Obstacles & Final Focus

Tuesday, 6/19 – 1:34 AM (RAAM Time)


This is my last blog… one final push to the finish. I’m too tired to write much more.

Today was my hardest day, because it was about survival. It’s amazing how your focus can change depending on your circumstances.

We finished last night strong, but the crew really started struggling with sleep deprivation. Even with our sleep rotation, the effects of a week-long race for 24 hrs / day is staggering. We are making mistakes in judgment and decision-making… nothing major, but a lot of small things that cost us time. I am sure that all teams face the same challenge. How we deal with them is what makes good teams work well together. I’m proud of our team and crew… everyone.

Mid-morning today, Vernon called on the radio to say the brakes on the transition SUV were failing. This is so critical to our strategy! We jumped into action and considered all the alternatives. At one point, we almost flew some crew members ahead to Atlantic City. Bottom Line: we lost the use of a vehicle and sent 4 crew members with this vehicle up to Columbus, Ohio. We didn’t lose the brakes, but we lost the power braking ability. We can’t use the car any more. In spite of this, we’ve got to keep moving with no lost time. Forget the other teams. Forget our sleep rotation. We’ve got to finish the race. Our crew and a new vehicle will be back by 10:00 pm… we hope.

We spent most of the day and into the evening with a single transition vehicle to do both follow and drop-off. We had to use stop transitions in order to meet the RAAM rules. We went to a three-man rotation until Chris could come back from his hotel rest. I will forego my hotel rest tonight.

While we kept our eye on the other teams, this was survival. 4 crew members short, one crew still on rest, Danny and Lee carried us through. It was so hot. Time Station 46 was almost unbearable. We blew up. I think that Lorenzo, Dave, and I all experienced some level of heat exhaustion. I just bonked. I couldn’t generate any power. My head screamed. My legs screamed. I thought I was going to fall asleep on the bike. As soon as we got in the SUV, we nearly passed out until Danny or Lee had the bike out again and told us to go.

But we crawled through… 16.54 mph. Our slowest Time Station, but not as bad as I expected. It actually gave us some hope that we can recover and still finish strong. We hydrated as much as we could. As the temperature finally dropped, we increased our strength and our speed. By 5:00 this evening, we felt almost fully recovered. We started to attack the climbs…because we have a lot of them in the next 12 hours… still 32,000’ of climbing before the finish line.

We’re changing our strategy for the finish. Rather than 12 hours, I will take a 6 hour rest in the follow vehicle. As soon as I am able, we will split into two transition teams… Dave and I in one, with Lorenzo and Chris in the other. 4 hours on, and 4 hours rest. Back and forth. We’ll finish the last 150 miles or so all together. We’ll re-group by 5:00 AM and head strong for the finish.

I think we still have a couple of teams to catch. We still need to out-run Bob.

See you in Atlantic City. We hope to be there before dark tomorrow night.

P.s. It’s 1:28 AM. Chris is on a 9% grade descent headed for TS 49 – 38 mph in the dark when Danny calls ahead to tell us a ”Semi” is headed our way. This will be a tough night.