June
16 – 22, 2012
For the second time, I was asked to be a support
person in the annual Race Across America (www.raceacrossamerica.org)
which is an ultra-marathon bicycle race
across the U.S. In 2008 I supported a 2-man, fixed gear team. This year I supported
an 8-person team consisting of 6 men and 2 women.
RAAM is among
the best-known and longest annual endurance event in the world. RAAM has
been compared to the Tour de France, yet the races differ to a great
extent. In the Race Across America the direction has always been from the West Coast to the East Coast of the United States,
approximately 3,000 miles in about a week. This year the course was from the
pier at Oceanside, CA to Annapolis, MD. We crossed 12 states including several
mountain ranges for a total of 170,000 feet of climbing. Glad I wasn’t on the
bike!
Our team
finished in 6 days, 18 hours and 56 minutes. To accomplish this feat for the 8
cyclists we had four support vans and 8 volunteers to drive/navigate the vans. We
staged the four vans in a rolling leap-frog formation which meant very long days
and very little sleep. My average sleep was 3 – 4 hours daily with a few naps. Amazingly,
there was enough adrenaline for the entire six days to keep me focused while we
were on the course. My teammate and I were assigned to two racers. When they
were on the bike, we followed behind them in the van, a few feet away, to
protect them from oncoming traffic and provide navigation support. We were
successful in getting our team safely across the finish line.
