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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My takeaway thoughts from the experience:
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
Finally, the official numbers and records broken for the ride are as follows (still pending WUCA certification):
- Six Hour Timed: 113.11 miles, 18.85 mph
- 200 KM: 6 hrs, 35 mins, 56 secs
- 300 KM: 10 hrs, 26 mins, 36 secs
- 200 Miles: 11 hrs, 15 mins, 05 secs
- 300 Miles: 16 hrs, 55 mins, 47 secs
- 500 KM: 17 hrs, 33 mins, 18 secs
- 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.