Race Across America

I will be very honest: In the weeks and days leading up to the 2015 Race Across America, there were many more people who doubted us than those who believed in us. I read and heard the same comments everyday.

You guys are crazy. That’s insane. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew. There’s no way you can do this thing.

I actually understood where these people were coming from. After all, RAAM is a 3,000-mile race, starting in Oceanside, Calif. and ending in Annapolis, Md., crossing 12 states, demanding 170,000 feet of vertical gain, with temperatures ranging from the 40s at night to 115 in the California desert. And we wanted to finish in a week.

We were doing a two-man relay, which meant well over 400 miles between the two of us each day for seven days. I could understand people’s skepticism. But my relay partner, Brad Cooper, and I remained steadfast and determined. I don’t want this to sound brash, boastful or over-confident, but I knew we could do it. Barring an accident to one of us, I knew we would do it. I was as fit as I could be; I knew what kind of temps and terrain we would encounter; I had the perfect relay partner, a tremendous crew and a worthy cause (see sidebars). Team Enduring Hope, riding on behalf of Building Hope International to help build an orphanage in Haiti, was ready.

We are crazy. Let’s do this thing.

Our training was progressing as planned until one morning, a little over six weeks before the start of RAAM, out of the blue, I received a text from Brad: “I think I broke my clavicle.”

Uh oh.

He sure did – and then some. While on a hard training ride in Chatfield State Park, a goose flew into his front wheel. The violent crash not only broke the collarbone, but four of Brad’s ribs. Two days later, he had surgery to fix the clavicle and three days after that he was back on a stationary bike. Then, a week after a very, very nasty bike accident, Brad Cooper declared he would be back to ride RAAM with me. And he did just that. Toughest dude I’ve ever come across.

On June 16, after several months of race planning and fund raising, our crew of 18 people, which was mostly put together by Clay, our Crew Chief, and included Brad’s three kids and my daughter, set off for Oceanside, Calif. We had two “follow vehicles” and an RV. Included in our group was a minivan driven by the crew of Word Out Media, a Denver film company doing a documentary about our ride. Between the folks who went the entire race and those we dropped off or picked up when we came through Colorado, we had 20 crew total members – 20 people willing to sacrifice their valuable time, in the middle of the summer, to do nothing but serve a couple crazy cyclists and live, for up to a week, in a cramped RV that lost its air conditioning halfway through the race. They couldn’t even take a shower. There was only enough water for Brad and me. I still get emotional every time I think about that selfless group. What an incredible bunch of people.

The start for RAAM relay teams is staggered by two minutes for each team and is a ceremonial start where all relay riders ride the first 17 miles together; then, one rider peels off and officially starts the race. We decided Brad would start, so we shoved off together in front of our crew and a big crowd at the starting line next to the beach in Oceanside; it was pretty cool. Brad and I took off, had a great chat, and then, at the 17 mile mark, my partner took off like a man possessed.

He is insane. Let’s do this thing!

Our general plan was for us to switch off every hour during the day, then do longer pulls at night, up to five hours, to give one another a longer sleep break. But since we were both fresh to start the race, we decided to go longer at the beginning. After a couple hours, in the steep canyons east of Oceanside, we had our first exchange. As I knew he would, Brad was blazing and put us in a great spot.

The plan was for me to pull for about 40 miles, up and over the canyon rim and then drop down about 2,500 feet on the “Glass Elevator” into the viciously hot Mohave Desert. I felt great for about an hour and a half, but then seemed to almost start grasping for air. I checked the thermometer on my bike computer – 99 degrees. And I wasn’t even officially in the desert yet. And I was hurting. I have ridden through intense heat like this many times, but this year Colorado’s summer had been so wet and cool I had zero opportunity to get body reintroduced to this kind of heat. My heart rate crept up too high and I was having a tough time just catching my breath. I knew what was happening. My body just wasn’t accustomed to this heat.

Brad Cooper to the rescue. He jumped out of the air conditioning, did the last three miles of the canyon ascent and dropped down into the Mohave Desert.

The rest of that afternoon and evening, Brad and I moved as quickly as we could through the absolutely stifling heat of America’s hottest desert. We cut our pulls from an hour down to 45 minutes, then finally to 30 minutes. It was still brutal. At one time, during the late afternoon, I checked the thermometer on my bike computer – 122 degrees. Just crazy, debilitating heat. The Mohave heat was suffocating.

We had no idea at the time, but more than half the two-person relay teams never made it out of that desert on their bikes. The heat forced them to quit. It didn’t force us to stop, but I sure felt it. That night, during my five-hour pull, I could feel the effects. About two hours in, I started feeling very different. Not sleepy, really, but lethargic and heavy; I had trouble catching my breath. I knew exactly what it was – not clinical heat stroke, just generally zapped by the heat. I had to stop and lay down in the air-conditioned follow car and catch my breath a couple times, but thanks to help from Clay, my daughter Maggie and crew member Matt Smith, I made it through the night pull, actually feeling much better the last hour, and picked up the pace a little bit.

After crossing into Arizona during the night, the elevation increased and the temps did the opposite. Day two involved a lot of climbing but at least we were out of the Mohave and felt like we could breathe again. And, having trained in Colorado, Brad and I both felt confident in the mountains. I dropped into Cottonwood, then Brad took off, climbing toward Flagstaff. I took the last 25 miles into that northern Arizona city as the sun was setting. With a tailwind, Brad went flying north until we turned east toward Colorado. I took my long night pull, 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., then Brad jumped into his. A couple hours later, I was on the bike as we entered our home state. Our crew was in quite a celebratory mood as we hit Colorado.

We climbed through the southern Colorado mountains and at sunset of day three Brad handed the baton to me at the base of Wolf Creek Pass. It was eight miles to the summit. I took the first four miles, Brad the last four. The summit of Wolf Creek Pass is the highest elevation of the route, 10,857 feet. There was a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ from our crew at the top; I loved it! We then pushed on to Trinidad, where I knew my wife Diane and son Ryan, as well as a couple new crewmembers, would be waiting for us. The rotten effects from the California desert were gone. Brad and I both felt good.

I was really surprised at how emotional I got when I saw Diane and Ryan at the Safeway parking lot in Trinidad. I just couldn’t hold back the tears. I guess the fact that my whole family was there now really meant so much to me. Brad was kind enough to take a longer pull so I could spend a little more time with them. Ryan and Diane joined the caravan as we headed toward Diane’s home state of Kansas. Their plan was to stay with us that day and head back the next morning. Once we left the mountains, it was a completely different experience. The eastern plains of Colorado are such a contrast to the mountains. No more climbing but lots of wind and heat. When we left Trinidad, it felt like we left Colorado.

We picked up a little bit of a headwind and pushed through the heat and humidity of the Sunflower State, slowly increasing our total average speed as we went. We crossed into Missouri near Weaubleau and started in on the long rolling hills of the Ozarks. An exciting time for both racers and crew came when we crossed the Mississippi River just after Washington, Mo. It seemed like a big milestone in the race. We were past the halfway point and into another state. I celebrated by breaking off my nutrition plan. I had a Filet-O-Fish from McDonald’s. I’m not sure I’ve tasted anything so delicious in my life.

I’ve bitten off exactly what I can chew. Let’s do this thing!

With our crew manning the RV and the two follow vehicles, we maneuvered through Illinois and into Indiana. Just past Time Station 38, we ran into one of the most incredible thunderstorms I’ve ever witnessed. Brad caught the first few minutes of it at the end of one of his pulls. I took over for him around 11 p.m. and rode through one incredibly violent storm – sheets of rain going sideways, lightning flashes that lit up the entire sky. Roads were quickly flooded. This sounds a little crazy, but I just kept peddling. I kept telling myself, “Just keep going, it’s gotta let up at some point.”

It did, but for about an hour it was pretty crazy. The horizontal rain stung my face and bounced off my nighttime glasses. Even in my follow vehicle’s headlights, I got to the point where my biggest worry was not being able to see well enough to be safe. At one point I hit a pothole that I never saw; it completely jarred one of my water bottles out of its cage and into the ditch. I didn’t even stop to retrieve it. I was completely soaked. My rain jacket did nothing to help me with this kind of precipitation. I’m pretty sure this thunderstorm was the genesis of some pretty nasty saddle sores I eventually developed.

Finally, the intensity eased and I rode the last three and half hours into Bloomington under a light but steady rain. The RV shower that followed was the most pleasurable of my life.

We absolutely can do this thing!

We passed into Ohio, and rode through more rain. In eastern Ohio we started into the Appalachian Mountains, where we would basically remain until we dropped into Annapolis. More rain, including more thunderstorms. Not nearly the violent weather we rode through in Indiana, but still a little disturbing to all of us. The Appalachians were pretty relentless – not the long, continuous climbs we have in Colorado but still a big challenge. The climbs were shorter but sometimes steeper and downright unrelenting.

Two days worth of this stuff, along with unstoppable rain, will wear you down. It sure did with me. But we were getting close to Annapolis, and the thought of finishing kept us motivated. All of us, including, and maybe especially the crew, were so incredibly excited about the prospect of finishing, but we were all sleep deprived, run down and really, really tired of being rain-soaked. Yet, I never heard a single negative word from the crew, let alone a complaint.

At one point, about 9 p.m. of day seven, after I had finished an hour-long pull through another downpour with wind gusts up to 30 mph right into my face, I approached Brad at the transition and suggested we just stop for an hour or two to let the storm pass and let us all catch our breath. I knew we would finish. We had less than 200 miles to go. I just wanted to finish safely and with our crew still functional. It seemed to me that we could all use a short break – that it was the healthy thing to do. My hunch was that Brad would not go for the idea but I decided to present it to him anyway, just in case he was thinking the same thing.

My hunch was right.

Brad was quite insistent we keep going. In fact, he quite enthusiastically stated his case, walked away from me, got on his bike and took off in the rain. I wasn’t offended. I honestly wasn’t even disappointed. Brad is a passionate, motivated and driven athlete and prolonging this race was not an option for him. I respected that. The way I looked at it was this: “Hey, the decision has been made, so let’s go.”

About a half-hour later, when I awoke from a catnap in my follow car, I was fired up. We were closing in on Annapolis. When I got back on my bike again, I felt great physically – and felt great the rest of the race. In retrospect, I’m quite thankful Brad insisted we push on. The way he did it was probably not quite what I was looking for, but I’m glad we did what we did.

Let’s finish this thing!

The route in the east was interesting. It took us into the Appalachians in Ohio, then into West Virginia, then Maryland, then briefly into Pennsylvania, then back into Maryland. We rode right past the Battle of Gettysburg area, but in the dark we couldn’t see a thing. Finally, at an exchange point at about 2:30 a.m. EDT, we were 40 miles from the finish. The entire crew was awake and excited. Brad suggested he and I each take two, 10-mile pulls to get us home. I loved the idea.

At 20 miles to go, I saddled up for the last time in RAAM 2015. Amazingly, after almost three days of nonstop rain, the skies cleared and the rain ceased. I could see the beginning of the sunrise to the east. As I rode those last 45 minutes, I reflected on so many things – the seemingly endless training, the fundraising, the logistics coordination, Brad’s crash, the amazing support I had received from family and friends and our incredible crew. Finally, some of the images of the Haitian kids our family got to know and fall in love with came into my head and I was reminded of exactly why I entered into this craziness in the first place.

I felt unbelievably strong and fresh at this point, like it was my first pull of the race. It was the time of the day when I was usually getting off the bike after my long night pull, when my body screamed, “Eat! Then sleep!” Not this time. This time my mind trumped my body – and it was incredible.

Just before sunrise on Sunday morning, about seven-and-a-half days after we started, I handed off to Brad one final time. Clay, Maggie and I got in my follow car and headed to the official finish line. Soon enough, there was Brad in the distance, screaming down a main thoroughfare in Annapolis, pushing the heart rate and the wattage like he did all race. In front of a closed seafood restaurant, Brad hit the tape in front of me, Clay and Maggie, his wife and three kids, his follow crew, some RAAM officials and a few media members.

We had just finished what many consider the toughest bicycle race in the world. Our official time: 7 days, 14 hours, 51 minutes.

We did this thing!

Race officials then informed us we were to ride to the Annapolis Pier for a ceremonial finish. A few miles later, with clear early morning skies and sun, Brad and I rode onto the pier together, with our entire crew cheering like we’d just won the Super Bowl. When we stopped, my wife appeared from the crowd and ran over to me. It was a complete surprise. I had absolutely no idea she would be there. I was so emotional I could hardly talk.

At the pier, Brad and I were interviewed in front of our crew and we all took lots of triumphant photos. It was so cool, an absolute blast. We laughed, then we cried, then we prayed. “Thank you God! You got us all to the finish – and quite safely.”

With road construction and route changes, we ended up riding 3,056 miles, through 12 states, with 171,000 feet of vertical gain and temperatures ranging from a wet 47 degrees to a blistering 122. Rain soaked us for all but a few minutes of the last two days. We ended up not only winning the 50-59 two-person relay division, but beating every other two-person relay team in the race.

Never once – from the day we decided to do the race to the day we departed Oceanside – did I think about winning anything in RAAM. My goal from day one was simply to finish. I wanted to finish as quickly as possible, but never, ever sacrifice the safety of either racer or our crew in the process. I kept track of our pace throughout the week but I never was at all concerned about our position. Our pace was a little shy of what I had hoped for, but I was still totally content with our finish time. Winning our age group and the overall, to me, was a surprise and a bonus.

The Race Across America on a two-person relay team. Challenging? Yes.

Worth the effort for the kids in Haiti? Absolutely.

Would I do it again?

I kinda doubt it.

I’ve done that thing.