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
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