Inside RAAM – Random Notes

For the first few days of RAAM, I took notes of things that I thought might be interesting or that I wanted to remember for later.  I give you some of those notes now, lightly edited for clarity.

• Sleep, hydration, and nutrition were the important things in the day before the race.  I slept 8 hours (but got up every 1.5 hours because of trying to pre-hydrate the day before).  I noted that only 1/3 of the RAW solo racers finished the race because of the desert heat.  That was scary.  My eyes got pretty wet when I called Lori on the phone pre-race.
• I missed my first exchange because of all that hydration this morning.  John was much faster on his segment than I anticipated.
• The first night I got 20 minutes sleep when Chip and I doubled our shifts.
• At night we had great stretches of downwind runs, rolling at 25-27 mph avg.
• We paid for it later as we hit headwinds at dawn in Arizona.
• Kristi N from the Severna Park Peloton was visiting her family in Arizona and cheered us on in Jerome.  She then dashed to Cottonwood and cheered us on there.
• We had some navigation errors in Cottonwood, but I had looked at the route book in detail and dashed off on the correct route.  The vehicle had to find me and catch up.  I used the phone to call them and tell them where I was.
• It was 106° F in Cottonwood, AZ
• There were some long, gentle climbs in the Arizona Reservations.
• At night through the Reservations, rodents were frequently seen dashing across the road in front of us.
• By the time we got to Utah we had eaten 1 cheeseburger and the rest was packaged food we brought along with us, including Ensure.
• And then the notes become indecipherable.