2009 RAAM—First place baby!

(photos to come)

Where do I start? First of all, we got first place in the 4-person stock catagory. 6 Days 10 hours 30 minutes. Average speed 19.52--sorry Brett it was no 20. Should have worked harder. :)

There were so many moments and stories about RAAM this year that a couple of beers would not be enough. Tim Case described the experience as a whole eloquently.

For myself—This was by far one of my top 5 experience of my life. There was not one moment that I could say it was because X, because it was everything. The racing, the competition, the craziness, the racers, the other crew members, the driving through the most beautiful parts of our country. I didn’t want to miss a moment of it thus why they couldn’t get me out of the vehicles until 4am for a five hour break.

I slept 5 hours in 72 hours. The last 10 miles of the race was the hardest for me. I was crewing in the mini van, jumping out, and running after bikes for 16 hours. My breaking point was when we had two racers in the van and one on the road. It took everything we had to stay ahead of the racer on the road since the entire leg was a downhill decent. Ryan, who I was driving with, said he could see me go from my normal self to crashing within 10 minutes. I was so tired I couldn’t process the words in my mind when I was trying to read the directions. I wanted to cry for no reason, but held it in because I knew I was just tired.

The town in Missouri my sister dropped me off in was a lot better than I expected especially when she said she found a motel for me to stay at because she wasn’t going to drive me back—thanks family. Turns out it let me cheer on some of the solo racers and gave the crew time to shower and clean up the bikes.

As soon as they turned into the driveway all of them in the RV stuck out their head and said “do you know how to power hose a RV out because this place is a pit.” It took about 45 minutes before I gathered my nerve to step into the RV. Yeah it was a pit.

They made their racer exchange at the location of the motel. Brett made his entrance at about 35 miles per hour—they just caught up to Team Surfing USA. With a 110 degree weather and humidity so high you couldn’t even breathe, there was no way they could keep this pace up. After a while Team Surfing USA caught up to the guys and passed them.

Everyone has been wondering what happen to Team Surfing USA and Team Strong Heart in Missouri. Here is the story:

After Jefferson City Andy and Brett were on the road. We got into some back country area that was beautiful. Brett could see around the bend that Team Surfing USA was in eyeshot. I quickly learned Brett LOVES competition and has the eye of the tiger if he is in reach. Team Surfing USA knew that we were within their sights so they put all four guys on the road to break our two guys. Andy did what he could—and it was by far a lot—but you couldn’t touch Brett’s drive during that moment. I was in the Jeep which was the follow vehicle—we stayed behind the racer at all times. In my opinion, Team Surfing USA had way too many vehicles on the road—1 RV and 4 mini vans. Their vehicles were made up of 1 touring bus, 2 RV’s, a trailer with surfboards, 1 scooter to run errons, 4 mini vans—one for each racer, their own media crew, and cheerleaders. Hell if I could roll like that I would too.

Anyways, they started to climb some hills which made it extremely difficult to go around any cars, so the Jeep and our Van (with Andy) ended up behind Team Surfing USA’s train of cars. Thankfully the cheerleader’s van told Bret when to turn. It was amazing to see their efforts to break us wasn’t working. Brett was breaking all of their guys one at a time.

We made a racer exchange (Steve and Tim were now on the road) after the hills. I went from the Jeep to the passenger side of the mini Van. At this time we talked about slowing the pace down and riding at a pace they could keep for the next 4 hours. We came into this little town passing the Team Surfing USA’s racer and one of their vans that was stopped by the RAAM officials. Knowing that we were far enough up the road we decided to make a racer change (putting Tim on the road). We made a left hand turn down a short decent turned on our blinker to turn right into a diagonal parking spot right before a stop sign when at the moment we were starting our turn, Jason from Team Surfing USA, was next to our van 1/2 a second later he ran into our car. He’s bike was ran over by our front passage tire. He went over the handlebars. Thankfully we were not going that fast so we were able to stop our van before he was never hit. I don’t think any other words were used except the F word from everyone.

Tim jumped out of the car faster than you could blink. Jason got up quickly but what seemed shocking to me was that their media crew was filming before he was even up. Jason started to say his left foot was broken. Within seconds Tim was in his Firefighting mode. They got a bucket of ice while I called 911. At that moment I made the call to neutralize our team since Surfing USA was neutralized. I called our Crew Chief, Brad, and told him what happened and said they need to come to our location immediately. I then called the Jeep and told them to stop racing.

After about an hour of talking with the RAAM officials, police, the other team. We continued to race. Unfortunately Team Surfing USA decided that they were going to pull out of the race. They said they came to win and they would not be able to win with three guys. Jason who got hit was taken to the hospital but was not seriously injured. RAAM considered it an accent and told us to continue. Thankfully we did not get any penalties and that no one was seriously hurt. As for the entire Strong Heart team, we feel horrible on what happened and wish Jason a speedy recovery.

I could go on and on about what Brett did, what Andy said, what crazy decent Tim took, how Steve was amazing and that he got the nickname Diesel. All of these stories will and should be told on a long bike ride.

I want to thank everyone for the support for Team Strong Heart and to our biggest fan Jorge—Thanks Jorge for the “Madonna answer your F**n phone” voicemail at a time that needed a good laugh. This will be an experience I will never forget. If you have the time to crew for Team Strong Heart I highly recommend taking advantage of the opportunity.

Plans for 2010 are already in the works. Stay tuned. This will be another great year for Team Strong Heart and Race Across America.

Podunk Town, MO

I’m leaving Tuesday morning making my way down to the bible belt to meet Team Strong Heart for the second leg of their race. I can’t wait to see the guys. They are doing great!

Keep watching.

David Zebriskie is on Team Strong Heart?

The day before

The guys are ready. Food is pre-pared. Bikes are suped up with Zipps and arrowbars. Cars and RV have all the stickers and what-not placed.

Inspections today—Passed. Meetings. Pictures. Then they are off—June 20th 2pm PST.

The racers/crew have access to update the Team Strong Heart blog as long as there is internet service. We also have fellow Strong Heart racers updating the site. Watch our progress at: http://www.teamstrongheart.blogspot.com/

Or watch the leader board to see how far ahead we are vs our competition: www.raceacrossamerica.org/raam/rcrank.php

I got a request yesterday from the guys for when I meet them in Missouri. Lots of pasta and pizza. I think I’ll also pick up a large bottle of fabreese. Those boys will be ripe by the time I see them.

Don't forget to check out Ben Popp's progress. Ben is from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and is a solost this year.

Blackdog #4

I’m going to try to keep this one short since quite frankly it feels like I’m saying the same thing as last time.

I got to the dog not mentally ready to race. My mind this week has been on Team Strong Heart. By the time I got to the line I was more focused.

The wind this time was going to be on the way back so I was going to go as hard as I could on the way out with the tailwind to make up time for the headwind on the way back. Since the finish line is 1k past the start line you have to do what you can to compensate for the loss.

The guy behind me didn’t pass me until I was half way out—I thought he would get me much sooner. On the way back, I was ready to lose it. I say that a lot, but this time there was true want to ease the pain. Thankfully I didn’t have anything in my stomach but I was debating about the water I just took in then thought against it. I needed it since it was a humid day. My time as 18:22 about my average time. I came in 4th place that day.

Once the pain was done it was time to party in the parking lot.

Next Stop: Cali

Steve, Chris, Tom and Ryan made it to Tim’s around 8pm last night and were off this morning at 5am adding 2 more bikes, $10K of wheels, 1 racer, and 1 massage therapist.

That’s one precious cargo.

There they go….

Team Strong Heart left this morning at 5:30am for California. First stop: Colorado to pick up Tim and the massage therapist Edward.

The crew will be broken up based on the racers.

Team 1: Formally known as Team B
Racers: Tim and Steve
Crew:
Edward Westhead (massage therapist)
Chris Schmidt
Ryan Davis
Jeffrey Magnuson
Madonna Lindgren (I will take over for Edward in Missouri)

Team A:
Racers: Andy and Brett
Crew:
Tom Claflin
Jim Popovitch
Terry Roach
Brad Cilley (Crew Chief)

Star Struck

Road with the Proman Team and Ciclismo Racing Team on Monday.
(no photo but trust me)

Road with Team Strong Heart and Jorge on Tuesday.

Chilled with Floyd after Wednesday's race.


Rory Suterland and his pit crew posed for me before Friday's race.


Then I hung out with Kristen Armstrong.

Went to the Stillwater crit on Sunday. Can you see me?

What a great week of racing!

St. Peter TT

I’m a little behind on my blogging—but a lot has been going on which is just the tip of my a crazy June.

Saturday was the St. Peter TT 40k. I love this course! One turn, small rollers, out and back, but NOT WHEN IT’S 48 DEGREES AND RAINING! This was no drizzle—this was a full on rainy day without a break insight. If it wasn’t for the ROY points and to defend my position AND on my goal list—I would have skipped that race. Thankfully Hollywood brought his event tent were we huddled together to warm up on the trainers. I stayed closed to Timmer hopping his fast cadence would generate some heat from his trainer. A good warm-up was essential for a day like today. You didn’t want to start cramping in this condition. Limping back would be brutal!


At the start line I asked Matt Anderson (official) if there would be an keg incentive if I caught Jackie who was going off 30 seconds in front of me. Jackie said she wasn’t sure how she should take my request. I told her she would be hard to catch and a keg would be well deserved and earned. She said “yeah, but maybe I want you to catch me so we could get the keg.” I love my team. It’s all about team work on and off the bike.

“Three, two, one…your off.” It took a entire three-point-five minutes before my socks were completely soaked—much slower than I anticipated. I lost a couple of seconds since one section was not clearly marked on which direction. There was a slight headwind, but my speed was respectively high, which made me think there was going to be some good tail wind.

I couldn’t believe about ¼ of the way into the TT I caught Jackie (she wasn’t trying to let me catch her). I passed her and told her to use me as her carrot. Something must have sparked a fire because she move in front of me. Instead of battling it out against each other we used each other the rest of the race even catching up to Barb H (honoree teammate) to be each other’s carrots. It was great to have the ladies out there within site. After the turnaround I was surprisingly smacked in the face with a headwind—WTF I was in tailwind already? Great. On top of that, I couldn’t feel my frozen wet feet. Thanks Minnesota weather.

Once I got to the turn I knew that I had to give everything I could until the finish line. I was happy to see that I shaved 8 minutes off my time from last year spite the conditions.

There was not going to be a cool down after this race. I went full speed over to my car, pried my feet front my clips, g leaned my bike against my Jeep—I was shaking and couldn’t feel some parts of my body—grabbed my dry clothes and ran inside to change. We waited for what seemed like an hour before results were posted. I was sitting in third place with a time of 1:08:47. One Tri lady argued her position which pushed me down to fourth. Kristy got third.

Blackdog #3

Last night was the dog—finally a calm night. I luckily made it past the “over 25 minute” traffic jam to get to the race in time. I quickly registered got my bike ready to go for a quick ride on the course to loosen up the legs. Walking up the stars at work during the day was a chore—I felt every Afton hill in my legs.

I felt pretty good, but waiting to go off I could feel my legs start to tighten up—Great! This was going to be the hardest 7 mile race in a long time.

I was next but noticed I was in the wrong gear. Every move I made to fix the position made it worst. Finally the official said “you have 15 seconds” Ohh no! My Chain fell off! I got it back on with just enough time to clip one foot in before he said “Go”. UGH—I needed 15 more seconds before I was ready. I never got to reset my computer so I had no idea where the splits were or my average speed. I just had to go as hard and fast as I could but my legs started to tighten up on me right after the first turn.

I can't complain I kept a steady pace the entire race. I was so much in my own zone that I couldn’t believe I passed the guy who started 30 seconds in front of me! He looked to be a fit guy, also on stock, who has put in a few miles or so on the bike. Once I passed him he let out this defeated sound once he knew it was me. That kind-of brought a smile to my face—I never thought I would catch him much less pass him and still put another 30 seconds on him. Thanks for being my carrot whoever you are.

I got 2nd place within my category, but beat my best time by 22 seconds (18:08). I’ll take it!

Time trialing is quickly starting to become one of my favorite racing. It’s funny when your tt-ing your in your own world. Head down, eyes slightly open, the sound of your rhythmic breathing, feeling every flex of your leg muscles, the coach inside of you telling you to push harder and don’t give up—not even for a second. Don’t get me wrong, you feel like you are in some third world POW camp and the entire time you just want the pain to stop. But the best thing about TT-ing is no matter your performance or what the race results said as long as you gave it everything you had for as long as you could—you won!

This weekend is the St Peter 40K TT. I’ve been waiting for this one before my race even ended last year—so many things went wrong. Most of all I didn’t feel good on the bike. My time last year was 1:16:19—one of the worst times of all the racers.

Afton Hills

To start: The bike is ok.

Last night I went to Afton to meet my teammate for our weekly hill ride when her husband Dan said he was coming with us. Oh, great…this was not going to be an easy ride.

What I learned is when in Afton if it says “Dead End” it means HARD HILL! Oh and if you are having fun flying down a hill—don’t forget how much fun it will be to go back up that same hill.

I crashed trying to climb a hill in the wrong gear because there was minimal turnaround space at the bottom of the dead end to get in the right gearing.

Final major climb (note major climb, there were about 7 more good hills left on the way home) was out of Afton Alps. Just over ½ a mile long, 20-21% grade, no flat sections—that sucker was a beast to climb. Yeah I’ll do it again , but the pain is still fresh in the legs.

Tonight is the Dog.

East Union Circuit Race

I’ve never done a circuit race before but it didn’t seem all that different then a short road race.

I don’t know what it was, but I was nervous about this weekend’s race. A few things brought on these nerves: 1. Still tired from Duluth’s races. 2. Not sure how I would do after the poor performance on Monday’s crit race. 3. Poor performance training on Wednesday when we went out to ride the course. 4. I needed to have a good ride in order to secure my ROY position. All in all, I wasn’t mentally prepared for the race and it was windier than expected.

After talking to some of the guys after their race to find out the “sweet spots” we pulled out the map and formulated a plan.

As you all know, formulating a plan in the parking lot is great in theory but we have been trying for the past four races to play the team strategy but have never got it to work as smoothly as we hoped. In racing there are too many variables.

Jen wasn’t able to race this weekend (and we missed her dearly) but Carrie—our secret weapon—came out for the first time. She is a true Hellion. This girl is so strong, but you would never know that before a race. She will smoke a cigarette, kick your butt during the race, and then finish the cigarette and drink a beer after the race is over.

The first stretch (start/finish) was tailwind. We were all flying down the road without breaking a sweat. Turn one, there was a north west crosswind—I was able to find a sweet spot to stay sheltered. Turn two we were in head/cross winds. I was stuck in a bad spot and exerted too much energy just to stay with the group. Jordan was in the Junior group that started 5-10 minutes behinds us. He jumped and soloed most of their race on his own. He came up and passed us making it look easy to ride in the wind when you 100 lbs soaking wet—but for him, it was—14 years old and an amazing racer!

We make turn three and had more tailwind then I expected. Right from the turn the group picked up speed and a breakaway group got away. I wasn’t sure who was in the breakaway so Kristy and I worked together to get towards the front of the chase group. June was leading the charge, Kristy was in second position. I pulled up to Kristy and said if we work together we can get them. Kristy informed me that it was OC and Carrie who was in the chase group—two of our own. We both said “sorry June we can’t help” I sat up and fell back a few spots.

On the start/finish stretch Points, Kristy and I got to the front and held the group back. On the first turn (of the second lap) the girls figured out what we were doing. Five of them went to the front and started to work together. Kristy, Points, and I stayed with the chase group who was gaining ground on our girls. Turn two same story, but our girls were no longer insight. Turn three, we got to the front. Kristy was itching to jump so Points and I stayed up as long as we could—not much, while Kristy soloed it to the finishline. Once she made the final turn I knew she had it. Then it was Points and my turn to make our move. I knew that it was going to be a sprint to the death. I gained ground on a few girls but wasn’t able to match two of them. 5 more feet and I would have had 4th place. I got 5th for my category.

It was exciting we swept the podium, but was even more exciting was that our team strategy worked!

As I said before, there are too many variables and we are too new to this sport so if you’re racing against me don’t worry—we just got lucky.