Doubleplusungood century: lessons learned from riding with a friend

I attempted something with a friend that led to:

• The slowest century I've ever done (9.5h)
• The slowest double century I've ever done (19h)
• The only ride I've organized that I've bailed on

The issues all stem from the same basic issue: treating a problem solving challenge like a bike ride.

In the ultra endurance races, being fast is good. Having strong cardio is good. But in the races where sometimes only one person reaches the finish line, just being able to work through all the problems you encounter to get to the end is the most important piece. Pure physical fitness will get you far in the races where nothing goes wrong. In each of my most recent races, there was at least one major thing that went wrong. I would postulate that most ultra endurance races, most athletes run into at least one substantial issue. In races as long as the Race Across America, possibly all or almost all of them do.

We encountered a few big problems, and many small problems on this ride, and didn’t approach them effectively. Before I talk about the specific problems, I want to talk about problem solving in general.

The longer the ride, the more decisions you run into that you have to make. Making more and more decisions can become exhausting, and overthinking problems is a sure way to slow you down and tire you out.

A lot of these decisions are relatively trivial and don’t even occur to me as decisions - should I stop here for 30 or 35 minutes? It’s really hot - should I take advantage of this opportunity to cool off and refill my bottles? I could think about them, but most of the time I just do whatever seems best without even questioning it.

Some decisions are a little more consequential and you want to put a little thought into it - how much food and what kind should I be carrying? Should I put on warmer clothes now, or wait until I can find a safer spot to pull over and it’s really cold? Is it worth pushing on to the next town for a break because it’s bigger and more likely to have more options for food? These kinds of questions can be considered while riding, and don’t have to slow you down as long as the options aren’t too complicated.

Then there are bigger problems. And these I would call problems, not decisions, even though their resolution is generally just decision making. There’s a mechanical issue. Someone’s run out of water and we’re 50 mi out from the next town. Someone’s so cold that they’re concerned about their ability to manipulate their brakes. The route doesn’t work and we have to find a different one. These at the very least require slowing down to consider, and sometimes require getting off the bike to discuss options and research things on phones.

On each of my races over 24h, I have encountered all of these. And I’ve found that how I handle the decisions and problems has a much greater effect on my time than my physical condition or even how hard I’m trying to ride.

It seemed to me like when Jeff and I attempted to ride from San Jose to Los Angeles, we were extremely ineffective at tackling these decisions and problems.

I think a major component of this was that neither of were clearly leading. Arguably I should have been leading because I had more experience with longer rides, but I tend to fall back into a follower position when another person is physically in front of me. This is not to say I should have been at the front always, but this would have been a good thing for me to be aware of if I were intending to lead.

In tandem with this, there were some major communication issues. When you’re racing alone, communication isn’t even a component, and I think this led me to initially miss its importance here.

Now I’m going to go through a handful of the problems we ran into, what happened, and what might have been a better approach.

Big problem - Navigation
This one was huge. I always rely on my GPS for navigation and had loaded and double checked the route on it the day before. The morning of, I turned on my GPS and the route was not there to load. Usually you unexpectedly run into a big issue part way through the race, but here was this ride’s biggest problem before we even began. The route was not excessively complex, but I hadn’t studied it too closely in advance because I knew I would have it on my GPS. This was not immediately a big problem, but led to many problems throughout the ride. Jeff and I glanced over the route before we headed out.

Medium-small decisions - Navigation
Quickly after leaving, we ran into a series of the medium-small decisions. We need to be a couple blocks west of here and missed the intended turn. Almost all of the streets go through, but now each turn turns into a 3-second discussion, and a wrong turn down a dead-end street leads to a quick reassurance about where we’re going an apology for the wrong turn. None of these are a BIG DEAL. None of these even seem consequential. But each time we slow down to agree on a turn adds more time.

I think this would have been approached much better if we just decided one person was leading and the other was blindly following. The direction we needed to go wasn’t complicated (though there were a few confusing turns), and wrong turns didn’t require the discussions we had. Had I been riding alone, I would have made the turns that made sense to me without slowing down, made a couple wrong turns, checked my map, and kept going. I don’t believe it occurred to either of us to try to optimize this, but it adds up.

This kept occurring throughout the ride.

Medium decisions/communication - Gravel roads
The route we were following unexpectedly put us on gravel a little bit. I am not good at riding on gravel. Not "I don’t really like gravel" or "I am slow on gravel" but "If the gravel is too loose and the terrain is too rough and I am on skinny tires, I will crash." Initially I figured I’d just go slowly and carefully through the gravel section, and hoped it wouldn’t last too long. After a short gravel section, we got to a paved road. The route we were going to take continued on the other side on gravel, but we had an option to go on a slightly longer paved route. Riding alone, I absolutely would have just taken the paved route and knew it would be much faster for me (I am that bad at gravel). Jeff and I stopped to discuss options, and he pushed for continuing on the gravel. And we did. I ended up walking my bike.

I realized after this that I should have pushed harder to go on the pavement, and the discussion shouldn’t just have been about preference, but also ability. I do not have the ability to ride a road bike up a hill with loose gravel. I just don’t. I don’t think I communicated that clearly enough to Jeff, and this led to a longer and more frustrating than necessary slow section for me.

Small decisions - More Navigation
Later in the ride, we came to an intersection. I thought we were supposed to go one direction, he thought we were supposed to go the other. So, we stopped, pulled over, looked at maps for a little while, and discussed. We decided which direction to go, then debated what the best way to turn left was, given that we were on the right side of the road and there were cars lined up at the intersection. We got onto one street, then decided it would be hard to get to the right lane from there, and walked in the crosswalk to the left turn lane. This probably took 5-10 minutes.

This is an interesting example, because if I were riding on my own, I wouldn’t have even made a decision at that intersection and would have simply kept riding the wrong way. A few blocks later, I likely would have figured out I was going the wrong way, turned around, and found the correct route for a total time of 1 or 2 minutes. Stopping and discussing prevented us from going the wrong way, but going the wrong way would have been faster and easily recoverable. I think again here having a clear leader would have prevented these hiccoughs, even if it meant we went the wrong way more frequently. Neither of us we even attempting to lead, though, and I think we were both looking at it more collaboratively.

Really, I think trying to do this collaboratively killed this ride.

Medium decision/communication issue - Pacing
When you are racing or riding alone, you are generally aware of your needs and abilities, and adjust things for those. When there are two or more riders, these can be in conflict. For example, Jeff climbs faster than me. We can't compromise at a speed halfway between his and mine, because I can't go that fast. So if he wanted to stick with me on the climbs, he would slow down to my speed.

Something interesting happened, though. On the descents and the flats, he was going much slower than I would have gone if I was alone. I passed him a few times and pulled ahead, but he would always catch and pass me on the climbs. Passing him in those small sections of flats and descents didn't make sense, especially with the car traffic.

So I went slow on the climbs, because I climb kind of slowly. And rode my brakes and was slow on the descents and flats, because I was stuck behind Jeff (the traffic made it hard to get around). And because I like to hammer on the downhills and flats to keep up my average speed, I was constantly accelerating and braking. This is how you race a crit. This is not how you do an endurance ride.

This got progressively more frustrating, but I feel like you’re not supposed to yell at people to go faster when they’re riding their own speed, so I didn’t.

Finally we got out of the rolling hills in Big Sur and found somewhere to take a break. I mentioned how awkward the pacing was, and that we’d both be going faster if we weren’t both matching the other’s slower speed. And… Jeff told me that he had intentionally been going slower. To make it easier for me.

At this point, it’s obvious that I should have said something earlier. We were in those hills for hours, which were unnecessarily burning both physical and mental energy for me. We hadn’t really taken time to stop and chat while going through Big Sur, and had both made assumptions. We could have gotten out of there much more quickly and easily if we had been on the same page.

A different option that I think also could have worked here is if we just agreed on a meeting point on the other side of Big Sur and didn’t try to stay together.

Medium decision - Breaks
I think this one didn’t actually end up being a big issue on this ride, but I do wish we had planned it in advance. Along the route, we stopped where convenient, when one of us wanted to stop. Of course, the timing and locations didn’t happen to magically be perfect for both of us, which I’m sure led to unnecessary time spent on some stops. I think also not planning out stops in advance made it unclear where the short term goals were; something I have appreciated about the time stations on the long races I’ve done. If either of us were riding alone, we probably wouldn’t have chosen all the same stops for the same amounts of time. I don’t think our breaks were bad, but I think planning them would have been an improvement.

My last big decision - Leaving
250 mi into the ride, it was late. It was getting chilly. Doing 250 mi at 9 mph is much harder than at 15 mph, or at least the 12 mph that I wanted as a minimum average. All the extra little decisions, mis- or lack of communication, things we could have planned out in advance, and short discussions about directions really added up. Doing 250 mi at 9 mph is demoralizing. We had been going for hours and yet I felt like I still hadn’t exerted any substantial amount of energy. Like in all that time, I had only pushed moderately hard for a few fleeting seconds. Easy pedaling puts all your weight on your butt instead of your feet. And my butt was not happy with all the pressure.

Could I have gone the rest of the way? Maybe. Could I have gone the rest of the way at 9 mph? Probably not. I was pretty sure that if we stuck together we would continue to go much slower than either of us would independently. I was mentally drained and frustrated from our section through Big Sur, and I knew both of those things would only get worse with more time on the bike. And with more time riding at a crawl. I told Jeff I wanted to split, so he rode off ahead.

It was a little before dawn, in Santa Maria. I went to a restaurant and got breakfast. I waited until the sun came up. Then I continued down the PCH alone. This part was peaceful. I had already resigned myself to taking the train back to LA from Santa Barbara, when I got there. I didn’t want to be on my bike for the amount of time it would take to get back to LA, even if I was going faster and didn’t have to talk through so many decisions. Some parts were fast, some I went slow because there was no point in rushing. I had time to kill. There were a couple good climbs into Vandenberg and Lompoc. Descending into Lompoc I ended up on a squiggly little bike path. I could have avoided it and stayed on the main road, but it initially appeared to be paralleling the road.

And then there was a loud BZZZZT. BZZ. BZZT. I quickly stopped and hooked my finger through my helmet straps to pull out the bee that had gotten stuck, but it stung me just as I was getting it out. Right below my ear. Well. There was also a train stop in Lompoc. I might as well just take the train home from here. I’m not allergic to bees, but I had already given up on my goals for this ride, and riding with a bee sting didn’t sound too entertaining. So I went into Lompoc and sat at a Starbucks for a while and chatted with some other cyclists. There were only 2 trains that stopped at Lompoc each day, one in the morning, and one in the evening, so I had many hours to kill. I very slowly made my way out to the train station. It’s a very odd train station, on a beach at the end of a road, in the middle of nowhere. It would have been nice to sit at if I weren’t covered in sunscreen and grime, and didn’t have to worry about keeping an eye on my bike. I sat there for a few hours in the shade. I got on the train. It slowly made its way back to LA. Jeff was already back in LA by the time I got there, late at night. A friend picked me up from the train station and gave me a ride home.

"What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months." (Fred Brooks) I thought about that a lot connected to this ride.

Strava record

The Silver State 508

The drive to Reno took a long time. It took longer than it should have, because part way there I realized I forgot my saddlebag, and I wasn’t sure if I could buy one that would fit my frame in Reno before the race, so turned around. I got to the host hotel a couple hours before registration and bike/vehicle inspections began, and slowly pulled my bike and gear out of my car and assembled everything. 4 drop bags (3 of which I’d pass by twice), a large saddle bag, and a CamelBak.

I chatted with a few other racers and their crews and learned that, unlike in HooDoo, the randonneur racers could accept assistance from any other racers, crew, or race officials on the course. I got my bike inspected - did it have enough reflective tape and lights? - paperwork turned in, and put my drop bags in the bins labeled by city. After a short nap in my hotel room, I went to the pre race meeting, where they discussed some of the history of the race, rules, and I got to meet the other racers. There were 5 other randonneur racers - one racing on a fixie. There were no other female randonneurs.

4:30 am Friday morning
All the solo racers (both supported and unsupported) gathered outside the hotel. I was a little rushed putting my lights on my bike, my reflective vest on, and my reflective ankle bands. I should have gotten there a few minutes earlier. I picked up my tracking beacon and found a place in the crowd of bicycles by the start/finish line. And we left.

The first few miles were neutral. I hadn’t looked closely at how long they were neutral, but we would follow a car until we got out of the neutral zone. I chatted with a few other racers as we continued along the route at a lazy pace. I was a little chilly - I was dressed for this weather with the assumption that I’d be riding a little harder, and was looking forward to getting out of the neutral zone so that I could warm up. We were neutral for over half an hour. Finally, the lead out car pulled to the side to let us all pass. 6 or 7 guys pulled their bikes to the side and stopped to pee. The race was on.

We soon began a long climb. Slowly over the next 5 miles climbing, most of the racers passed me. The majority of them weren’t carrying anything - they had support crews for that - and the other randonneurs were carrying somewhat less than I was. I had put more than necessary in my saddle bag to try to avoid the issues I had with it on HooDoo, where it slumped when understuffed. I figured carrying an extra pound or so was worth not having to worry about it.

At the top of the climb was Virginia City. This weird little town seemed trapped in history; built in the 19th century and intentionally preserved that way. It was fun to ride through.

The descent on the other side went straight into the sunrise. Sunglasses only minimally helped. But the roads were good and the descent was easy. As it leveled off, I started to pass other racers. The extra weight I was carrying really only affected me on the climbs. Only 50 mi in, I got to the first checkpoint at Silver Springs. I hadn’t bothered to leave a drop bag for this checkpoint, because it was so close to the start/finish, so I just checked in with the race officials there, refilled my water bottles, and was ready to go. One of them asked me what a jerboa was (part of my "totem" for the race, used in place of a racer number), and I told him that it was kind of a mouse like thing, and to look it up. I kept going.

The next 30 mi to Fallon were boring. They were long and flat and straight. I kept passing people. No one was passing me, but that was because I had ended up almost at the very back by the end of the first climb. All in all, the weather was unobjectionable; I had expected worse. It was warm and dry, with a slight tailwind. At Fallon, I refilled my pockets with food, and refilled my water bottles. I was going through less food and water than I should, but not to the extent that I was concerned. It wasn’t that hot and I wasn’t going that hard yet.

A few of the racers I passed multiple times. They didn’t have to stop at the checkpoints to refill water/food. I remarked to one of them that I wished we’d get off this long, flat section, and she agreed. It kept going.

Some other racer’s crew asked me if I needed anything as I rode by them, and I told them I was fine. Then I rode by them again, and they offered me a water bottle, which I didn’t grab. Then I rode by them a third time, and they offered me a banana. Then I rode my them a fourth time and they held out some small packet, which I took, and they cheered. It was a little bag of dried fruits and nuts.

50 mi after Fallon was Middlegate. There wasn’t a checkpoint there, but randonneurs could pick up drop bags there. I arrived at a large tent set up with several chairs, a cooler full of ice, a water dispenser, and a pile of drop bags. The guy overseeing this station was friendly, and I stopped for a little bit to chat. He had a lot of little bags of M&Ms, and I took some. This was the last stop before the long climb that would put us at elevation for a few hundred miles, and so I had put some warm gear in that drop bag in case I needed it, but it seemed much too hot for that to be necessary. And I had warm gear in my saddlebag.

The long, flat, straight road continued. I slowly caught up to someone else who was carrying a hydration pack, and confirmed that he was also a randonneur. The randonneurs were allowed to draft off each other (but no one else), and I told him he could draft off me for a while if he wanted. He did, but eventually I dropped him. Several miles later, the road started to climb, and he caught up with me. At that point I realized that he was riding on a fixie. He passed me.

The next climb, the biggest one in the race, gained nearly 2500 ft over 20 mi, starting at an easy grade and gradually increasing. I kept a steady, easy pace, matching that of the racers around me. I passed a rattlesnake making its way across the road, and shortly behind me a chase car stopped near it to warn other racers. I had to stop, nearly at the top, to fix my bar tape. I was pushing on it in a way that made it start to unwrap. Far off to the side of the road was a very large animal. I stared at it a bit. It was a very large cow. A handful of racers passed me while I was stopped.

I got to the top of the climb and started the descent. I should have been going harder - I wasn’t tired from it at all. But maybe this climb just seemed easier compared to HooDoo, where the climbs went up to almost 10k ft, while this stopped around 7.4k.

The course descended to 6k ft, and became long and flat and straight again. These sections seemed harder than climbing, as they seemed interminable and each mile was indistinguishable from the last. On the road I saw a bunch of patches of shiny maroon. Broken beer bottles? Probably broken beer bottles. I swerved to avoid the glass, and it was actually thousands and thousands of tiny red ants swarming in piles.

This road was worse. There were large cracks in it. Not enough to be dangerous or to cause a pinch flat for a properly inflated tire, but enough to go THUNK every time you rode over one. And there were a lot of them. An initial handful quickly turned into hitting 2 per second, at the 17mph I was riding at. THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK. Each thunk I could feel in my hands, wrists, and all the way up into my shoulders. I had a lot of padding due to doubling up bibs, so at least my sit bones weren’t taking too much impact. Riding with my hands on the hoods made each impact hurt. Riding with my hands in the drops hurt a little less. I tried resting my forearms on the bars, but each THUNK made all the bones in my arms hurt. I settled on staying in the drops and trying to get out of here, not knowing how long this would continue. The THUNKs gradually tapered off to 1 per second. A short section of recently repaved road teased an end to the cracks, but it ended and the cracks continued. After what seemed like way too long, the pavement changed, and the cracks disappeared. I sped up substantially, despite no change in the grade or the wind.

The long, straight, flat roads continued. They weren’t hard, they were just boring. I was keeping a pretty fast pace - were there tailwinds, or was I just not used to long flat stretches? One thing that was nice, though, is on the long flat stretches, there were always several other racers visible to try to catch. Eventually we started climbing again.

The climb up into Austin wasn’t too long. I got to the checkpoint in Austin just as the sun was starting to near the horizon. It was 70 mi from Austin to the turn around point, and I figured I wouldn’t be riding in the sun any time between leaving here and returning, so I left my tinted glasses, sunsleeves, and short finger gloves there. They had a shared hotel room for randonneurs, so I took a quick shower to get the salt and sunscreen off my skin as best I could, changed into a new kit, then got back on my bike to keep riding while it was still light.

The route climbed out of Austin, descended on the other side, then had gentle ups and downs. I kept occasionally passing the supported racers who had passed me at Austin. It started to get cool. I put on full finger gloves, but still had bare arms and legs. Just a few miles out from Eureka, I started seeing racers coming the opposite direction. I cheered every one of them on: “WOOOO! GOOD JOB!!!” My voice got tired.

I got into Eureka just past 11 pm. I was making better time than I expected I would before the race, though it didn’t surprise me given the long, flat sections. I knew I usually get tired a little after midnight, and so figured this would be a good place to stop for a longer break; getting back to Austin would take too much time. I went into the gas station next to the check in table, and bought a bag of chips, some bean dip and a bottled Starbucks frappucino, then took them to the hotel room to eat. It had gotten cold.

I ate the chips and dip, then took a 20 minute nap. There was another racer in the room with me - he had gotten there shortly before I did, and was asleep the entire time I was there. My alarm went off, and I got up plenty awake and ready to go. I drank the frappucino, then made some hot chocolate from some hot cocoa powder I had put in my drop bag. I got all bundled up - leg warmers, arm warmers, full finger gloves, wind jacket, toe covers on my shoes, neck gaiter around my neck, pulled up to just below my eyes, and another covering the top of my head as a hat. I had a rain jacket, but figured this would probably be enough to start. I had largely emptied my saddlebag and was afraid it would slump and hit my tire like it did on HooDoo, so I stuffed my drop bag into it, figuring I could take that out and put my warm clothes back into my saddlebag at Austin. I went out into the cold and left.

I don’t usually drink coffee. I don’t usually intentionally consume much caffeine. But it seemed like the thing to do before I left. One of the reasons I usually avoid it is that it affects me inconsistently. Sometimes it does nothing, sometimes it gives me energy, and sometimes, for some strange reason, it makes me sleepy. It had been a positive for me on my first Everest attempt and helped me complete it. It had been neutral on RAW. Drinking tea has mixed effects. On a later Everest attempt, I ate a gel with caffeine in it, and it put me to sleep, hard. On HooDoo, I thought I had figured it out - if I ate Shot Bloks with caffeine in them an hour or so before I’d normally get sleepy, then I could avoid getting sleepy.

15 minutes after I left Eureka, the caffeine hit me. In an instant, I got sleepy. I tried to push through it. I also found another downside to drinking a lot of liquid before starting to ride again - I had to pee. Women have the substantial disadvantage here in that in order to pee, you basically have to completely undress. And it was 33 degrees outside. I pulled off the side of the road, and the complete darkness made up for the lack of tree/bush cover. I kept going.

Over the next 3 hours, I had to stop several times, because I was so sleepy that I was afraid I might crash if I kept going, and I had to stop to pee. Stopping to take a break wasn’t really an option - it was in the low 30s, and while I had the gear to survive, it would not be pleasant. It was going to take a lot longer to get back to Austin than I anticipated. I figured I could take a nap there when I got there. Somewhere in here, the randonneur who had been sleeping at Eureka caught up with me. We chatted for a little while, then he dropped me and continued on. He said he didn’t have the gear to deal with this weather, and was freezing.

After about 3 hours, the veil of sleepiness lifted, and I started to feel more normal. I still felt sluggish, but I was alert and awake, and could keep going. It took me almost 6 hours to make the 70 mi back to Austin. I got there just as it was getting light. But I wasn’t sleepy or even tired anymore, and finally on the climb back up to Austin I had started feeling like I could push at a normal intensity again. I hate caffeine.

At Austin, I pulled out my gear for the sun. It had taken long enough to get here that it was starting to get warm, and I didn’t think there would be any reason to need my cold weather gear again. I stuffed my pockets full of food, and moved all my tools into my CamelBak, and left my saddlebag with the drop bags in Austin. It was only in the 50s, but it would warm up, and I could tolerate the cold air on bare arms and legs for a while.

I descended out of Austin. It was long and flat and straight. I saw a few racers ahead of me, and slowly gained on them. I caught a couple. Then there was a crack in the pavement. THUNK. Oh no, not this again. THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK. I’d somehow forgotten that this was here. And it hurt more the second time. I tried riding in the drops for a while, but it wasn’t enough. I tried wrapping my sunsleeves around the bars to give my hands extra padding, and it seemed to make it better. After a few minutes, I realized that this didn’t actually make it better, it just made me feel like I was doing something useful about it. It still hurt.

I eventually realized I could ride sitting up in the saddle with my hands off the bars. It never occurred to me to do that before - who races sitting up all the way, taking a faceful of wind? But it was so much more comfortable, which meant I could go a little faster. THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK.

An alarmingly loud roar of an engine interrupted the THUNKs. I looked up to see two jets shooting off into the distance to my left. A few minutes later, off to the right, I heard some distant, low pitched pops. They sounded like gunshots, but lower pitched than I was used to. Those same two jets came roaring out from the right, directly overhead. I flinched at how loud they were. In the distance, they turned to make another circle. Another pair of pops. Another engine roar. Were those sonic booms that the jets were making?

I kept THUNKing along the road. I slowly gained on another racer, and finally passed him just as the road transitioned into a crack-free smooth ride again. I commented on the road to him, and he also thought it had been awful. I sped up on the smooth ground.

By the time I got to the next big climb, it was getting hot again. Fortunately the climb was shorter in this direction than when I had climbed it in the other direction, but unfortunately it was much hotter now than it had been the previous day. I climbed slowly, despite no longer carrying a saddlebag. The climb wasn’t long, it wasn’t steep, and it wasn’t hard. It was just slow.

I got a nice, long descent on the other side. Frustratingly, an RV passed me right at the summit and proceeded to go 25mph down the descent, and there wasn’t room for me to pass it. The road levelled off, and I got to the Middlegate drop bag stop.

The same guy was still there. I took my time in the shade of the canopy, chatting, refilling my water bottles, refilling my pockets, covering myself in sunscreen, and eating M&Ms. I was more concerned about cooling off than going fast right now, and I had plenty of time to get to the finish line. I heard someone say that I was the last of the randonneurs, but someone else disagreed with them. But it didn’t matter - at the very least I was making good time to set a course record and beat the existing time for a female randonneur.

I left the shade and got going again. It was long and flat and straight. It was the same forever. It was hot. There was a slight headwind - just enough that it made you feel slow, but not actually enough to be sure there really was wind. It was discouraging.

I could tell I was going slow. I wasn’t going slower than the other racers around me, but I was going slow. Something about the heat and the distance made it really hard to motivate myself to push harder. I wasn’t physically tired, and I wasn’t overheating, everything just seemed slow and discouraging. I reasoned with myself that I was going slow enough that going faster wasn’t going to make me any more hot or tired, and that it was going to be hot until around 6pm no matter how hard I was or was not pushing here. The hot air resisted. Gently, but persistently. I looked down at my computer and saw I was doing 45 W. Well, I can definitely do more than that. I sped up and caught the racer ahead of me.

This road had a couple of short climbs on it. I think I was going just as slow up the climbs as I was on flat ground. I could maintain 10mph, but I couldn’t accelerate out of it. Or maybe I could, I just really didn’t want to. At the top of one of the short hills, I pushed to make the descent fast. I crouched down to avoid the hot wind, and kept spinning as it leveled off at the bottom. I found that I could pretty easily maintain 17-20mph on flat ground once I had that speed, and passed by several racers who seemed to be stuck at the 10mph that I had been stuck at. 17-20mph was surprisingly sustainable.

I got into Fallon. It was nice seeing stores and stoplights and really just anything to interrupt the long straight roads. The stoplights killed my nice pace, but it didn’t matter. I reached the next checkpoint, and got my drop bag. The guy manning this checkpoint mentioned to me that he looked up what a jerboa was, and they’re really ugly! He said that they’re like tiny t-rexes, with weird proportions, and legs that bend the wrong way. I couldn’t remember if this was the same guy I’d talked to yesterday who asked about them. I took my drop bag into the gas station bathroom and changed into a fresh kit. I bought an ice cream cone and a soda.

I went back out into the heat and chatted with the people at the checkpoint while I was eating. I got a wind jacket out of my drop bag, and put it in my CamelBak, and stuffed my pockets with food. 70 more miles to the end. This was my last place to resupply. I fixed my bar tape for what seemed like the 6th time on this race. 25 mi to Silver Springs.

A few miles after leaving Fallon, I had to pull over. I got a flat. I’ve gotten a lot better at fixing these, but could still use more practice. Fixing it took 15 minutes, then I was on the road again. Seconds after I got back on my bike, a dog ran out onto the road, barking and growling aggressively. It got too close for comfort as I dodged it and sprinted away. My power meter kept disconnecting. I turned it off.

It finally started to get dark and cooler. I made it into Silver Springs after the sun set. I checked in, then continued, hoping it wouldn’t get too cold at the top of the last climb. I didn’t have much warm gear with me. I set a goal of making it in before midnight. I had about 5 hours to do the remaining 45 miles, but there was one big climb left.

There was a long straight road to Geiger Grade, where the last climb began. There were still several other racers around me. Shortly before the last climb, I passed another randonneur. Then, he passed me. Then I caught up with him and we chatted. He was the same one who I’d seen that morning in the cold. We started the climb together. He wanted to keep chatting, and I figured we were close enough to the end that I could spare some time. I was only racing the clock now, and could easily set a course record. We talked about other rides - he had attempted RAAM but hadn’t finished - this race, and how this climb looked different at night in reverse than it did when we were descending it straight into the sunrise.

This climb was steep. It alternated between 10-15% short climbs, and leveling off to 4-6%. The repeated bursts that required getting out of your saddle to keep going got rough. I told the racer I was with that I was going to try to get in before midnight, and slowly pulled ahead of him. It got steeper.

Virginia City looked different at night. It was a little confusing. I stopped to ask some pedestrians where the street I was turning on was. The course levelled off. Up ahead I could see a couple other racers on the course. The had left their support vehicles - those were not allowed on this final stretch. I passed one. Further up ahead I could see a support car following their racer up the hill. A line of impatient cars was forming behind it. There was no room to pass. One honked impatiently. Eventually that racer and his support crew found a place to pull over and let the cars pass, and they continued. I was slowly gaining on them.

I reached the top of the final climb just after that racer with the support car. I stopped to put on my wind jacket. It had gotten chilly and I didn’t have any more clothes, but I would be fine as long as it didn’t get any colder. On the descent, I caught up to the support car. The road was too windy and dark to safely go around it for a while, and their racer was descending slowly. I rode behind them for a little while, near the dividing line in the middle, looking for a chance to pass. I found it. I darted around and raced down the curves. This road was great - the turns were cambered perfectly so that I didn’t have to hit my brakes, and the moonlight gave nice long distance visibility.

After the descent, I had about 10 more miles, and about a half an hour until midnight. The course continued to lose elevation, but slowly, and staying over 20mph was easy. I could make it by midnight. I followed the directions on my GPS through the town, starting to recognize the area as I approached the hotel. It didn’t say to turn in the first entrance to the parking lot, so I kept going towards the second. “Make a U-turn.” Apparently I was supposed to go in the first one? I looked at the map and made a U-turn, having to wait at the light for a green. As I went back a block: “Make a U-turn.” I wasn’t sure what it wanted, but I turned into the parking lot there, because that was obviously where the finish line was. I got in at 12:01.

I hadn’t gotten in by midnight. I had, however, beat the previous course record by 3 hours. The final randonneur rolled across the finish line a few minutes later. I finished 5th out of 6 randonneurs, and 3rd out of 5 female soloists. 1st out of 1 female randonneur.

All in all, this was noticeably easier than HooDoo. I think I got lucky with the weather, but the weather here was still rougher than HooDoo. This course was a little shorter, and had less elevation gain than HooDoo, but it spent more time at elevation. I was also better prepared for this race than I was for HooDoo.

This race was easier than I expected.

One of my friends on the course joked that maybe it was better to do these races self supported, because I don’t have to spend time taking care of my crew like she did. And I think there is a little truth to that, though obviously there are benefits to having a crew carry all your stuff. When I did RAW, I felt like a huge amount of my energy went into managing my crew (whether or not I actually needed to), whereas on both The 508 and HooDoo, I didn’t have to worry about that. I think right now I do go faster without a crew, but I saw some crews on The 508 who clearly didn’t need to be managed and were just out there being available for handoffs when necessary. I’ll need a crew like that for RAAM.

Strava record

The Silver State 508: Background

This was the race that got me started on all the endurance races and rides that I’ve done. I discovered it July of last year, when a friend was encouraging me to get into racing, and it somehow ended up on a list of races in this part of the country, alongside the normal crits and stage races. At first I was incredulous - there were 500 mi races? People competed on courses like this? For, the site claimed, 48 hours? I sent a link to my friend, remarking on my disbelief about it. He responded that it looked amazing, and he wanted to do it. It didn’t occur to me until his response that competing in this was an actual possibility. I could do this.

This race billed itself as "The Toughest 48 Hours In Sport," and they vetted all racers before they were allowed to enter.

So, I emailed the race director, asking what kind of background they were looking for before the allowed racers to enter. He listed that common background for first time entrants included double centuries, triple centuries, a series of long brevets, 24 hour races, riding through the night, and experience in a wide range of weather conditions. While none of these are specifically required, you have to be able to show a strong enough background that it seems likely that you’ll be able to complete the race.

Later that month, I did my first double century, and my first ride through the night, at the Southern Inyo Moonlight Double (very strange ride that I highly recommend). It went… alright. I got through the course faster than many, but also learned that I wasn’t pacing myself effectively. I learned that when you ride through the night, sometimes you get sleepy while riding, and it’s very similar to driving a car while sleepy. But I also learned that double centuries were well within my capabilities.

I continued on to do several more double centuries, Everested on a ride in January, did a 24 hr race in March, and started conversations with several people experienced with the 508 to learn about it. I would also need a support crew, and started seeking out people who might be willing to support me. Later into 2019, I talked with my friend, and he was still very interested in doing the race, but wouldn’t be able to put together a support crew. I told him we could team up and do it as a relay race (one of the many formats for the race), and he could use my support crew. So we planned on this.

Later, I did the Race Across the West. I signed up for it kind of last minute once I realized I could put a support crew together for it, thinking I could probably finish it given that I only had to average around 10 mph, but also knowing that it was going to be a huge endeavour that I hadn’t really trained for. I finished it. I couldn’t really call a 930 mi race part of training for a 500 mi race, but that was how I got there.

I did The HooDoo500, without a support crew, because I didn’t have people available for it. I wasn’t sure how a self supported race would go. Slightly longer than The 508, and more elevation gain. I learned a lot. But supposedly the hardest part of The 508 was the weather - could you fight strong headwinds, freezing temperatures, dust storms…?

My friend dropped out, due to some immovable conflict. A couple weeks later, I learned that two of my “probably” crew members weren’t available. While I still had 1 willing to support me, I would have needed to find 2 more, and there was not enough time for that before the race. But I had confidence from HooDoo that I could do it unsupported and solo. The 500 mi that had seemed so implausible to me a year before were short compared to RAW, and I would pass by bag drops twice as frequently as in HooDoo. The weather would be the big toss up. I knew multiple people who had dropped out last year due to impossible headwinds. But I can fight headwinds. Slowly.

I registered and submitted an application to race last minute. I was a shoo-in because of my experience now, but still had to fill in a detailed race plan, including what cold and hot weather gear I’d have on hand, how I’d carry enough water, what tools I’d be carrying, and what and how much I would be eating. I also had to choose a totem - racers here were not given numbers, but are instead known by their totem. They were generally some animal, or an animal with a modifier. “Painted Turtle.” “Jackass Squirrel.” “Borderline Collie.” I added mine to the list - “Thunder Jerboa.”

The Silver State 508: Food

I'm breaking this race report up into a few posts, with a handful of smaller posts about specific things (such as nutrition), and one main one for the story. So here's the one about food.

Following what I saw did and did not work well on HooDoo, I had 2 new requirements for food: it can't turn into crumbs, and it can't melt in the heat. So, no chocolate chip cookies. I made an exception for some chocolate covered candies that I put in plastic sandwich bags in each drop bag, figuring that there was a chance they'd be kept cool, and I'd never be carrying them on me.

I had to fill out an application to race the 508 unsupported, and this included a food plan. I gave rough calorie estimates (minimum 150 cal/hr, up to 300 - I know that sounds on the low side, but I'm small), and examples of what I'd be eating (Shot Bloks, Clif bars...) I haven't really optimized any of this at all, and am still working with what seems to be good enough. I get small improvements after each long race/ride, after seeing what did or did not work there. So this was going to be a bit better than HooDoo, but likely a lot of room for improvement.

I had 4 drop bags. The first 3 I'd pass by on the way out and the way back, with the 4th being at the turn around point. I didn't record how many calories I went through last time and wanted to for this time, so wrote down everything I packed:
1 bag power berries, distributed throughout drop bags (1080 Cal total)

Carrying at the start:
3 energy chews - Shot Bloks or Probar Bolt Energy Chews (200 Cal each)
1 TJ's Force Primeval bar (260 Cal each)

Fallon
4 energy chews
3 TJ's Force bars
2 handfuls pretzels (I'm guessing about 150 Cal each)
1 Clif bar (250 Cal)

Middlegate
3 TJ's Force bars
1 Clif bar
4 energy chews
1 handful pretzels

Austin
4 energy chews
1 Clif bar
2 TJ's Force bars

Eureka
2 TJ's Force bars
1 handful pretzels
1 energy chews
2 mini Clif bars (100 Cal each)

This totals about 7600 Cal. I also got some food along the way: one of the time stations had a lot of Fun Size M&Ms (I ate 2 on the way out and 4 on the way back the next day, at about 75-90 Cal each - the ones with peanuts have more Cal). When I got to Eureka to turn around, I took a long break and got some chips and bean dip and a bottled Starbucks frappuccino from a gas station (total 1225 Cal), and a small cup of hot chocolate (150 Cal?). Then, at Fallon, on the way back, I got an ice cream cone (350 Cal) and a soda (140 Cal). For a total of about: 9950.

But I didn't eat quite all of that. After I got back, I went through what was left uneaten in my drop bags:
5 1/2 force bars
2 handfuls pretzels
1/4 cup power berries
1 Clif bar
6 1/2 energy chews
1 mini Clif bar

This is about 3550 left over. So that means I ate about 6400 Cal. I'm not exactly sure how much I intended or expected to eat, but this seems like it was more than I expected, but less than I put in my plan for the application to race.

According to Strava, I burned about 11,000 Cal during this race. However, my power meter stopped working about 40 mi before the end of the race, so that number is likely at least a few hundred calories too low.

Something that I figured out - which I also observed on RAW but wasn't able to identify at the time - is that some Shot Bloks are pretty acidic (in particular, the margarita and the citrus ones that I was carrying), and that if I eat a lot of them in a short period of time, it starts to irritate my throat and tongue. On RAW, I thought it was the amount of sugar that was bothering me, but I figured out that if I eat ones that are more just sugar without the acid (e.g., strawberry flavor), it's fine. So, I wouldn't recommend against the acidic ones, just maybe eat other ones in between.

Hoodoo500 Voyager Gear and Supplies

This was the first time I'd done a ride this long unsupported, and some things worked well and some did not. Here's some of what I was carrying:

Blackburn Outpost Seat Pack & Dry Bag - This seems like a good bag. It is probably a good bag if you're carrying twice as much stuff as I was and/or are more than 5'2". I had problems with it rubbing against my back wheel and I think it wasn't the right bag for Hoodoo500 Voyager, but part of that is that I have very little clearance between my saddle and my wheel. I think it has about 3x as much capacity as I would ever use if I were not camping.

Handlebar Bag from Amazon - This was honestly kinda useless. I kept my charging cords and backup battery in here, but I'd just as soon have the battery taped to my bike and the cords in my backpack or saddlebag. Nothing wrong with the bag itself, but it didn't do me any benefits here.

Vibrelli Hydration Backpack - The backpack is pretty good - it fits a lot of stuff in it (I packed an ultralight sleeping bag in it when I was testing it before the race), and is reasonably comfortable. I do not trust the water bladder. After riding with it in the sun for a few hours, I went to drink from it and it had a strong bitter chemical flavor. I dumped it out and refilled it with fresh water, and then a few hours later it had that flavor again. I mostly avoided drinking from it during the race due to this.

Niterider Lumina 750 & 950 Boost - These lights are a nice amount of light and runtime for the price. However, if they're mounted upside down, they give absolutely no warning that they're low on battery before just going out. This freaked me out on this race.

Australian Gold Botanical SPF 50 Mineral Lotion - This stuff is great. It smells delicious. It stays on forever. It does leave white residue like all mineral sunscreens, but a lot less than some other ones I've tried. It is not greasy. It stays on forever so you can't get it off in the shower after your ride.

Trader Joe's Force Primeval Bars - These were great. They have a lot of carbs, and a little sugar from fruit and fat from nuts. They are also a very convenient shape to eat. 260 calories each.

Trader Joe's Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies - I brought these because they are delicious. But they all turned to crumbs and ended up being very difficult to eat. Would not bring again.

Large Pretzel Sticks - I really liked these as a source for non-sugar carbs. And salt. And the shape is far superior for convenient eating over the pretzel shaped pretzels that I also carried.

Chocolate Covered Raisins and Malt Balls - I carried these but didn't even eat them. Too messy.

Skratch Hydration Mix - This seems to reliably give me a headache. I have no idea why. Other people seem to like it.

Hoodoo500 Voyager

Friday morning I got up early to try to get out of LA before the traffic built up. I drove through Las Vegas to St. George in Utah to check in for the race. There were various forms to sign, bike inspections (bikes had to have reflective tape all over them), and 4 spots for drop bags that would be available at 4 different checkpoints along the route. Racer meeting, dinner, then everyone got to bed as soon as they could. I realized last minute that I needed to finish up some stuff for work before I slept.

Around 4:45am, 6 racers gathered outside the hotel, alongside the race director and another race official. 3 of us were doing 300 mi, the other 3 doing 500, all without support crews. Everyone had bags on their bike; some were carrying hydration packs. We got our GPS trackers, turned on our lights, and rolled out at 5.

The first 8 mi were neutral, and we were supposed to stick together and go an easy pace until mi 9. The other fields would have someone leading them out and keeping them together, but we rode into the dark without one. Everyone stayed together for the first 4 mi, then 3 people pulled ahead. A couple mi later, 2 dropped behind me. I knew that at least one of the people ahead of me was doing the 300 mi race, but wasn’t sure where the others in my field were. We left the neutral zone, already spread out. I could see one tail light ahead of me, and I didn’t know where the others were. I slowly gained ground on that tail light, closing distance on the climbs and maintaining it on the flats. When I passed him, he was not the one who I knew was doing the 300 mi, so that meant I had at most one person from my field ahead of me.

It was warmer than I’d expected for early morning, and as the sun rose it heated up slowly. Going through the city of Hurricane, I missed a turn by half a block, went back and made the turn, and then someone else from the 300 field caught up with me. We both missed another turn, then got back on the course and climbed out of the city onto Route 59.

Route 59 is one of the worst roads I’ve ever ridden on. The road wasn’t in terrible condition or anything, but it barely had a shoulder. On most of the roads I’ve ridden on like this, cars will pull to the side to give cyclists a little space. Despite the road being nearly empty with only the occasional car in each direction, the cars did not move at all for cyclists. A handful of cars going 50+ mph passed me within 2 ft. A semi truck passed me with less than 1 ft clearance, despite having a completely empty road that they could’ve moved over into. I later heard that a couple other cyclists had very close calls with vehicles on that road. The scary thing about getting passed at that distance is not just how close the vehicles are, but also that the aerodynamics causes the really large vehicles to suck you in closer to them as they pass. I nearly went off the road trying to avoid getting sucked in by the semi that passed me.

Everyone was so spread out at this point I was completely alone. I was hoping a shoulder would appear eventually, because so few of the cars on this road were giving me space. Route 59 dips down into AZ, into Colorado City. At the border, a nice shoulder that I could ride on appeared. It was much less stressful to ride on. The sun was fully up at this point and starting to heat up, but nothing too uncomfortable yet. There was nearly no traffic on this road. About 10 mi into AZ, I saw a car stopped in the lane on the other side of the road. They had rolled down their window and were looking down at something on the road next to their car. As I got closer, it appeared to be a rope. I passed them. It was a large, angry rattlesnake. I did not stop for a picture.

The course turned left to go back into Utah, and I continued at a relatively easy pace to the first checkpoint at Orderville. I got there just after 11am. There was 1 person in my field who had gotten there at 9:45, and the other one hadn’t been by yet. One of my friends texted me that the one ahead of me was averaging 18 mph while I was averaging 14. The guy behind me was averaging 10. I concluded from this that I was very unlikely to catch or be caught by anyone in my field, so I should just go at a pace that seemed sustainable for me. I refilled my food supplies from a drop bag I had there, and refilled my water. I had just gone through my 2 bottles and none of my hydration pack. I probably should be drinking more.

My saddle was starting to get uncomfortable. One thing that I’d figured out in RAW was that I could double up bibs to get more padding for my sit bones. I wasn’t sure if I would need it for this ride, but I’d put an extra kit in my next drop bag in case I wanted to do that. The kit I was wearing didn’t have as much padding as I would have liked, and I was looking forward to getting to my next drop bag so that I could have that.

The 50 mi to the next checkpoint were beautiful and uneventful. Someone from the 500 mi supported race passed me on a climb - they had started 2 hours after my field, but didn’t have bags weighing them down. As we got up near 8000’, I noticed I was going slower. I didn’t feel more tired, and it didn’t feel harder, but the speed my computer was reading was lower than I expected. A large portion of this was on a bike route separated from the main road, so there was no traffic to worry about. The next checkpoint was a gas station. I checked in, refilled my water, and kept going.

The route stayed on the bike path. The lack of traffic was nice, but about every 50-100 ft, there would be a crack in the pavement that would be an uncomfortable bump. I tried going to the far right to have less of a bump, then to the left, then tried riding over the spots where grass had grown in the cracks, but it didn’t help. The bike path curved back and forth, and that in combination with the bumps made it so I didn’t feel comfortable descending as fast as I would’ve liked. We were right next to a big, straight, empty road, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who wished we could’ve jumped over to that road for the long descents.

I learned from someone along the way that the one racer in my field behind me had DNF’d. And the one ahead of me was so far ahead I had no chance of catching him. I got into the checkpoint at Escalante around 6:30 in the evening.

One interesting thing they did for this race was that at 3 checkpoints they rented out hotel rooms that were open for any racers to use - to shower, nap, just sit for a while. So I had a hotel room here. The people who checked me in said I could have the room to myself, since Mark had already passed through, Chris DNF’d, and they didn’t expect the supported riders to want it any time soon. I took a quick shower and a 15 minute nap. I refilled my food from my drop bag. It didn’t have my other kit in it - I wasn’t sure if they’d accidentally swapped my 2nd and 3rd bags, or if I’d put it in the wrong bag. Before I left I was told that if I needed anything from a store, I should get it here, because everywhere else would be closed when I went through it for the next long while. I stopped at a convenience store to get chapstick.

From Escalante to Bicknell was another 75 mi, with 7300 ft climbing. But it was night and it was cooling off. My saddle was starting to get uncomfortable, and I was compensating by putting more weight on my hands, which was in turn making those hurt. There was a long climb - about 5000’ over 25 mi. With the pace I had been going, and the amount of time I had left, I wasn’t very tired and this climb seemed to go on forever but it wasn’t very hard. The night sky was beautiful, and occasionally supported racers passed me. Occasionally I passed them as well. The rest of the way to Bicknell was uneventful.

At Bicknell there was another hotel room. But they didn’t have my drop bag - it had somehow ended up at the next checkpoint. This meant that I didn’t have: an extra kit, food, sunscreen, extra powerbank. I hadn’t been eating as much as I’d planned, so I actually had a fair amount of food still in my bags and my pocket, but I was worried about the powerbank. The one I had been carrying was completely depleted, and I had been using my Garmin for navigation, which was also nearly out of battery. My phone was also low, and I knew one of my headlights (I had 2) and one of my taillights (I had 3) were low. The person staffing the checkpoint had a wall charger that he let me borrow to charge my GPS. I turned off my phone to save battery in case I needed it for an emergency. I figured my lights would be fine through the night, and I’d have batteries eventually. My main concern was my Garmin running out of battery and losing that source of navigation. I had paper directions, and a map on my phone, but both were substantially less convenient.

I showered. I took a quick nap. I asked if I could leave my rain gear there, since it clearly wasn’t going to be raining, and they said yes, so my saddle bag got lighter.

I put my Garmin on power save mode, so I could no longer see my speed, heart rate, power output… all the numbers that I could use to pace myself. But I had plenty of time to get to the end, and no chance of catching Mark, so maybe it didn’t matter.

Bicknell to Panguitch was relatively flat and easy. But I was worried about getting sunburned when the sun came up, so ended up keeping my leg warmers on and putting my sunsleeves on. I kept my neck gaiter around my neck and covering as much of my face as I could. I got hot. As I went through the various small towns on the way, I looked for open convenience stores to refill my water - I wasn’t running too low yet, but I was worried about the heat. Everything was closed all day, because it was a Sunday. Not even any gas stations. Eventually in Circleville I found a water spigot outside a post office and refilled my bottles. I was trying to avoid drinking out of my hydration pack because the water tasted like plastic - I had a relatively new bladder in it and hadn’t previously noticed how much weird flavor leeched into the water over time.

Throughout the ride I had been carrying a large saddlebag. The capacity for the bag was much more than I needed, but the bag could be rolled up to be smaller. After I had dropped my raingear in Bicknell, the bag was understuffed. This wasn’t initially an issue, but over time the contents settled and the bag slumped to the point that it was touching my rear wheel. I don’t think this would’ve been an issue for anyone taller than me, but I had to stop and readjust it a handful of times. Between this, the heat with my extra gear on, and the lack of info from my computer, it took me longer to get to Panguitch than I had expected.

When I got to Panguitch, Mark was still there. Apparently he’d arrived over 10 hours before me, but had gone so hard that he wasn’t able to keep going. He had been planning on taking a longer break and then continuing, but had ended up just staying there. I was relieved to get there and be able to recharge my various devices, take off my leg warmers, get a cold drink, and refill my bags with food. There was a Subway across the road from the checkpoint, and I went to go get a sandwich there. They were out of veggie patty sandwiches, though, so I ended up eating froyo and soda instead. I had two drop bags there, so more food and other supplies than I could use for the rest of the ride, but it was nice to have. I took a 2 minute shower to wash the salt off me, and another woman - racing the 500 mi supported - came in to share the room with me. We both took quick naps, and I repacked my bags with food, and covered myself with sunscreen. I left my hydration pack there along with some of my warm clothes - it was 1pm and I had 150 mi to go, with a time cutoff at 7am. Plenty of time. Mark dropped out of the race. I wasn’t racing anyone anymore. 2 bottles seemed like it would probably be enough, given that there were places to get water along the way.

After a short flat distance, the route had a very long climb up out of Panguitch. Fortunately it wasn’t too hot. The climb consisted of short, steep climbs, that would seem to level off but keep climbing at a lower grade, interspersed with occasional short dips. There wasn’t an obvious peak that this road was going up, as it twisted and climbed. But it was easy to just keep going.

On one of the short descents, at the very bottom, I tried to shift across a lot of gears. My chain slipped off. A split second later, it caught on the front derailleur. It snapped.

I didn’t have a chain tool.

I pulled off the side of the road to look at it. It had snapped right next to a master link - if I had some way to get the master link off, I could connect the two ends again and keep going. I looked at the tools I had available and couldn’t make anything work.

It was hot. There was no shade. There was no phone signal. There was no traffic on the road. I could walk my bike out of this small dip in the road, but there was nowhere to go after that. I had water, but I had no way of getting out of this situation. This was probably one of the most potentially dangerous situations I had gotten myself into biking.

I sat there for 15 or 20 minutes. The sun seemed unbearable.

Eventually there was movement on the road. Another cyclist was approaching, followed by a support vehicle. I flagged them down, and they stopped for me. As an unsupported racer, I wasn’t supposed to receive help from any other crew, but I was allowed to in situations like this and would receive a time penalty. I would take a time penalty to get out of here. They had a chain tool, and it took me a few minutes to remove a link from my chain and reattach it. Then we both kept going. I would stay close to this Brian the rest of the race - we both seemed to be going similar speeds, with one of us pulling ahead of the other depending on the grade of the road.

These people saved me!

Just a few minutes after fixing my chain, it started to sound weird. Like when you try to shift into a different gear, but the chain didn’t actually shift. I had a Wolf Tooth Roadlink attached to my derailleur hanger, allowing me to run an 11-32 cassette on a short cage. The bolt holding it in place had come loose. An easy fix, I pulled out my tool and tightened it, and got on the road again.

A little while later I noticed a quiet almost hissing noise. I stopped again. The saddle bag didn’t hold its shape as well when it was understuffed, and had slowly settled and slumped so that it was just barely brushing against my back tire. I repacked it, made sure I had a few inches clearance, and took off up this endless climb.

A half an hour later, or maybe an hour, I don’t know, I had to readjust the bag again. And then again after that. This climb went on forever, and the various gear issues were causing it to take much longer than I expected. The roadlink came loose again. I kept passing Brian, then I’d have to pull over to take care of something, and he’d pass me. I stopped to turn on all my lights. Then I stopped to switch my sunglasses to clear ones. We were over 9000’ up and still climbing. The road would go up and level off so that it looked like a summit, then tease with a short dip before starting to climb again. It couldn’t be too much further - I knew the route didn’t go over 10k ft.

We passed 9500’. It was twilight. I hoped I could do at least some of the descent before it got completely dark. We kept climbing. And my headlight went out. I pulled over. It was out of batteries. This was fine, because I had another headlight that I could use in its place, but now I was worried - this light didn’t give any warning sign that it was low on batteries before just turning off, and my other light was also a Niterider Lumina. What if it ran out of batteries and turned itself off in the middle of a steep descent at night? There were no streetlights, and the moon was not full enough to light anything. I doubted I could stay on the turns of the descent if that happened. This light should have lots of batteries, but still…

My saddlebag was rubbing on my wheel again. I fixed it.

We climbed past 9800’. It was starting to get cold. I hadn’t expected to take so long on this climb, so had left all my warm clothes except for my wind jacket in my last drop bag.

9900’. The sign for the summit was visible in the darkness at 9930’. I pulled over to fix my saddle bag again. I started the descent. I went slowly, wanting to know that if my light went out, at any point, I’d have enough road and be going slow enough that I could safely stop. When the occasional car passed me, I’d speed up with the temporary added long distance visibility from their lights. As I descended it got warmer. It continued heating up past where I was most comfortable. This descent was long and steep - down 4000’ in only 20 mi.

The descent ended in Cedar City. There was a checkpoint at a gas station, and Brian’s crew had just gotten there. They were wondering where I was. We chatted a bit, and I mentioned being nervous about my lights. They offered me an extra headlight just in case. I readjusted my saddle bag to stop rubbing on my wheel. I had a lot less time to make it back the rest of the way before the time cutoff than I had anticipated, but was still confident I could make it in time.

The rest of the way back was relatively easy - no big climbs and little traffic. Smaller climbs kept teasing, making everything seem like just a little more work than I expected. There were occasional jarring cattle guards. Bumping over them shook my saddlebag, and I had to stop to fix it. And the roadlink.

Many of the times I stopped to fix the roadlink, there was nothing to lean my bike against, and I ended up keeping it upright with the chainrings pressed up against my right leg. There was a large and growing number of black prints on it. I don’t think I’d ever gotten that much chain grease on me before.

One thing I’ve noticed I do when going long distances over relatively flat ground with no one else around is slowly lose speed until I am going a very easy, very slow pace. This may have been exacerbated by putting my Garmin on power save mode again, as it was starting to run low, and I’d used up the power in my power bank to charge my lights. I pushed up to a moderate (on a shorter ride, “easy”) pace again. Getting to the end before the cutoff shouldn’t be an issue. But I had to fix the roadlink. And my saddle bag.

The stars were amazing. I wish I had had more time to look at the stars.

The lights of St. George became visible on the horizon. The route went on to city streets, with stoplights, and cars going wherever they go at 2am. 3 mi before the finish line, my headlight went out. There were enough streetlights and I was wearing so much reflective stuff that it wasn’t really an issue for visibility, but I didn’t want to roll across the line without a light and risk a time penalty. It was a little over 48 hours in, with a 50 hr time cutoff, and I already had a 1 hr time penalty for receiving help with my chain. I wasn’t sure if it would still count if I finished in under 50, but the time penalties put me over. So I stopped and swapped out the light with another. And fixed my saddle bag.

I rolled across the finish line at 5:26. 48 hrs, 26 min. With the time penalty, 49:26, just under the cutoff. I won, but only because everyone else DNF’d. The 153 mi since the last bag drop I’d averaged just over 10 mph due to the frequent stops to fix stuff. I expected to be able to finish in closer to 40 hours, and still think I could have if it weren’t for the issues with the drop bag and the gear.

This race actually ended up a lot easier than I expected. Dealing with the gear issues was the most trying part, and that was mostly just frustrating. The climbs were long, but not exhausting, and, aside from needing sleep, I wasn't that physically exhausted at the end. I could have gone harder, and would have under better circumstances.

I think I ate about 5000 calories during the race (this could have been a few thousand higher without the drop bag mix-up), and Strava estimates I burned 11,200. I could eat more.

Brian rolled across the finish line a few minutes after me. I got a hotel room to shower and nap for a bit before the awards ceremony.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2654630079

Epilogue

Several people came up to me before the award ceremony in the morning to chat briefly. One conversation didn’t have anything to do with the race. A woman came up to me and asked:

Her: Are you flying or driving home?
Me: I’m driving.
Her: Oh good, do you want some shots?
Me: Um.
Her: We have some extra, you can have them.
Me: You… what?
Her: We have extras, do you want them?
Me: …?
Her: We can’t take them on the plane with us, but you can have them if you’re driving.
Me: …?
Her: The little shots.
Me: …?
Her: You know, the little sprays? The spritzes?
Me: Er, no? What?
Her: The little sprays!
Me: Uh…?
Her: Here, I’ll show you.
And she reached into her bag and pulled out a couple CO2 cartridges and handed them to me.

Race Across the West

Huge thanks to my support crew for making this all possible!


Support vehicles: 1 chase car (van), 1 RV. The RV allows crew to sleep anywhere they can park it, instead of being constrained to hotels in cities.
Support crew: 4; 2 with a little experience with endurance races, but all new to races of this length.
Race start: June 11, 12:00 pm


The morning of June 10, some of my crew went with me to pick of the chase car, while the others finished organizing/filling the RV. I had wanted to leave by about 8 in order to be to Oceanside in advance of a photo thing that I was supposed to be at at 11:15. Through various delays, we didn't actually end up leaving until after 10, causing me to miss the photos and setting up for a very rushed day. The rest of Monday was taken up with informational meetings and preparations, such as putting the required signage on the chase car and RV.


One of the rules for the race was that at night, the chase car has to follow no more than 30 ft behind the rider. This is for safety - if another vehicle tries to pass the chase car and the rider is too far ahead of it, they are less likely to see, and thus more likely to hit, the rider. I wanted to practice this as well as some basic things like bottle and food handoffs, but we were low on time, and the support crew was generally disinterested in practicing these things, because they seemed simple and not worth practicing. Finally, late into the evening, we got out to practice following me, but did not practice the other things.


I stayed up late taking care of last minute things, while my crew slept.


I was a little worried about the crew dynamics going into the race, because, while as far as I knew they were all nice, friendly people, not all of them knew each other.


Tuesday, June 11. The morning of the race, we got up, ate breakfast, and drove over to the start of the race. I had 1 bike that I was riding, and another similar bike as a spare. Some of the other racers had more, and more specialized bikes, including full TT setups with disc wheels.


The race started at noon, with racers leaving at one minute intervals. They told us right before leaving that there had been some issue with the GPS trackers, and that they would get them to us later in the race. I left at 12:16, in a field of 5 women. There was a long neutral section, then a segment support vehicles weren't allowed on, then around 26 mi into the race we got into the normal flow of things with support.


It was hot as we rode through the hills toward Palomar. I quickly saw that I could climb much faster than the other women in my field, but they would pass me on the flat sections. Continuing east, we climbed higher and higher until reaching a high point just before Borrego Springs and starting a long descent. The descent into Borrego Springs is beautiful, but as we descended, the air temperature rose, and it got harder to stay cool with the hot air blasting in your face like a hair dryer. About 100 mi in now, the triple digit heat made the 90s earlier in the day seem comfortable. It would stay in the triple digits for the next 75 mi, until the sun set and it started to cool off.


One of my friends told me to put ice in nylons to put down my jersey in order to stay cool. I hadn't anticipated needing to do this until we got to AZ, but I asked my crew to start making those for me and handing them off. These were really nice to have.


Thus far into the ride, I had had the same 2 crew members in the chase car following me. I think we were all still trying to work out what exactly I needed in terms of water and food. I had a Terrano headset on my helmet, and it was amazingly helpful, as I could easily communicate with my support crew throughout the race at the touch of a button. This meant that they didn't have to anticipate when I was running low on water; I could tell them that I'd need to find a place to get a new bottle some time in the next 3 mi. Everyone eventually settled into the pace of the race and the routine. I wasn't going fast; it was hot and I still had over 700 mi to go.


There were 15 time stations throughout the race - places where you had to check in and you time would be reported on the race website. Because we didn't have GPS trackers, that was the only way my team could tell where I was relative to other people. These were a bit confusing, though, because you could only see when someone got in to a time station, and that wasn't enough to know where they were on the course. A handful of times, other women in my field would check into a time station hours before I got there, but then I would later find out that they were behind me because they took a long break. As far as I knew, no one was going too much faster or slower than me at that point.


The crew in the chase car swapped when it got to be night. I laid down in the RV trying to cool off while they resupplied the car with food and water, cleaned it up some, and reorganized. I slept for maybe 10 minutes. It cooled off to the high 80s. Even though I had looked through all the maps and elevation profiles in advance, I had a hard time remembering exactly what was coming up, because the course was so long. I would repeatedly ask the chase car for the rest of the race how much distance to the next time station, where the next climb was, how long the current climb was, etc.


I rode through the night without any additional sleep. Apparently it's common to not sleep at all for the first day or two. The sun came up and it got warmer. We were in AZ, which looked like it would be the hottest part of the race. Late in the morning at one of the time stations, we stopped and I ran into the nearby gas station to wash off my sunscreen in the bathroom, while the crew in the chase car swapped. I put on sun sleeves to try to keep wet and help stay cool, and covered the rest of my skin in sunscreen.


It got hot. 100 degrees. 110 degrees. 120 degrees. There was a very gradual climb over the 100 mi leading to Prescott, AZ. The hottest temp I saw on my Garmin was 123 F. Initially my support crew planned on doing handoffs every 10 mi, but I was going through bottles faster than that, and the ice in the nylons would melt faster, too. We shortened it to every 7 mi. Then every 5 mi. Then every 4 mi. I was going slow, but so was everyone else. I was just barely able to stay cool enough with ice down the back and front of my jersey, and constantly pouring water on my jersey and sleeves. It took about 45 seconds for my sleeves to completely dry after soaking them, so I was occupied with constantly re-wetting them. Other people had other approaches. Someone passed me carrying a large container of water with a spray nozzle on his bars, so he could spray his face with water. Some support crews had the sort of sprayers that you pump up and then can spray continuously, and they would ride beside their racers for short periods of time, spraying them (support cars weren't allowed to stay beside the riders because it would impede traffic). Some racers had cooling vests. Some decided to use this time to take a nap, in hopes that it would cool off by the time they got going again.


There is some point between 115 and 120 degrees where the air starts to hurt. It feels like it's burning my skin. Just standing in it is uncomfortable.


One of the support cars for another team drove up next to me, and someone leaned out the window with a spray bottle and yelled, "DO YOU WANT WATER??" I gladly accepted it, and they sprayed me for a bit before driving up to the next racer and doing the same thing. The water almost immediately dried, but having those few seconds where I didn't feel like I was overheating was so relieving. That support crew kept driving up and down the course for a while, spraying people.


I would make sure my support crew had a spray bottle like that on any future races.


It cooled off to 110. At least the air didn't hurt anymore. I kept cooling myself by drenching my jersey and sleeves with water, and putting ice in nylons down my jersey, but this got my chamois wet. Riding with a wet chamois leads to saddle sores, so I changed into a new kit and tried to find ways to keep cool without letting water drip into my chamois.


The skin behind my knees started to sting. I had sunscreen there, which was getting combined with salt and dirt, and getting sticky. This made it so every time I bent my legs, the skin behind my knees would stick to itself and pull away, effectively slowly pulling off layers of skin cells. I cleaned the area and put Chamois Butt'r on it. That fixed it. I had to keep doing this the rest of the race.


When it started to get dark, my crew swapped who was in the chase car again. I stayed in the RV to try to stay cool and maybe take a quick nap, but told my crew I didn't want to stop for long. I felt like if I stopped for too long, it would be harder for me to get going again. They said ok, and I was ready to go again after not too long. But they were not ready to go for another hour after I was ready, at which point I had cooled down and I knew I'd have a harder time getting started again. Had I known it would be that long regardless of when I was ready, I'd have taken a longer nap, but it kept seeming like they were almost ready to go, so I stayed ready to leave.


About an hour after leaving, it was dark, and I was starting to feel sleepy. I pushed through it for a little while, but eventually saw that I was having a hard time concentrating on the road, and kept losing concentration and drifting off to one side or the other. I stopped and took a short nap in the chase car. I think my crew were annoyed with me for stopping when I could have slept earlier, but I hadn't known they'd take so long. When I woke up, it had gotten cold. It was some weird combination of the air being a bit cold, and maybe a bit windy and humid, and me not being able to keep my core temperature up. It was probably only in the 60s, but I ended up putting on knee warmers, rain pants, arm warmers, a gilet, a wind jacket, full finger gloves, and a neck gaiter, and I was still cold.


My crew looked up where the other racers were. We had gotten really spread out in the heat, assuming the times at the time stations were correct. The times for the women were +0h, +4h, +6h, +10h (me), +13h. I figured at this point that there was no way I could make up a 10 hr difference, but I should be just fine for finishing the race.


During the night, we went over some really rough roads. Not the kind with potholes, but the kind with surfaces that just vibrate everything violently. My hands and saddle started to hurt after a few hours on this. I tried holding different parts of the bars, but nothing really helped. The bar tape I had didn't have very much padding. I had my crew put aero bars on my other bike and switched to that bike. It was less comfortable in some ways, but being able to take my hands off the bars was really relieving. They had started to hurt so much. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay on my aero bars for too much longer, because there was another climb coming up. Fortunately on the climbs I was going slow enough that road vibrations were irrelevant.


This was a critical point on the race, because for the rest of the ride after this, my hands hurt, and my saddle hurt. I couldn't figure out any way to make it better, and the pain from those kept me from pushing harder.


On one of the climbs, I heard off in the distance something that sounded like a strange high pitched siren or something. Then it changed to rapid beeps. My crew contacted me over the headset and asked how I liked the music. Very slowly, someone in the men's solo field caught up with and passed me, followed by a chase car decked out with colorful lights and huge speakers, blasting electro house music.


Early that morning we got to a time station that my crew was planning on swapping at. However, we got there before the RV, so we had to wait for about an hour. I took a nap, because I wasn't allowed to leave without the chase car. I felt like by around this time, my crew had mostly pulled everything together and had gotten into a good routine. While I had felt we were unprepared going in, I felt like they were doing a pretty solid job now.


The next day was supposed to be cooler. We had looked up the weather the day beforehand, and it looked like it was supposed to be in the 90s. But the temperatures climbed to around 110.


I talked with my crew in the chase car while I was riding, and heard that somehow I was still in 4th, but only 3h behind the woman in 1st. The woman behind me was only 1.5h behind. We guessed that the times from the time stations might not be accurate, or that people had recovered from the heat differently at night, or maybe taken breaks. In the men's solo race, the leader and a handful of others now showed DNF on the results. We speculated that it was because they tried to go too hard through the 120 degree weather and couldn't recover.


As far as I remember, this day was relatively uneventful. It was hot. There was climbing. My hands hurt a lot. My saddle was uncomfortable. We were getting closer to leaving AZ, but not yet.


My crew kept pushing me to eat more. I was mostly eating shot bloks and rice ball things that my crew had made. Sometimes other stuff like Clif bars. I started drinking Gatorade instead of water, to get more calories. They started giving me stuff like gummy bears, too. Some time in the afternoon when they were pushing me to eat more, I ate a candy bar, and I figured out that my stomach just cannot handle the amount of sugar I was eating (this was, like, a LOT of sugar over the course of the day). I could eat more food, just not more sugar. That candy bar made me feel sick. My crew kept trying to get me to eat more shot bloks, but I'm pretty sure I would've thrown up if I had. I kept drinking water and climbing the hills slowly, waiting to get to the point that I could eat again.


Going into Tuba City, AZ, there were some weird signs. A Burger King that claimed to have a museum in it (one of my crew members checked it out, and confirmed that it did in fact have an extensive museum in it). A Denny's with a jacuzzi (we did not check this out, but wish we had). I got to the time station in Tuba City, and found that two of the women in my field who had been ahead of me were currently at that time station, resting. I started to get concerned about making the time cutoff, because it was supposed to be triple digits heat again that day, and I could not go fast in the heat, and with how much my hands and sit bones hurt. The other 2 women left slightly before me from that time station. The woman currently leading the race was way ahead of everyone else, and we were unclear where the woman we'd thought was behind me was.


At this point I decided I wasn't concerned about doing well, so long as I finished. I was tired of fighting the heat. We were almost to Utah. Most of the other women seemed to be going approximately the same snail's pace as I was. Later that day, we finally got the GPS trackers.


Everything was hot. Everything was slow. I didn't want to eat more candy. They kept trying to make me eat more shot bloks and rice balls. I didn't want more rice. I wanted pretzels or bread or anything else. This was starting to be less fun.


We got to 725 mi. I called ahead to the crew members that were going to next swap into the car. I told them that there was only a double century left, and I have done lots of double centuries, and that I want to ride the next 200 mi the way I want, not the way they want. That that means that I'll be eating a lot less than they had been telling me to, drinking a lot less, and pushing a lot harder. I think they realized that arguing wasn't going to go anywhere, so they agreed and said they'd just monitor me and make sure I was doing ok. I rode hard to get to the time station where we'd swap who was in the chase car.


We left AZ.


Utah was beautiful. It was hot and dry, but it was probably my favorite part of the race, just because of the scenery. It helps a lot to have interesting and continually changing scenery.


The next 100 mi were full of interesting scenery, tail winds, and steep short climbs. In trying to make sitting less painful, I ended up doubling up bibs. I'd heard someone mention doing that before, but had completely forgotten about it until just then. It helped. As we got nearer CO and it started to get dark, I started to get sleepy. I took a short break, then kept going. My hands hurt and my sit bones hurt to the point that riding was very uncomfortable. I spent a while talking with the crew in the chase car about how to minimize my time in the saddle, while not exhausting myself. Doing a century out of the saddle is too much. As far as I knew, all the women were ahead of me, but not by a lot, and I had plenty of time to finish. I wasn't going to try to catch them.


We turned on to a dark road. There were bushes all along the sides, and weird clouds in the air. The bushes started to look like they had faces in them, and I mentioned that to the crew in the chase car, and they agreed. It got creepy. The road kept going for a long time, winding into the darkness. I alternated sprinting and then just coasting hovering barely out of my saddle. There were no other racers. It was dark and strange. I wanted to get off this road. The road kept going. There were 40 mi left and I had 8 hrs to complete it, which seemed both like a very long way, and also very doable. I kept talking with my crew to try to avoid getting creeped out by the scenery.


Finally back on normal roads, my crew swapped who was in the chase car one more time. I was really sleepy. I took a short nap, then kept going. Then got sleepy again and napped, then kept going. I was on the final climb before Durango, and would definitely get there before the time cutoff, but each mile was mentally harder than the last. It got cold, or at least, I got cold. I put on warm clothes. I got to the final descent into Durango in the morning, and my chase car split from me to meet me closer to the end of the race. I met them at the bottom of the descent and climbed in the back of the van, stripping off all the warm clothes and changing into a new kit. I took a little while to look at the rest of the route and chat with them. Then we got going again. I went slowly. I was there, and I had made it in time. Durango was pretty. No need to sprint up the last little hill to the finish line.


I got to the finish line and they took a few pictures and gave me a finisher's medal. 3 minutes later, the last woman in my field, who I thought had been hours ahead of me, rolled across the finish line. I had no idea she was close behind me, otherwise I wouldn't have stopped, and would have gone faster. I think she had no idea I was there either.


I finished 4th out of 5. Considering the number of DNFs in the men's field, and that I was by far the least experienced in my field, I'm pretty happy with that.


After the race:

I didn't spend much time going hard during the race for various reasons (heat, hands, crew), so my legs actually weren't tired at the end. My average moving speed wis only 14mph (with tailwinds throughout most of the race), and average overall speed only a little over 10mph. I was certainly overall tired, and had a lot of sleep to catch up on. My fingers were still numb. Over the next couple days, I felt like I almost completely recovered, except for my hands. My fingers are still a little numb; apparently you can do damage to circulation through long, intense vibration. But they're still getting better and I don't expect that to continue too much longer. In the future, I would try double wrapping my bar tape, and spending more time on aero bars.


By the end, I felt like my crew really pulled everything together and made a great team. It took a little time to get there, but I was really glad to have each and every one of them by the end.


Things that worked:

Australian Gold Botanical SPF 50 Lotion - this is mineral sunscreen, so it lasts a lot longer, and it isn't greasy. And it smells delicious. It also is very white, so makes you look like you got painted with white out.

Makeup remover pads - worked much better than baby wipes for removing sunscreen and salt/sweat/dirt before applying a new layer of sunscreen

Chamois Butt'r - does what it's supposed to

Terrano XT - invaluable for communication and saving time by not having to stop to have a discussion


Things I would do differently:

I had 5 kits for 3 days. I would have used 1-2 more if I had had them.

Definitely have my crew have a sprayer.

Eat as much food, but less pure sugar.

Have a working power meter.

Double wrap bar tape.



Here's the ride on Strava: RAW


If you're still reading - I'm planning on doing RAAM solo next year. Let me know if you'd be interested in being a part of it! You do not need to be experienced with endurance races or have any specific skill set (though there are some things I need someone on my crew to be able to cover).