With so much of my plan for Race Across the West starting to fall into place over the last few weeks, I’m finding myself getting way more excited than I thought I would be with four months left to prepare. I wanted to take advantage of that enthusiasm and get a head start on my mental preparation. At the advice of my coach, I read a book called Elite Minds by Stan Beecham. I took away some great insights from this book that I hope to review and keep in mind as I prepare for RAW. One section of the book that really stood out to me talked about how some people are called or chosen for a particular journey. This took me back through the crazy course of events that have transpired over the last couple of years that led me to this point.
Two years ago I had decided to take a break from doing triathlons because I just wasn’t having fun with the swimming or running anymore and was burned out on all the training. My friend Rich Reinecke and I had been riding together quite a bit and started talking about how the year 2017 would be all about having fun. I had always struggled with climbing on a bike (it didn’t help that I was carrying way too much excess weight), but I really wanted to work on it. Without the burden of triathlon training, I decided 2017 would finally be the year to check the Markleeville Death Ride off my bucket list. The event covers 129 miles with 15,000 feet of climbing over five passes in the California Alps. A group of six of us signed up and started training together. Living at the base of the Santa Rosa Plateau and La Cresta, I had a playground full of hills that I could ride through during the week, and I started planning epic weekend training rides in the local mountains. Most of the “Death Ride Crew” would join me for the weekend rides and I started turning them into events so that other cyclists in the area could join in on the fun. Our local cycling legend Paul Cornish, who set the cycling Transcontinental World Record in 1973, became one of the regular attendees at these weekend rides. He would pretend to suffer alongside us and then “bask” with us afterwards, sometimes wanting to talk for hours while the rest of us could barely stay awake. He didn’t do the Death Ride with us, but he kind of became the honorary “captain” of our crew and we made sure to buy him a T-shirt at the event so he knew we were thinking of him.
As most of you know by now, Paul was killed by a motorist while training for the Huntsman World Senior Games less than two months later. His death was a jolt to the local cycling community, and everyone seemed to be looking to me for leadership in that difficult time, I guess because Paul had been more and more frequently mentioning me in his daily Facebook ramblings. I often found myself wondering what made me that person? What did people see in me? What did Paul see in me?
In the ensuing weeks, another friend, Randy Horton suggested that I compete in the 6-12-24 Hour World Time Trial Championships in Borrego Springs in early November. Even though I had spent the year climbing, time trialing on the flats had always been one of my strengths. I had done a few double century events, so I thought it might be fun to see how far I could ride in 24 hours. Randy then informed me that the event was a qualifier for Race Across America (RAAM) and that racers who completed 400 miles in 24 hours would qualify for solo RAAM. At the time I had no desire to participate in RAAM, but it seemed like a “fun” number to shoot for, so I made 400 miles my goal, not realizing that it was extremely rare for females to break 400 miles at this event. I dusted off my time trial bike and put in a few long rides (and by “long ride” I mean that I think my longest ride on that bike prior to the race was about 60 miles) to get used to it again. I was on pace to break 400 miles for most of the day, but the winds picked up and fatigue really set in during the last few hours of the race and I finished with a very respectable 392.8 miles, which actually was above the qualifying mark for females (I think 375 miles was what I needed to qualify). I still remember Randy coming by my support vehicle to let me know I had qualified for RAAM. I was trying to change out of my kit and just wanted to go to sleep, and responded with a very unenthusiastic “Great!”.
Over the next few weeks I was bombarded with congratulations and questions about whether I was going to do RAAM. I kept thinking that qualifying may have been a fluke and I really wasn’t cut out to do RAAM. What do people see in me that they think I can do this? Little by little, I found myself thinking and reading more and more about RAAM and finding myself wanting to see if I could finish “The World’s Toughest Bicycle Race”. I kept coming back to asking the question “What would Paul Cornish tell me to do?” What better way to honor his memory than to follow in his footsteps and race across the country?
It’s been quite a journey so far in the year or so since I made that decision. To confirm that qualifying for RAAM was not a fluke, I went back to Borrego Springs for another shot at breaking the 400 mile barrier. I smashed that goal with 456 miles and a course record. That accomplishment has opened some doors for me that should help me get to the starting line of RAAM with the tangible resources required for the journey.
To return to the original point of this post, I believe I’ve finally come around to believing that it is my calling to Race Across America. Maybe Paul saw this potential in me before I could see it myself and that’s why he gravitated towards me those last few months. So much of the experiences I’ve mentioned still seem surreal and I’m trying to wrap my head around all of this, but as some of the pieces have started falling into place, it’s definitely becoming more real to me now. I’ve found myself often thinking of Paul during my rides and events over the last year, and I imagine that I will find myself drawing on some of those memories during some of the tougher moments of RAW and RAAM. As I have in the past, I will try to feel his hand on my back pushing me up the tough climbs. When I reach the finish line in Annapolis next June, I’ll imagine him looking at me with that big grin and giving me a fist pump like he did that day we did the triple repeat of Palomar South Grade.
Greatness is a lonely, dark road in the middle of nowhere. You will run on it all day and all night, and you’ll never see another soul. Every now and then, someone will drive by and say, “Hey, what are you doing way the hell out here? You need to get back into town! You can get hurt out here all by yourself! Jump in and I’ll give you a ride.” But you have to risk getting lost because chasing a dream – really chasing it – will lead you to places you never thought were out there. Places no one else would ever care (or dare) to go if they knew about them ahead of time.
Stan Beecham, Elite Minds
