time the rain was much heavier and colder. At one point, I remember it going through my head that I couldn’t believe the crappy luck I’d had in choosing quite possibly the worst day for this ride. Fortunately, I was able to put a positive spin on it and think about how I would most likely be doing something very similar to this during RAAM next year. I won’t be able to quit then, so I’d better not quit now. I mentioned that to my crew, laughed it off, and kept pedaling.

The rain stopped after a while and I made yet another clothing change to put on a dry jacket and gloves. The winds had finally calmed down but they had done some damage as I’d expected from the beginning. I had my crew asking me for my heart rate and power numbers every hour throughout the ride. For the first 8 hours or so, I was putting out numbers like a machine. There was very little variation in my average power, heart rate, or speed and I felt like I was riding at a fairly comfortable effort. Once I started to get cold and the fatigue set in, the numbers slowly started dropping. I was starting to hit some of the intermediate world record distances and was breaking more records – 200 km, 300 km, and 200 miles. But when we hit 12 hours, I knew I was slightly off pace for the 24 hour record. As my crew got ready for another exchange, I was feeling motivated and promised Rachel that I would keep a steady pace and avoid stopping so I could make up those miles while she was getting some rest before the final stretch.

The crew huddled around for a quick bike change after fixing a flat while I chugged some warm coffee

At some point in the night my front tire went flat. Yet another time I had to shake my head and laugh. I had ridden thousands of miles in the last few months without a single flat and put new tires on my bike a little over a week before the ride. Fortunately, we had already discussed the plan for a flat. The crew jumped out of the car to get my backup bike off the rack, switched out lights and the Garmin, and I was moving again after only losing a minute or so. I had settled on my Trek Speed Concept as my primary bike a couple of weeks before the ride, and the Cannondale System Six aero road bike was my backup. After the hours I’d spent on the Trek, I thought the change might actually feel kind of nice, but I immediately wanted to be back on the Trek. Though I usually love riding the System Six, right at that moment it felt awkward and squirrelly. We had to drop the Trek off as we rode through Christmas Circle on the next lap so the crew could change the flat, and ride another 10 mile loop on the System Six before picking the Trek back up on the next lap. Another 1-2 minutes was spent switching out the bikes while I downed a cup of coffee and I was back on the Trek. The crew noticed an immediate change in my posture and cadence once I got back on the Trek. As Rachel pointed out, at least the unfortunate timing of the flat allowed me the opportunity to realize that I’d definitely made the right choice of bike to use.

As much as I had wanted to stay focused on maintaining my steady effort through the night to make up some miles and push to break the record, I was finding it more and more difficult to maintain the power output. In addition to the fatigue, I was struggling with heartburn and some GI discomfort that made it difficult to maintain the power I’d been pushing earlier on. As I hit the next two distance records of 300 miles and 500 km, I once again broke the world records but also realized that I was too far off pace to hit the 24 hour record distance.

Rob and Dee were in the follow vehicle at this point and offered me two options. I could commit to setting the not yet established 500 mile record and plan to continue riding an extra several hours beyond the planned 24 hours, or stop riding right then given that we knew I wouldn’t be able to break the 24 hour record. I wasn’t happy with either option and asked for Option C. We were about 18 hours into the ride and I had come out here to ride 24 hours. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I quit six hours short of my goal, record or not. I really had no desire to stay on my bike for what would likely be an extra 6-7 hours, nor did I want to ask my crew to commit to spending the extra time supporting me when most of them needed to get some rest before driving home and going back to work on Monday. This information was being relayed to me from Curtis and Rachel indirectly, so I asked them to put Rachel in the follow car on the next lap so we could discuss the options. My understanding was that she didn’t want me to put more stress on my body if I wasn’t going to break the record anyway. My counter argument was that I had nothing left to save myself for at this point. All the big things I wanted to do this year had been cancelled. Being unlucky with the weather more than likely cost me the 24 hour record. I needed to finish what I started, regardless of the outcome. I had all these arguments ready to fire at Rachel once she got on the other end of the radio. Fortunately, none of it was necessary. As soon as I told her I wanted to finish the 24 hour ride, she was completely on board and so were the rest of the crew.

I was in a pretty dark place for the next few hours. Even though I’d insisted on staying on the bike, the physical and mental fatigue was definitely setting in. I think I started complaining about how tired I was, but Rachel was pretty adamant that I’d asked to keep riding so now we were committed and they weren’t going to let me stop. The lowest point came around 4:00 am on what I’m now calling “the hotfoot lap”.

About a mile or so into one of my laps, I became more acutely aware of a burning sensation under my right big toe. I started playing with the tension on my BOA laces to see if loosening them helped. Then I went the opposite direction and tightened them up all the way, which didn’t help either. I was barely pushing on the pedals, unleashing a string of F bombs, and complaining about how drastically my power had dropped, while Rachel was yelling at me to stop looking at my numbers. I stopped to take off my shoe covers and put some lidocaine lotion on my foot, but Rachel wouldn’t let me take much of a break. After soft-pedaling through the pain for another mile or two, I decided to put the frustrated energy into my effort on the bike and started pushing my power back up to my original race effort. Whatever the reason I’m not sure, maybe getting my heart rate back up helped get some circulation back to my feet, but it seemed to be helping. I kept this up for about 15 miles before making what I promised would be my last pitstop just after sunrise. While I stood in the bathroom with my crew helping me with my gear, I realized the effort had really taken its toll, as I could barely stand on my own and had to rest my head against the bathroom stall to stay upright.

Heading back out for the last few hours while crew chief Curtis keeps an eye out for traffic on Christmas Circle

I got back on the bike for the final few hours and settled into a less aggressive effort. I just needed to survive another 4-5 loops. If I really focused on my effort, I could keep a pretty decent pace, but it was becoming more difficult. I was in better spirits, but without the carrot of a record to chase, it was tough to keep pushing myself. Part of me was a little disappointed and wondering if I had it in me to put in that strong hour of riding I’d just done, if I could have done that earlier and not fallen so far off the record pace. I tried not to let those thoughts take over, and just focused on the fact that I was getting closer and closer to being done, to being able to get off the bike, celebrate with the crew, take a shower, and get some rest.

Knowing that Mark Weidhase had been on duty officiating since the ride started nearly 24 hours earlier, I’d offered to let him go off duty and just end the official record attempt a few hours early. He refused and insisted on making sure I had an official distance for the 24 hours. In order to have an official distance, I would have to complete whatever lap I was on at the 24 hour mark. As that drew closer and I started doing the math in my head, I realized I would be best off doing a “cool down lap” for my final loop, taking it easy so that the 24 hours would elapse just before I came back around to Christmas Circle. I managed to time it just right, so that I hit the finish at 24 hours, 6 minutes. The wind and rain were about to start back up again, another reason I had no desire to continue riding another six hours. On the plus side, the incoming weather provided a nice rainbow backdrop for some awesome finish pictures.

Mark proudly wrapped me in his American flag for some awesome finish pictures. I found out later on about the sentimental value that flag has for him and am bummed we didn’t get a picture together at the finish.

My takeaway thoughts from the experience:

  1. This was one of the best executed rides or races I’ve ever done, from the mental and physical preparation to the completion of the ride itself. Focusing on the process rather than the outcome that was affected by factors out of my control, the ride was a huge success.
  2. There are only a few things I maybe wish I could go back and do differently, wondering if the outcome would have been different. While it was a big morale boost to learn that I’d set the intermediate records, did that knowledge give me an excuse to dial back my effort when I got fatigued? As I mentioned before, if I was able to start pushing myself again when I got frustrated 19-20 hours in, why couldn’t I have kept that rhythm going hours earlier? If I’d put on rain gear earlier and avoided getting wet and cold, would that have allowed me to keep the steady effort that I’d been pushing all day long? Do I need to continue tweaking my nutrition strategy to avoid the GI discomfort that seemed to be another factor contributing to the decreased effort?
  3. My support crew was absolutely amazing. My officials and crew were 100% committed to keeping me safe and helping me to stay on the bike. Every time I needed to stop for any reason, I had several people surrounding me to make sure I was back on the bike as quickly as possible. Even in the rain, wind, and cold the crew was out cheering me on every time I passed the start/finish at Christmas Circle. It warms my heart when I look back at the pictures and video of the crew and seeing how committed they were to my success. Another consideration that factors into my seeing this ride as a huge success is that everyone on the crew seemed to have a great experience and most of them were thanking me afterward for allowing them to be a part of it. One of the keys to success for an ultracyclist is crew selection and management, and I feel like I’ve really turned a corner on that aspect with this ride.
About half of my crew is represented in this picture at the finish, as several of them were packing things up or preparing breakfast.

Finally, the official numbers and records broken for the ride are as follows (still pending WUCA certification):

  1. Six Hour Timed: 113.11 miles, 18.85 mph
  2. 200 KM: 6 hrs, 35 mins, 56 secs
  3. 300 KM: 10 hrs, 26 mins, 36 secs
  4. 200 Miles: 11 hrs, 15 mins, 05 secs
  5. 300 Miles: 16 hrs, 55 mins, 47 secs
  6. 500 KM: 17 hrs, 33 mins, 18 secs
  7. Official 24 Hour Distance (not a record): 410.88 miles at 17.12 mph

With this ride behind me, I plan to spend at least a few weeks recovering before ramping the training back up for RAAM in June. I’ll need to start focusing on getting my crew together for RAAM and beginning the planning process, and hopefully take advantage of some new achievements on my resume to secure some support for RAAM. Rachel and several of my crew members were talking about “next time” within hours of the 24 hour ride, wanting to go back for another shot at the 24 hour record. I think the plan will be to pick a date in early 2021 that balances optimal weather with optimal timing leading into RAAM and set the 500 Mile and 1000 KM records which have not yet been established. Without a specific time to beat for either record, it would work well as a training ride for RAAM. I would have a shot at breaking the 24 hour record again, but the focus would be on pacing myself for the 1000 KM.

Acknowledgements:

Curtis McPherson, Dee Mann, and Rachel Goyette put in a ton of work leading into the ride making sure the crew was organized into shifts and planning meals. And of course I am always thankful to Rachel for going above and beyond in ensuring that I am adequately prepared both physically and mentally for all of my events.

Mark Weidhase had the officiating down to a science and went above and beyond to ensure my safety during the ride by sweeping debris from the road before and during the ride. He meticulously did all the math to ensure that we had all the numbers correct. Without his encouragement, I probably would have kept things simple by only putting the 24 hour record on my application and wouldn’t have ended up taking six intermediate records. Mark Mitchell and Simon Horton joined him on the officiating crew to keep solid records and ensure my safety at the tricky intersections.

We didn’t have a single dud in the rest of the crew. Everyone was giving 100% even in miserable conditions to make sure I had my best possible ride. Thanks so much to Karen Feld, Beckie Vickers, Russ Sportsman, Rob Mann, Nathan Goyette, Pat Hurter, Thomas and Mary Sol Cassidy, Eric Lewis, Jairus Ciocon, and Tina Parker for giving up their weekend so I could play bikes.

Thanks to everyone else who made the trip out to Borrego to cheer me on at some point. It was awesome to see so many familiar faces out on the course – Lisa, Terry, Tet, Rick, Cori, Jack, Liliana, John, Eric (who made the drive from Corona to Borrego Springs TWICE in less than 24 hours), Joe, Donna, Hannah, Sherry, Adam, Elisabeth and Tom/Gumby. Forgive me if I’ve forgotten anyone else who was out there.

As always, thanks to the Bike Shop of Temecula for their continued support. Both bikes were spruced up and race ready despite their mechanics being slammed with repairs and maintenance. They also took my bikes back in after the ride to clean them up after spending 24 hours in the elements. And thank you to Vertix Ultra for providing me with a reliable communication system that allowed me to easily stay in constant contact with my crew for 24 hours.

HooDoo 500 Relay

After months of races being cancelled or going virtual due to the COVID pandemic, I was really excited to be able to participate in an actual race again at HooDoo 500 last weekend in St. George, Utah. My friends Rob, Dee, Phil, and I had planned much earlier this year to race the challenging 512 mile HooDoo 500 course as a four-person relay team. At the time, I had planned it as something fun to do after finishing RAAM. Then RAAM was cancelled and it just became something fun to do. We came up with the team name “We’re Fine” as a play on my usual slogan of “It’s Fine”, and picked up a couple of crew members to help us out during the race.

While I am familiar with the HooDoo 500 course after doing the race solo last year, this was an entirely new experience for me altogether as I’ve never done a race like this on a relay team. I’m used to jumping on my bike and pacing myself to ride for a really long time. Here I would need to push myself much harder for a shorter period of time, rest and recover while my teammates took some pulls, then jump on the bike and do it all over again. I was a little worried that all the starting and stopping and sitting in a van would make it difficult to pace myself properly. My coach Rachel has been having me work on higher intensity efforts since finishing VRAW back in June, so I went in feeling prepared to put in some work on the short pulls. We also figured this would work well into my training for the 6-12-24 Hour Time Trial World Championships coming up at the end of October (assuming the permits go through and the event doesn’t get canceled).

We had a few virtual meetings on Zoom leading up to the race. Our coaches, Rachel and David, joined forces to help us put together a general strategy for the race – how long we should be taking pulls, how we should try to get some rest at night, etc. We had a meeting to discuss our strategy the week of the race, and another meeting with our crew to finalize all the details. I was a little apprehensive going in as we didn’t seem to have a detailed plan laid out in terms of how we would rotate and what sections of the course we would each be taking, but I had a lot of confidence in our crew chief Curtis, who had extensive knowledge and experience with the course and sounded like he would have no problem taking charge and putting the right people on the course at the right times. Regardless, I was just looking forward to traveling to a race again, seeing a bunch of my ultracyling friends for the first time in months, and having a fun ride with my teammates.

All four of us along with our two crew members made it to St. George on Friday afternoon without incident and got ourselves checked in for the race and settled in at our condo we had rented for the weekend. We had a nice pre-race dinner at the condo then settled in to get some sleep before our 9 am start on Saturday morning. We woke up Saturday morning to cloudy skies and a few sprinkles and wondered if we might get some rain. On the plus side, we didn’t have the triple digit temperatures we had been expecting.

Our full crew and team at race check-in Friday afternoon. Curtis, Dee, Rob, me, Phil, and Megan

We decided to let Phil roll out for the neutral start while the rest of us drove out to the first exchange location about 9 miles away. I was scheduled to take the second pull, and it occurred to me that this meant that I would be the first one riding once the actual racing started, so I was a little nervous about that. There were five teams in the 4x relay division. I waved to my friend Shane Trotter as he flew by just before I took the handoff from Phil. He was on the team “Soaring Coots” and I knew they were going for the course record and that would more than likely be the last I would ever see of him. I wasn’t sure where we would fit in with the rest of the teams, but I was hoping we had a good chance of winning the race for second place.

Our team had spent a few minutes practicing exchanges when we got together for hill repeats on Glendora Mountain Road last month, so I hoped my first handoff would go smoothly. When I saw Phil getting close I started riding and held out my left hand so that he could hand off the GPS tracker (attached to a small spatula with electrical tape). Once he was close enough, he placed the tracker in my hand, I yelled “got it” once I had it in my grasp, he let go, and I placed it in my pocket while trying to accelerate and not collide with Phil as he slowed down to be picked up by Curtis and our van. It all went off without a hitch and I started looking to dial into my steady effort for approximately 25 minutes. I hadn’t kept track of how many teams were ahead of or behind me, but I could see another cyclist trying to catch me in my rear view mirror. Within a few minutes he had dropped back and I didn’t see him again. I passed one other team, and could see another rider a little bit ahead of me for most of my pull. I probably put in a slightly more intense effort than planned in an effort to keep my position, but I tried to keep reminding myself to save my energy for the rest of the race. I was basically about to do a 30 hour interval session.

After about 25 minutes, I saw our van pulled over and Dee waiting to exchange with me. We had another flawless exchange and we got in the van to keep an eye on Dee and get Rob ahead for his pull. I knew I would have about an hour or so before getting back on the bike and knew I should probably take in some fluids and calories, but once again I was in unfamiliar territory and wasn’t sure of the best strategy for fueling. I figured I was best off taking in small amounts shortly after getting off the bike and tried to stick with that strategy for most of the race.

Setting up for a well-timed and efficient exchange of the tracker

Rob took the handoff from Dee and we made our way out of Hurricane, Utah, where Rob tackled the first bit of substantial climbing of the race. He also managed to pass Team 303 Gruppetto and put us solidly in 2nd place. Once I got back on the bike taking a handoff from Phil, 303 Gruppetto was closing in and I could see their rider in my rear view mirror. After a few minutes the storm hit and I spent most of the pull riding in the rain. I tried not to let the sight of the rider behind me force me to push beyond my limits. I kept my effort steady and just hoped that he was pushing himself outside his comfort zone trying to chase me down. I handed off to Dee again and we made our way into Arizona for a short portion of the course before going back across the state line into Utah. We maintained a bit of a lead over 303 Gruppetto as we headed towards the first Time Station in Orderville.

Rob took over just before the Time Station, where the rest of us stopped for a restroom break and to chat with the volunteers. We hadn’t been there long when two frantic texts came through from Rob that he’d had a flat. We all rushed back to the van to get to Rob to help change his tube while putting the next rider on the course. We lost about five minutes getting to him, but I believe we got Phil out on the road before 303 Gruppetto caught us.

As we got closer to Bryce Canyon, we started figuring out our plan for the unsupported zone on the bike trail to the next Time Station. Because the van would need to gas up at the Time Station, and the course flattened out at that point before a long descent, we decided that I would take a long pull and climb up the bike trail then take the descent into Tropic. I knew 303 Gruppetto was not too far behind and am always worried about getting caught on climbs, so I was constantly looking in my mirror to see if anyone was coming up behind me on the bike trail. Once I reached the flat section, I breathed a sigh of relief and started flying across the flat section. Just after exiting the bike trail onto the highway, I saw that I was about to catch up to both of the two solo female racers, Seana Hogan and Tami Kearns. I cheered both of them on as I passed them, just before bombing down the long descent.

Waiting to take the handoff from Phil and start my ride through Bryce Canyon

Once I hooked back up with the team, we started making our way to the third Time Station in Escalante. I was getting ready to ride again when we saw our friend Brook Henderson about to get back on the course. He started four hours before us as he was riding in the Voyager (solo, self-supported) division, and was having a really rough day. He perked up when he saw us, and we got to cheer him on for the next hour or so as we leapfrogged him a few times. It was really cool to be able to see him at that point, as it was the exact spot where he passed me last year and helped me through a rough spot in the race.

I took a bit of a longer pull out of Escalante while the rest of the team grabbed some food and went on an unsuccessful search for coffee. After that, Rob and I started resting a bit to get ready to tag team Boulder Mountain, the first of two big climbs on the route. We took turns riding 10-15 minutes at a time, and I was shocked at how quickly we tackled the climb compared to my slow grind last year. We were building up a nice lead on 303 Gruppetto but kept crossing paths with their RV leapfrogging us. I bundled up at the summit and rode most of the long descent towards Bicknell, where I was looking forward to seeing my friend Brian at the Time Station and finally getting some coffee.

Unfortunately, we had a miscue at the turn to Bicknell and Phil turned right towards Capitol Reef National Park instead of left. By the time we realized he was off course, it cost us around 20 minutes to get back on track and 303 Gruppetto had taken over 2nd place. We stayed calm and had a good sense of humor and figured it just made the race a little more interesting.

We made it to Bicknell and once again I found no coffee. Rob and I got to spend the next few hours resting in the back of the van while Dee and Phil took turns pulling. I don’t know that I slept much, and it definitely was a little cramped in the back of the van, but at least I got to rest my eyes for awhile. Still, when it was time to get ready to ride again and go out in the cold dark early morning, I wasn’t really feeling it. I think my first pull was a little weak, but I started feeling a little better on the second one. We even had our first glimpse of the 303 Gruppetto RV for the first time in awhile, and not long after that I could see the lights of their rider ahead of me. I was starting to close in on him towards the end of my pull and Curtis asked me if I wanted to catch him first. I had no desire to push myself beyond my comfort level to pass them, so I let Rob take over and he made the pass. Then the pressure was on me to hold the gap. As we got closer to the next Time Station in Panguitch, Curtis let me know I would need to ride through Panguitch and then take a long pull up the steep climb towards Panguitch Lake while the team stopped for gas and ice. We only had a six minute lead at the Time Station and I kept looking behind me to see if they were closing in on me on the climb. I managed to hold them off and was relieved to finally see our van pass me and set up for an exchange. And they had coffee for me!!!

All lit up with reflective gear riding through Panguitch

We started tackling the second of the two big climbs on the route as a team as Phil and Dee woke up and got themselves moving again, and made our way to Duck Creek Village and then the summit at Gooseberry Point at nearly 10,000 feet. Once again, I was amazed how quickly we put the climb behind us after the slow slog I remembered from last year’s solo race. The team let me take the long descent into Cedar City, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We then put Phil on the bike for a long pull while we stopped at the Time Station to get ice. By the time we caught up to Phil, he was struggling and 303 Gruppetto was quickly closing the gap.

I think I hit my lowest point of the race right around that time. I was waiting for my turn to pull again and remember sitting there thinking that I was exhausted and just didn’t care about the race anymore. I felt like there was no way I could get back on my bike and keep working at the same intensity I’d been putting in up to that point. Somehow, I managed to rally by the time I got back on my bike and found that my legs were still willing to work for me. We kept up a strong rotation of 10 minute pulls in the headwinds heading back to St. George and starting building back up a healthy gap. By the time we reached Veyo we knew that barring some disaster, there was no way they could catch us. We decided to ride the final segment through Snow Canyon and back into St. George as a team and took it nice and easy to the finish.

Riding back into St. George to the finish as a team

I have to give a lot of credit to our coaches, David and Rachel, for helping us put together a great racing strategy that worked out well for us. The team we were battling with the entire race seemed to be sticking to a rigid approach of trading off long pulls and it seemed to be exhausting them. Our rotation was much more fluid and our crew chief Curtis did an amazing job of reading our body language and adjusting for the terrain and race situation. With each of us putting in 20 or so pulls, Curtis also had the exhausting job of getting out of the van about 100 times to unrack one bike for the outgoing rider and then racking the bike of the incoming rider. And huge kudos to our driver Megan, who managed to stay awake and behind the wheel for us for the entire 30 hours of our race. It definitely was a huge bonus for us to be able to relax in the van between our pulls without having to take over shifts driving, especially towards the end of the race when we were all exhausted.

Big shoutout to Planet Ultra for managing to put this race on during the crazy times that we’re now living in. I think everyone involved was excited to be at a real live race again. We were still able to have a fun outdoor celebration at the awards breakfast on Monday morning before heading home. I’m really enjoying getting to know the HooDoo course a little better and definitely plan to continue participating in some variation of the course whenever I have the opportunity. I’d love to go back and better my solo result from last year, as I know I could have improved on a lot of things. But I’d also like to try out some of the other race divisions, like the stage race and the self-supported versions of the course.

So I’m back home and back into focused training for the 6-12-24 Hour World Time Trial Championships (WTTC), which has been pushed back to the end of October in hopes that the permits will come through. We’ve also been given the news that support crews will not be allowed at the race, so I’ll have to spend some extra time organizing and strategizing how to minimize my time off the bike while riding self-supported. The hopes I had of coming back after last year’s dismal race and taking my course record back are most likely gone, but I still plan to put it the best possible mileage under the circumstances, and am keeping my fingers crossed that we get to race this year.

Collecting our 2nd place award at the breakfast on Monday morning. Phil was given the “wrong way” award.

10,000 Ways That Won’t Work

The last few weeks have included a few misadventures that led me to think of Thomas Edison’s quote: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

I (hopefully) have two actual, real events coming up in the next month or so and am looking forward to my first chance to attend a non-virtual event in about six months. I participated in both events (HooDoo 500 and the 24+6 hour time trial at the 6-12-24 Hour World Time Trial Championships) last year with less than awesome experiences. As my coach Rachel reminded me a few times, hopefully the bad stuff has already happened in training and now I’m set up for some great race experiences.

With a bunch of events going virtual this year, I’ve enjoyed taking the opportunity to use them for training and working out race and nutrition strategies in a low consequence environment. Last weekend, I planned to tackle the Southern Inyo by Moonlight Double Double Century (double centuries on back to back days). Weeks earlier, I had what seemed like a great idea in theory. I booked a couple of nights in Borrego Springs and planned a massive training weekend that would work for both HooDoo 500 and the 24 hour time trial. I would do both rides at night to stay out of the heat and also allow me to get more experience riding at night. I mapped out a modified version of the challenging Borrego Double Century for one of the rides, then planned to do loops on the 18-mile time trial circuit in Borrego Springs for the second double. Perfect, right?

As anyone who lives in Southern California knows, we’ve been hit with a massive heat wave the last couple of weeks along with horrible air quality from all the wildfires. The desert is probably the last place I should have been riding, even at night. But I stuck to the plan. I drove out to Borrego Springs after a half day at work on Friday, dropping off a couple of water caches on my way. After unpacking and getting my bike ready, I rested for a bit and waited for the sun to go down, which brought the daytime temperature of about 120 degrees all the way down to 111 degrees. Figuring I’ve always done pretty well in the heat, I just need to get myself up Montezuma Valley Road (the Glass Elevator in RAAM-speak) at an easy pace, then it should be cooler for most of the ride.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. The heat, horrible air quality, windy conditions on the climb, and a body that just didn’t want to cooperate quickly led to a DNF. I’d started to get a headache earlier in the day and had to take my migraine medication, which is never a good way to start a big training weekend. As I made my way up the climb, my head started to feel heavy, my knees started hurting, then my back started hurting, then I just could not shake the feeling that all I wanted to do was get back to the bed in my hotel room and go to sleep. There really was no easy spinning on the climb with the conditions and the way my body was feeling, so I was working a lot harder than I wanted to be. I started texting Rachel, who agreed with my assessment and “gave me permission” to call it and head back to Borrego Springs. I’d been on the bike about 90 minutes and was fairly close to the top of the Glass Elevator.

I figured I’d get a good night’s sleep and stay inside during the heat of the day on Saturday and try again the next night. I had taken Monday off from work, so I figured I could still get in the double double if I extended my stay an extra night. Around mid-day Saturday, Rachel encouraged me to change plans and just do the loops on the Borrego time trial circuit Saturday night to build some confidence. Unfortunately, spending all day laying around and “over-resting”, with too much time to think and allow second thoughts to creep in led to me not feeling spectacular about heading back out into the heat by the time I was planning to get started again. I ended up compromising with a very early start to an easy century ride on the time trial course and managed to finish just before the temps hit the triple digits on Sunday morning. I headed home discouraged, but fairly certain I’d made the right call.

Derailed by the desert heat in Borrego Springs. Hoping for better conditions in early October…

I spent the week very much looking forward to my plans for this weekend. Rachel has been working on building her running mileage up over the summer with a goal to run 100 miles solo from Temecula to Long Beach. I offered to be a bike escort during the night hours. After getting home from work, I quickly got ready to ride and raced over to Rachel’s house just in time to start with her at 8:00 pm. Her husband Nate ran with her for a few miles before turning around to head home and then get in the car to SAG for her through the night. After a couple of hours, we were joined by our friend Sarah in Murrieta and she ran with Rachel for 15 miles through Wildomar and Lake Elsinore. Then we had about 25 miles to cover before meeting up with her second crew at the Santa Ana River Trail (SART) entrance at Green River Road at about mile 55.

Rachel had similar luck in picking the date for her run as I did with my double-double. The weather and air quality was not optimal for an ultra-distance run. Even at night, the temperature hovered around 75 degrees with humidity, so that she was sweating a lot more than she should have been and was struggling to stay cool by the time we hit about 30 miles. She tried icing herself down, showering herself with the water from her Camelbak, and eating popsicles and icees. We were looking forward to the sun coming up so that she would feel more awake, but knew that the sun would bring more heat. We were hoping that getting closer to the coast would mean cooler weather.

I dropped Rachel off with her second crew around 8:00 am and rode back home. The rest of the crew was surprised that I didn’t take Nate up on his offer to drive me home, but I knew that I needed to do some actual riding (as opposed to rolling alongside Rachel at 5-6 mph). I also knew that pushing myself in my fatigued state would be some of the best training for ultra races I could get. I actually felt pretty decent for the first couple of hours and got a PR on the big climb up Foothill through Corona (after convincing myself not to detour around it and take a flatter route). I was running on fumes by the time I got home. I managed to shower and inhale a quick snack before falling asleep.

Unfortunately, the heat and humidity never let up for Rachel and she made the difficult choice to finish her run at 81 miles. Much like my choice in Borrego Springs, it was the right call and I’m happy that I got to participate in the effort.

Also on the topic of finding ways that won’t work, I’ve been struggling to find a nutrition strategy that works for me for ultra distances. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m trying to keep my sugar intake low, which eliminates a lot of sports nutrition products on the market. I thought I had something worked out during VRAW, but have found in the last couple of weeks that my stomach just won’t tolerate the current regimen. With my two events coming up quickly, it’s a little discouraging to go back to the drawing board, but I’m confident that I’ll figure it out.

As for the upcoming races, I’m excited to go back to both events. I’ll be heading to St. George, Utah with my friends Dee, Rob, and Phil to take on the HooDoo 500 route as a four-person relay team, along with our crew members Curtis and Megan. It should be a fun weekend, and the relay format should be better training for the 24 hour time trial (as opposed to racing solo). My workouts since VRAW have been targeting higher power intervals, which has been fun but exhausting. Hopefully all that work will pay off in the next few weeks.

Dual Event Training

I’m finding myself in a bit of a unique position where I (hopefully) have two very different events coming up that are only six weeks apart. I’ll be participating in HooDoo 500 in Southern Utah on a mixed 4x team with my friends Rob, Dee, and Phil at the end of August, followed up by the 24 hour solo time trial at the 6-12-24 Hour World Time Trial Championships (WTTC) in Borrego Springs, CA in early October. Both events involve riding at night and are likely to be hot during the day, but the similarities stop there. The HooDoo 500 course will have a lot of climbing and I will be riding short, more intense pulls with breaks in between, and I’ll be riding my Cannondale Synapse, an endurance road bike. The WTTC will be 24 hours of constant pedaling on a relatively flat course with as little stopped time as possible. There is the potential for the weather to be very hot and/or very windy, and I will be riding my time trial bike in a much more aggressive position.

The strategy over the next few weeks will be to divide my weekends into long hilly rides on the Synapse and long flat rides/loops on the TT bike, while taking advantage of any opportunities to get acclimated to the heat and ride in windy conditions. I felt really great this week after last weekend’s double double and was able to put in some good efforts after a couple of days’ recovery, so I hoped I would be able to nail my training rides this weekend as they were relatively short compared to last weekend’s epic adventures.

My workout for Saturday was six hours consisting of repeats of 45 minute higher intensity efforts with 15 minutes of easy riding to recover. Despite the forecast of temps above 110 degrees in Borrego Springs, I decided to head there to ride loops of the race circuit for the first time since last year’s event and get started on my TT training. Last year I used a combination of laps on the Santa Ana River Trail (SART) and loops on the Borrego circuit for the bulk of my long training rides, which I felt was perfect for getting used to the constant pedaling and monotony of riding in circles for 24 hours straight. The SART has been so crowded that I didn’t feel comfortable trying to do my more intense efforts out there, so I opted to go where there would be a lot less traffic in Borrego. While I figured some heat training would probably be a good thing, I didn’t want to put too much stress on my system, so I drove out there in the middle of the night on a few hours’ sleep and got started while it was still cool at 4:30 am. This actually worked out well, as it also allowed me to put in some time riding the course in the dark and in a somewhat sleep-deprived state.

I headed out for my first lap and found that although I’ve done this loop dozens of times, I still needed a lap or two to get comfortable with the roads and the corners again. I swear the roads on the north half of that course have gotten worse since last year, which is probably why they’re planning to do road work in a couple of weeks. I’m hoping that won’t interfere too much with my plans to train out there, or with the race itself.

I definitely don’t want to worry about 15 minute delays happening during my training rides, or the race itself which is scheduled for October 9-10. Hopefully this means the roads on the north end of the course will be a little smoother by October.

It was apparent even from the first attempt at higher intensity that my legs weren’t completely recovered from last weekend, but I managed to stay on pace for the first few intervals. Knowing it would be getting hot, I tried to stay on top of my hydration and nutrition, remembering the trouble I had on last Saturday’s double century. The temperature stayed pretty comfortable for about four laps, but I really started to feel the heat for the last couple of hours. As I made my way through my fifth 45 minute interval, I found that I just could not will my legs to push hard enough to hold the effort, but my heart rate was climbing. It may have been my body’s self-regulatory mechanism for protection against the heat. It may have been fatigue from last weekend. It may have been my low-carb nutrition regimen catching up to me. Maybe it was a combination of all those things. I don’t believe I was terribly dehydrated as I was drinking plenty and stopping at my car every lap to refill bottles. Weighing myself before and after the ride, I lost about 4% of my body weight, which is perfectly reasonable for a six hour ride in that heat.

I can also mention that this was my first time putting in a long effort on my TT bike in several months. I mostly stopped riding it once RAAM was cancelled and didn’t even have access to it for a month or so while some issues were being worked out with the power meter. After a few hours, this occurred to me as I started to feel very uncomfortable in the aero position and had to start sitting up frequently. This was extremely unusual during my training for the time trial the last two years. But then again, this is probably the longest I’ve gone not riding that bike in 2-3 years. So I’m sure this was a factor in the fatigue as well, and getting tossed around by the rough roads probably didn’t help matters.

So it wasn’t the perfect training ride, but I was able to put in a pretty solid six hours with some intensity, while putting in some time acclimating to the heat and riding in the dark. The wind was pretty minimal, and when it did start to pick up it was mostly a favorable wind (meaning it pushed me up the only “hill” on the circuit). Hopefully there will be some opportunity for wind training during some future rides.

For Sunday’s ride, I had a four hour hilly ride at a steady, easier pace. Because I didn’t hit my pace targets on Saturday, I had it in my head that I might even be able to ride at a slightly higher effort than what my training plan called for. As much as I figured I could use some more training in the heat, I opted for another early start in the dark so I could finish up meeting my Cycle Relic friends for coffee at about 8:30 am. I got rolling at about 4:15 am and headed south for the hills in Lilac, Bonsall, and Fallbrook.

I gave myself 15-20 minutes of easy pedaling before I felt ready to start pushing the effort. I found that I was struggling just to hold my prescribed intensity so I didn’t even bother trying to increase it at all. Part of the reason I struggled a bit is because most of the climbing was on the back end of the route, so trying to hold my effort on flats and downhills was challenging. Still, I was able to spend a solid hour or so riding in the dark and even got a nice windy descent on Rice Road done in the dark, which was great training for the HooDoo 500 route.

Once I had to start doing some climbing, and after my legs had a couple of hours to warm up, I found that I was able to increase my power output a bit and bring my average up to where it was supposed to be. I pulled into Ryan Bros for coffee just as the Relics were finishing up their orders and got to spend an hour or so BS’ing with them before putting in some easy miles to ride back home. It was definitely worth getting out for the early start and having a chance to do something social after the long solo rides last weekend, with plenty more slated for the weeks to come.

So overall, not the perfect weekend of training, but I got in a good mix of everything and had some fun. Oh, and incidentally, my mileage total for 2020 hit 10,000 miles after Saturday’s ride, which is a nice milestone. It’s only been the last two years that I’ve hit 10,000 miles for the year and both times reached that number by June or July.

For what it’s worth, I fully realize that there is a chance that the WTTC won’t happen this year. Even if it does, the field may be very limited due to travel restrictions, especially for international athletes. Just as I did with my training for RAAM this year, I will continue training as if the race is happening until when and if it isn’t. Even then, I might just go ahead and do my own 24 hour time trial “for fun”. With so many races being cancelled this year, I’m finding it helpful to have virtual events and personal challenges to stay motivated. And everything is working into my training for RAAM 2021.

Grand Tour Virtual Double Double Century

The latest of the California Triple Crown Double Century events to go virtual in 2020 was the LA Wheelmen’s Grand Tour. They also offered the opportunity to participate in a virtual “double double”, meaning double century rides on back to back days. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to go for the double double so soon after VRAW, but it seemed like a good idea and I went with it. I had to pick my dates several weeks ago when I signed up and had no way of knowing at the time that it would be the hottest weekend of the year so far. Not that it would have mattered, because it was really the only weekend that worked for me in the allotted timeframe. When I saw that triple digit heat was forecast for both Saturday and Sunday, it never even crossed my mind to bail on the rides. I just started strategizing how to deal with it.

I had been playing with the idea of repeating a variation of the big loop I did a couple of months ago before VRAW, and then doing it in the reverse direction for the second ride. I wasn’t completely sure I wanted to spend so much time riding on the coast when it was likely to be crowded, but I also realized it would be a good way to get away from the heat. I finally mapped out a couple of rides that I was satisfied with, and decided to shoot for very early morning rollouts to get in as much riding as possible before the heat.

Saturday

I elected to ride the loop clockwise on Saturday, heading south through Rainbow, Bonsall, San Marcos, Escondido, and Solana Beach before making my way north up the coast and hitting the Santa Ana River Trail (SART) in Newport Beach to make my way back home. Because I had a few climbs early in the ride, and just to have the chance to use a couple of different bikes, I rode my Cannondale Synapse on Saturday. As I mentioned in my VRAW race report, I’ve been tweaking my nutrition and hydration strategy a bit, and this would be my first time taking that out on the road for a longer ride.

I was able to get started at 3:00 am on Saturday morning, so I was all the way to San Marcos before the sun even came up, and heading up the coast before it got too warm. The breeze from the ocean was still cool, so I didn’t really felt the heat unless I was stopped. I didn’t drink a lot of water or take in too many calories earlier in the ride and was feeling pretty good at mile 90 when I finally stopped to use the restroom and get some water at the rest stop off Highway 5 between Oceanside and Las Pulgas. Not too long after that, I started struggling just a bit. Because I started in the dark, I opted to wear my sunglasses with photochromic lenses rather than my dark sunglasses. I generally only wear these glasses for my shorter morning rides, but after wearing them for several hours I started noticing they created some pressure points that started to give me a headache and make my head feel heavy. Making my way up the coast through Orange County, the wind, traffic, and constant stop and go at lights was getting tiring.

As I started making my way inland and back towards home on the SART, the cool breeze disappeared and I started feeling the heat. I stopped at Edna park to fill my Camelbak and nutrition bottles and I think it was around that time that I finally took some medication for my headache. As I continued along the trail that I’m so used to riding on my TT bike, it was very much apparent that I wasn’t flying along with the usual speed or ease and was even starting to feel a little disoriented. It may have been partly due to my bike choice, but I also think I was starting to feel the combined effects of the heat, headache, and lack of nutrition and hydration earlier in the ride. I had been trying to stick to a very low sugar nutrition regimen, but as I approached the Circle K on SART at about mile 150, I decided to stop for a Coke. I just spent a few minutes downing about half of a 16 oz can and hoped the cool drink and the sugar would revive me. It might have helped a bit, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped. As I continued into and through Corona, I watched the temperature on my bike computer climb as high as 115 degrees. I had enough fluid and nutrition, but it was too warm to be refreshing and I wasn’t feeling hungry. My mouth and throat were completely dry, but drinking the hot water was only filling my stomach and not helping alleviate the thirst. I stopped again to get some cold water with about 30 miles to go, determined that it would be my last stop.

The final slog home was brutal and frustrating. Whenever I looked at the temperature it was between 110 and 115 degrees and I felt like I was moving at a snail’s pace. Every time I had to stop at a traffic signal, it was another minute or two of sitting in the heat without any air movement. I counted the miles and minutes that I knew it should take me to get home, but at the same time wondering if I’d be able to convince myself to go through this again the following day.

Because of the early start, I finished a bit earlier than I’ve finished my other virtual doubles, around 4:00 pm for an elapsed time of 13 hours, 5 minutes (12 hours, 20 minutes of moving time). Much like I did between my VRAW sessions, I took a shower, Epsom salt bath, ate a good meal, spent some time in my Air Relax boots, then went to sleep with my alarm set hoping to be rolling by 2:00 am on Sunday.

Sunday

I was able to get started at around 2:15 am Sunday morning, first heading northeast toward Menifee, Perris, Moreno Valley, and Riverside before heading west towards Corona and the SART again. It was a bit of a variation of Saturday’s route and now in a counterclockwise direction. I assumed the winds would be more favorable in this direction, and I rode my aerodynamic Cannondale System Six and hoped I might make better time despite the fatigue from Saturday.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first few hours of riding in the dark on empty roads, and was pleasantly surprised that my legs weren’t too sore or stiff from Saturday’s ride. The sun was just coming up as I climbed out of Riverside to Lake Mathews. I realized as I approached the descent on Cajalco Road into Corona that, although I’d climbed Cajalco many times, I’d never been down the windy descent before. As I bombed down the road with the sun coming up behind me, I was smiling like a little kid, wondering how I’d never managed to find my way to this AWESOME downhill before!

Having struggled so much through the afternoon heat on Saturday, I took advantage of having some mistakes so fresh in my memory and made sure to correct them on Sunday. I can only describe my attitude on Saturday, as with many long-distance rides, by saying that I sometimes try to be some kind of “bike hero” and avoid stopping as much as possible. I conceded that in the more extreme conditions I would need to do whatever it took to stay comfortable, and had to continue reminding myself of this throughout the day. I drank more water earlier in the day. Not an excessive amount, but just made sure to take a sip from my Camelbak when I noticed my mouth getting dry. I also made sure to start taking in calories earlier and more often, which was easy because the calorie deficit from Saturday left me starving and I wasn’t working as hard so it was easy for my gut to process everything. I also opted to use my dark sunglasses that I’m used to wearing all day, but waited to put them on until it was light outside to avoid getting a headache again.

I stopped to use a restroom at a park in Corona, which was a good sign that I’d been hydrating enough. Then I stopped a few miles down the road to fill my Camelbak and nutrition bottles with water AND ice before it started getting hot. I realized how stupid it was to not use ice to keep everything cold on Saturday. I also had to pick up some sunscreen as I realized a few miles from home that in being so careful to apply extra sunscreen to my arms and legs I’d completely forgotten to put anything on my face.

I jumped onto the SART and headed out towards the coast, feeling much more like myself this time on the System Six as I was able to fly down the trail comfortably in my aero bars. I’d planned ahead and updated the route in my bike computer to take me around the construction at the tunnel under I-405, and made the detour without missing a beat. As I got off the trail in Newport Beach to start heading down the coast, I was pulled out of my zone by my friends David, Sam, and Glenn yelling at me to say hello as they were getting onto the trail in the opposite direction.

I’d timed my route down the coast much better on Sunday and made it across all the beach towns before there was too much traffic. I was hoping to make it to Oceanside before stopping again, but my Camelbak was feeling a little light and the water was getting a bit warm by the time I got to San Clemente. “Stop trying to be a bike hero”. I stopped and got more ice and water, and made another restroom stop before heading through the campground and onto the bike trail, then down I-5 into Oceanside, before heading inland and back home.

I enjoyed some of the coastal breeze for at least a little while before the dry heat started to hit me around Bonsall. I made one last stop for ice to cool down my water and nutrition bottles before heading up Highway 395 where I knew the heat would only get worse. I hadn’t been working terribly hard most of the day anyway, but I kept my bike in an easy gear to spin up the last few climbs back through Rainbow and into Temecula.

Unfortunately, I realized during that last stretch that the 202 mile route I’d mapped out on Ride With GPS on Saturday night was going to be about 5 miles short if I followed it straight home. Apparently (according to RWGPS), sometimes it makes more sense that someone would want to make a U-turn in the middle of a bike trail and backtrack a mile or so rather than go from point A to point B in a straight line, so because I didn’t have the time to meticulously review every point I plotted on the route, it added about 5 “mystery miles”. So I found myself 10 miles from home but needing about 13 miles to get to 200 when it was 105 degrees or so and windy. This was the most frustrating part of the day for me, trying to meander my way through town to add extra distance as painlessly (i.e., with as little climbing and headwind) as possible.

I made it back home in an elapsed time of 12 hours, 38 minutes with a ride time of 11 hours, 44 minutes. I was able to ride Sunday’s route faster than Saturday’s route with significantly less effort, which I attributed to being on the more aerodynamic bike combined with a more favorable wind pattern.

Much like my thoughts on VRAW, I am really happy with the overall training experience I had with this solo, self-supported double double. I had a chance to ride in more extreme conditions (dark and heat). I was able to continue working on my nutrition and hydration strategy. And of course there is the ever-important ability required in ultracycling to work through mental and physical fatigue. I’ll more than likely be adding another double double weekend into my schedule in the next month. As I said after VRAW, it is definitely a bummer that Race Across America (RAAM) and so many other events were canceled due to the COVID pandemic, but I’m happy to take advantage of some of the unique training opportunities that have arisen as a result and know that I will be that much more prepared for RAAM when it comes around next year (hopefully).

Virtual Race Across the West

I’ll do my best to break down twelve days and 950 miles of riding on an indoor trainer into a readable report. Bear with me if it becomes a bit long-winded. I was quite transparent going into the event that I had no intention of racing VRAW to be competitive. I knew it would be difficult to take the week off from work as my company is still short-staffed while recovering from the hit we had taken at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, the challenge I had set for myself was to complete the 950 miles of VRAW around my 8-5 work schedule and finish within the 12 day cutoff time. Additionally, I had been experiencing some knee pain that had become debilitating on my recent long trainer rides and figured it would not be worth the risk of making that issue worse by attempting to ride 950 miles in one continuous stretch. Apparently I’m not the only one to experience such issues, as we saw one of the top ultracyclists in the world, Marko Baloh, abandon VRAW while in first place about 200 miles from the finish. He made the wise decision to save his knees for some of his upcoming non-virtual events which were a higher priority for him.

Although I did not have the goal of winning VRAW or obtaining a spot on the podium, I was taking the race seriously and had my own personal goals on which to focus. Even though my race was broken down into shorter sessions, I hoped to keep a steady race effort as if I was riding the course continuously. I also hoped to work out my nutrition and hydration strategy to avoid some of the GI and fluid retention issues that I’ve experienced in the past. And finally, I wanted to make sure I put some of my mental training to use by staying positive and working through the inevitable tough spots.

The Routine

In the few days leading up to the start of VRAW, I tried to prep as much as I possibly could to save time during the race. I bought a massive amount of groceries hoping that I wouldn’t need to go back to the store until after the race. I prepped enough meals in advance to get me through most of the twelve days. My bike, trainer, TV, charger cables, fans, water bottles, nutrition, and snacks were all set up at a permanent station in the garage. It wasn’t quite as decked out as a few of the “pain caves” that I saw a few of my fellow racers using, but it worked for me.

My VRAW station

The VRAW “course” consisted of 83 rides on the FulGaz platform which varied in distance from 1.6 miles to 56 miles. The rides were sectioned into eight blocks which consisted of a sequence of 3-5 rides which would be repeated 2-4 times within that block. The rides had to be completed in the given sequence. I had put together a conservative schedule that would allow me to finish within 12 days while allowing enough time for for sleep and recovery so that I would be able to stay focused at work.

My daily routine on work days didn’t change too much throughout the race. I woke up at 3 am just about every day and tried to start pedaling by 4 am. Although I am very much a morning person, I always seem to need at least an hour to get myself moving. I would complete the rides I had planned for the morning, which would typically leave me just enough time to get ready for work. By the second week, I was eating my breakfast while on the bike to fit in extra ride time. I worked from 8-5 Monday-Friday and tried to spend my lunch hour relaxing and taking a power nap if needed. I was typically able to get home from work and get back on the bike by shortly after 5:30 pm. After finishing the rides on my evening schedule, I would eat dinner while using my Air Relax compression boots, wind down, and get to bed as quickly as possible without distractions. Towards the end of the second week, I started using the compression boots for about 15 minutes before my evening ride to help with some of the mild fluid retention I was experiencing. I also started taking an Epsom salt bath immediately after my evening rides, primarily hoping to alleviate the irritation in the saddle region that became progressively worse during the second week.

Looking back over my experience, I found that my VRAW experience can be broken into 3, maybe 3 1/2 distinct chunks of time.

Week 1

The courses for Virtual RAAM, Virtual RAW, and The 60 (a 12 day challenge to ride 60 minutes each day) opened at 6:00 am Pacific Time on Tuesday, June 16. About 200 cyclists representing 29 countries were all able to start riding their respective races at that moment. Because I knew the first segment would take me a little over an hour and I started work at 8:00 am, I opted to wait until after work to ride. It is possible to end a ride early and finish it later, but I wanted to ride at least that first segment all in one session. A big reason for this was because the first segment was the first 20 or so miles of the actual RAW course out of Oceanside, CA. Due to the time constraints in putting this event together, it was not possible to recreate the entire RAW course on the FulGaz platform, but they did get GoPro footage from a cyclist riding the first section of the RAW/RAAM course to at least recreate the race start, which was really cool.

That first Tuesday was not a great day for me. I was feeling a little depressed knowing that in a world without COVID, I would have been starting the real Race Across America that day. It was also a little frustrating to be sitting at work while many of the other racers were already on their bikes. Also, I just simply never feel that great when I don’t get in some form of activity before work. By the time I got on my bike just before 6:00 pm, it had been about 36 hours since I’d had any type of exercise, my legs were feeling heavy and lethargic, and I was just not in a great mood. It was kind of unfortunate, because I really wanted to enjoy riding that first section of the actual RAW route, even if it was virtual.

I was able to hold my goal effort of about 65% on that ride, but it just felt like I was working harder than I was. I tried to just let myself have fun with the ride and enjoy watching the very familiar sights of the actual race route on the TV in front of me, but it never took long to start feeling frustrated again. I was happy to finish off the ride, clean up, and hoped that I’d feel better the next morning.

Fortunately, I felt back to my normal self the next morning and throughout the week. I was holding about a 65% effort on my rides and spending 3.5 to 4.5 hours per day on the bike without feeling completely thrashed. I was tired, but definitely able to function just fine at work. I was quite happy that my knees were feeling pretty good so far. I had turned the trainer difficulty down to 50%, which simply means that the terrain does not feel as steep as it is and I don’t need to mash the pedals to get up steep climbs. The same amount of power is required as when the trainer difficulty is set to 100%. It’s basically the same as putting a larger cassette on the bike. I went into the weekend on track with the schedule I had set for myself, and felt ready to tackle the long weekend hours.

The Weekend

I debated a few options for how to get the weekend rides done while allowing myself to get a bit of a race simulation experience. I opted to sleep in a bit on Saturday to get some extra rest, ride all day, take about a four hour sleep break, then start back up again early Sunday morning.

After sleeping in a bit and spending some time in my compression boots, I finally got around to getting on the bike around 8 am on Saturday morning. I was feeling pretty good and maintaining my 65% effort for a few hours but by mid-day my power started gradually dropping as fatigue set in and I started some of the more difficult rides. I spent most of Saturday afternoon working on the longest ride on the VRAW course, “The Cheaha Challenge”. It took me about 4.5 hours to ride the 56 miles with 7,500 feet of elevation gain. It wasn’t a terribly difficult ride. It just had a lot of small climbs and was a long ride. On the plus side, we actually got a few downhills on that ride. If you read the reports and comments made by almost anyone who did VRAAM or VRAW, you will be sure to hear complaints or comments about the constant climbing without downhills. The 950 miles of VRAW included 83,000 feet of elevation gain (compared to about 50,000 feet on the actual RAW course), and many of the rides were climbs without the descents. It took me until about 9 pm Saturday to finish the rides I had scheduled for myself, and I was averaging between 55-60% intensity. The next ride on the course was a repeat of The Cheaha Challenge, and I couldn’t bring myself to ride that beast again before getting some rest.

I spent 2-3 hours winding down from the ride on Saturday night. I ate dinner, showered, took an Epsom salt bath, used my compression boots, and finally went to sleep around midnight planning to wake up at 4 am to start my Sunday ride. I was attempting to simulate a RAAM sleep break to some degree, but obviously I would skip a few of those steps before going to sleep on RAAM.

My second time through the Cheaha Challenge on Sunday morning was even slower than the first, and my power was down to about 50% or lower. It was a little frustrating, but my main focus was just to stay on the bike and keep making forward progress. I believe I was experiencing difficulty with power output because the saddle area irritation was starting to set in and it was just difficult to sit on the saddle comfortably while climbing. I took a short break around mid-day to change my kit and use my foam roller for a few minutes. I got back on the bike for a few hours of flatter rides and my power was back up to 55-60%. My coach Rachel ran over (and I mean, she literally ran 15 miles from her house) and kept me company for about an hour, so that cheered me up for a bit.

After finishing the flatter block, I had a few hilly rides that I planned to finish before the end of the day. My power output was back down to around 50% on the climbs due to the saddle discomfort. As I started the second of the three rides, I realized it was going to be at least 8 pm by the time I finished and was contemplating whether I would be better off trying to make up the last ride on Monday. About halfway through the second ride, my rear derailleur cable blew out and I had to spend time changing bikes. By the time I finally got the second ride done, I had spent over 13 hours on the bike on Sunday and 24 hours over the course of the weekend, so I decided to play catch up during the week.

Completely drained after 13 hours on the trainer and a bike change, with the knowledge that I only had about a six hour break before starting another arduous week of work and pedaling.

Week 2

On Monday, I managed to make up the ride I missed on Sunday by spending almost six hours on the bike before and after work. That was probably the roughest I felt throughout VRAW, stumbling around at work like a zombie all day. But I realized that if I stuck to the conservative schedule I’d been following, I would put myself in a position to have an even longer Saturday ride on the final day before the VRAW cutoff on Sunday morning. I started advancing my schedule to get ahead, preferring to put in more miles during the week to avoid another long day on the trainer on Saturday. Rachel came over again on Monday after work (in her car this time) to pick up the bike in need of service and also brought me an awesome dinner.

Even though I was spending more time riding the second week, it was at a much lower intensity than the first week (mostly around 55%) so I felt like I was actually recovering throughout the week. I wasn’t feeling sore or terribly fatigued, and by the end of the week I was able to start increasing my power again. I was amazed that my knees were actually feeling better than they did before I started VRAW. The only discomfort I was experiencing was in the saddle region, as I mentioned earlier. This primarily affected my power output on the climbing rides, but I was able to adjust my position and cadence more easily on the flatter rides to work around the discomfort. Also, many of the climbs had a constantly changing gradient, requiring me to shift gears every few seconds, which just became fatiguing both mentally and physically. As soon as I would shift gears and adjust to a 6% gradient, it would suddenly jump up to 10% and I would have to shift and adjust again.

On Friday morning, my legs were feeling stronger again and my power was back up to about 60% for a couple of easier rides. After my morning ride, I figured I had about nine hours of ride time left to finish the race. My plan was to eat a light meal after work before getting on the bike, then pull an all-nighter to finish it off.

The first two rides were difficult climbs, then the remainder of the course was pretty flat. I struggled again through the two climbs as I had the night before. My overall feeling was pretty crappy by the time I got done with them, so I decided to take a two hour sleep break before taking on the final stretch. It was not easy dragging myself out of bed and back onto the bike, but once I started pedaling I felt great. I was able to bring my power back up to 60% or higher for most of the final block of rides, and powered through the last six hours or so with hardly any breaks. It felt great to be able to push myself again and see my heart rate higher than it had been in a few days. During the last hour I was even starting to feel my legs on the verge of cramping up.

During the last 10-15 of the ride, I went live on Facebook so that several friends were able to watch me finish the race and send some encouraging comments. It was definitely an odd feeling to cross a “virtual finish line” while sitting on a trainer in a garage by myself. I managed to get it all done by 7:30 am on Saturday, almost a full day ahead of the cutoff, and leaving myself most of the weekend to rest and recover before going back to work.

Finally a genuine smile after finishing VRAW and knowing I could climb off the trainer for good.

Mental Miles

Anthony Gordon, the creator of this sadistic event, used the tagline “mental miles” in reference to its goal of creating awareness that regular exercise is one of the most important elements of a healthy mental health profile. The tagline just happened to be an appropriate description of the course for anyone who opted to take on this challenge.

Most sporting events, and most certainly ultracycling, require a solid mental strategy for success. Even more so in a virtual ultracycling event in which one has the ability to jump off the bike at any moment and have immediate access to a shower, food, and bed. Then there’s the monotony of sitting in a garage for hours on end without any air movement or ability to coast or recover on downhills. How does one continually convince oneself to stay on the bike for all those miles?

I spent the majority of my weekday mornings in the winter training indoors the last two years, and would often listen to podcasts and occasionally audiobooks. For longer trainer rides, I occasionally watched movies. My goal isn’t to completely distract myself, as I do want to stay focused on my ride, but it does help to have some background noise and entertainment. I did listen to a few podcasts during VRAW, but I eventually found that movies and documentaries were a little more helpful. As I promised at some point, I’ll give a rundown of what I was watching throughout VRAW (to the best of my recollection).

I really enjoyed catching up with the live RAAM show that George Thomas and Rick Boethling recorded each morning throughout the twelve days of VRAAM. On weekdays I was working during the live recording so I would start my evening ride watching the recording from the morning. I didn’t typically have time to stay caught up on social media throughout the day, so it was nice to get a quick recap of what was going on in each virtual race and to hear from several folks in the ultracycling world. I even got to make a quick appearance myself while I was riding on the weekend! It was really cool to see ultracycling racers and fans from all over the world coming together virtually to follow these events and continue the tradition of following RAAM each year as best we could.

I believe the first movie I watched was Top Gun in honor of Phil Fox, who took 2nd place overall in VRAW and was the first American finisher. I noticed that he referenced the movie several times in his social media posts and when he appeared on the live show, so it got me thinking it was time to watch that classic again. And it was situation-appropriate as the movie is set near the RAAM start in Oceanside, CA. I believe I watched Top Gun during my first Friday morning ride, and was surprised at how well it kept me entertained, so I planned to keep finding more stuff to watch over the weekend.

On the first Saturday, I found myself going through all the RAAM documentaries I could find. Even though I’d seen almost all of them at least once or twice, I still found them to be motivating. I watched all of Anthony Gordon’s movies (More Than Miles, 3089, and RAAM Bam Thank You Mam). I also watched Race Across America, Godspeed, The Longest Journey, and Bicycle Dreams. Most of these can be found on Amazon Prime Video. I believe I also fit the classic cycling film Breaking Away in on Saturday before wrapping up.

For some reason, I’m drawing a blank as to what I was watching on Sunday. Even though it was my longest day on the bike, I don’t believe I watched many movies, if any. I think I listened to some podcasts, appeared on the live show, and had Rachel keeping me company for at least an hour.

During the second week, I watched the movie Patton one morning simply because it was a movie I’d been meaning to watch for awhile. While I am rarely able to sit through an entire movie off the bike without getting distracted, I was finding them much easier to watch when I was on the trainer in need of distraction. The next few days I switched to sports-themed movies for inspiration and watched Rudy and A League of Their Own.

For my final stretch of riding on Friday night into Saturday, I found myself going through a bunch of documentaries on Amazon Prime Video related to sports and endurance. These included Fully Charged, Shackleton’s Captain, Boston, The Ultimate Triathlon, Touch the Wall, and a Bille Jean King documentary. The documentary about the Boston Marathon was probably my favorite of the bunch.

Nutrition and Hydration Strategy

As I mentioned above, one of my personal goals in doing this event was to dial in some nutrition and hydration strategies to carry into my future training and races. Over the last few decades, the industry of sports nutrition and hydration has been very successful in marketing to endurance athletes. The importance of staying ahead on hydration and never allowing glycogen stores to be depleted has been drilled into our heads. For those of you who have participated in endurance events lasting several hours or longer, how many times have you experienced GI distress that has prevented you from performing at your best? It could be as severe as a crippling bout of diarrhea, or simply an upset stomach that prevents you from maintaining your race effort. In ultracycling, fluid retention seems to be a very common problem. I experienced pretty severe edema on two occasions last year – first during my weeklong pre-ride of the RAW course and then during and after racing RAW. Additionally, I’ve experienced milder issues with edema, fluid retention, and GI distress during both indoor and outdoor long rides and have been trying to isolate the cause and find a solution. Combining some reading and research with my own personal experience, I’m convinced that I’ve more often than not been overhydrating and taking in way too many of those electrolytes that we’ve been told are so important, especially when I’m working at a lower intensity. One of my goals with VRAW was to take the opportunity of doing a long event in a low-stress, low-consequence environment to pay more attention to my physical sensations to guide me in my fueling and hydration. Additionally, with so much time spent off the bike in comparison to other races, I was careful to stick to clean nutrition between sessions and tracked my nutrition as closely as possible.

For hydration, I used primarily water and only occasionally supplemented with electrolytes when I was working at a higher intensity. I drank when I was thirsty and didn’t obsess over staying hydrated while I was at work and between sessions on the trainer. I was pleased that I only noticed some mild fluid retention on a few occasions throughout the race, and it was typically at the end of the day when I got home from work. During the second week, I tried cutting back on my salt intake and that seemed to help. I’m still trying to find the right balance when riding outdoors and taking different temperatures into consideration, but I feel like I’ve made some progress.

For nutrition, my goal was to stick to a low carb regimen off the bike and to limit my intake of sugar. I’ve used so many sports nutrition products loaded with sugar over the years and just find that they’re inflammatory and cause me to crash if I don’t keep taking in more sugar, which leads to GI issues on longer workouts and races. I instead used foods and products with carbohydrates in the form of starches rather than sugars. As I mentioned, I did my best to track all of my nutrition on and off the bike for the entire twelve days. The ratio and amount of carbs was a little higher on the days I spent more time on the bike, but I took in a daily average of 170 g of carbs, 122 g net carbs, 40 g sugar, and my average macronutrient ratios were 17% carbs, 18% protein, and 65% fat. I consumed an average of about 3,800 calories per day. Looking back over the data, I realize I probably could have balanced that out a little better by eating a little more the first week and a little less the second week. I’m not sure I have an accurate measure of how many calories I burned, but I’m about 10 pounds lighter than when I started VRAW, so obviously I burned more than I ate. I never felt depleted of energy either during the rides or while I was at work (aside from the one day that I mentioned after the weekend long rides).

I still need to work on fueling and hydration for events in which I will be on the bike continuously, but this seemed to work really well for me. My key takeaway from this was that nutrition and hydration needs are going to be different for everyone, and will change for each person in different environments. It’s important to experiment to figure out what works for you.

Post-Race Wrap-Up

My official finish time was 10 days, 13 hours, 47 minutes, and 29 seconds, which obviously included many hours spent off the bike. My total time in the saddle was 70 hours, 44 minutes, and 48 seconds for an average speed of 13.4 mph.

There were both pros and cons to participating in this virtual version of an ultracycling event. The costs and logistics of a virtual event are obviously much simpler than with an actual race, which led to a large number of people from all over the world being able to participate in both VRAW and The 60. There were only a handful of people interested in taking on the entire VRAAM course, and I tip my hat to those who managed to continue riding for all 12 days, whether they were official finishers or not. Aside from the need to keep my race area well ventilated, there was no need to worry about adverse weather conditions. With the exception of my long weekend rides, most of my riding was done early in the morning while it was still cool or after work as it was cooling back down. The virtual event also created an environment with a lot less anxiety and sense of urgency than an actual race, at least the way I was doing it.

On the downside, without that stress and urgency of the real event, it was a little tougher to stay motivated for a virtual race. It also would have been nice to have a virtual version of the actual RAW course as opposed to a long list of random rides strung together, but I can appreciate that this event was put together out of necessity in a very short period of time and applaud the efforts of Anthony Gordon, Revolve 24, and FulGaz for the work they put into the race. And finally, while a bike saddle is never going to feel terribly comfortable after riding on actual pavement for several days straight, it’s even worse when those hours are spent on a trainer. You have to pedal almost constantly so it’s difficult to coast to alleviate pressure. You can’t move the bike like you can on the road to change the muscle groups you’re using. The lack of air movement makes it impossible to keep the saddle area dry so I feel like saddle sores were more of an issue than they would have been in an event on the road.

Overall, I’m very happy that I went ahead and participated in VRAW and am excited about what I got out of the experience. I was able to gain some insight in my nutrition and hydration needs as described above. The physical and mental stresses involved were certainly different from racing RAAM, but I felt like I was giving myself at least some degree of a simulation of the fatigue of RAAM by stretching the miles of RAW over the RAAM timeframe while working full-time. I would have liked to have been able to keep my effort level a little more consistent, but I was pleased to find that I was still feeling pretty decent by the end of the twelve days. I took off some unnecessary weight and rode myself into a level of fitness that I hope to maintain for some events that will hopefully be able to go on later in the year.

So that wraps up a pretty detailed account of my VRAW experience. Thank you for reading it if you made it this far. And thank you to everyone for their encouraging messages and comments on my daily updates. For some reason, it was surprising to me how many people realized the challenge I was taking on by doing this race around my full-time work schedule. I certainly underestimated myself how grueling it would be when I signed on.

(Virtual) Race Ready!!!!

It’s kind of a bittersweet time for me right now. If 2020 had gone differently, I would be in the final phases of preparation for RAAM right now. On the one hand, it’s a bit of a bummer to look back at memories from this time last year when I was getting ready for Race Across the West. On the other, it’s also sort of a relief to not be going through all that stress right now and know that I have another year to get ready.

I did decide to participate in Virtual Race Across the West (VRAW) on the FulGaz platform, and that will begin on the original RAAM/RAW start date of June 16. I’m back to work full-time now and will not be taking any time off for VRAW. I figured I would treat VRAW as more of a challenge to put in the miles between my work hours than as a race. It’s only been in the last week that I’ve been able to sit down and put together a schedule that I’m realizing what I’ve got myself into.

This weekend I finished up a four week training block that I am really happy to be done with. Planet Ultra put together some mileage and double century challenges over the last couple of months to stay afloat during the pandemic, as they’ve had to cancel several events. I spent the last four Saturday’s completing solo double century rides as part of these challenges, three of them to earn credit towards my California Triple Crown total, which I believe now stands at 20. Each challenge had a minimum requirement for elevation gain, which forced me to look for hillier routes. Most people know I’m not afraid of climbing, but it would have been easy to choose some flatter routes for the double centuries just to get them done quickly.

It’s been a whole new mental challenge to start doing double centuries solo and unsupported, but I think I got the hang of it pretty quickly. I also learned a lot over the course of the last few long rides about how to balance my nutrition, hydration, and electrolytes. The physical challenge of the fatigue building up week after week has been good as well, as each long ride I’ve had to stay focused to keep pushing through.

I opted to do my last double century on the indoor trainer yesterday as a final preparation for VRAW. I had some concerns about how I would hold up for longer distances on the trainer after struggling through a few big rides a couple of months ago. Physically, I think I held up about as well as I did on my double century rides on the road. The monotony of sitting on the trainer for so long, along with the knowledge that I could just stop at any moment and call it a day, was a mental challenge that I was able to handle pretty well. It was also good to be reminded of some of the things I need for long indoor rides. I must have placed 3-4 Amazon orders over the course of my ride.

All told, in the last four weeks I rode nearly 1500 miles, climbed 82,000 feet, and worked anywhere from 32-40 hours each week. I know it’s a big cliché, but I always love being able to say that “the hay is in the barn” at the end of a training cycle. I anticipate that I will feel like crap for a few days this week as I start to recover from the hard block of training, but I’m ready for it.

My set-up for VRAW is just about dialed in now