"Back in the day, ....." the story begins, and immediately you want to roll you eyes and start picturing yourself as the bear in the stream, patiently waiting for a fish to appear that will break up the monotony and allow the necessary pause to excuse yourself politely so you can chomp your fish, or any other activity that will pry you away from this historical tale.
So, now you are bursting with excitement and anticipation, let us look under the bonnet of the beast that is the Race Across AMerica (RAAM) event. In 2007.
What the hell is it?
It is kinda obvious, but thanks for asking anyway. And yes it is a very awful kind of hell.
It is an annual event that consists of racing from one side of the USA to the other. The first to get across to the other side, wins. It is, after all, a race.
With a bit more detail, I should add:
- the race organisers prepare a specific course that (mostly) avoids major routes
- in 2007 the distance was around 3,052 miles or 4,911km
- there are a bunch of race categories, from individual entries up to eight-person teams
- in order to win, you need to be completing the course as quickly as possible. To do this, you need to be on the road as much as possible. For an individual, this means sleeping as little as 3 hours every 24 hour cycle, and for an eight person team, this pretty much means the team never stops
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| 2007 Race Across AMerica (RAAM) route |
Our team raced the event in the eight person category. I was the only female, and only Australian on this US-based team. The entire team had Type 1 diabetes. Our race strategy was to divide into two groups of four. Team 1 was called Team Red, and for some reason we were called Team Gold. We quickly dubbed ourselves Gold Members.
While Team Red were racing - typically one person at a time for up to 20minutes - the other three were on quick rotation in and out of the race support vehicle. Each relay exchange was intense and fast in order to minimise inefficiencies which can quickly add up over such a distance. Meanwhile, Team Gold would be located in an RV travelling ahead of the race to a designated team changeover point. We would try to sleep during this drive, as it was our only chance. Once the team changeover occurred, Team Red would move into recovery phase, grabbing a shower, food, more food, and a massage before piling into the same RV as it leap frogged ahead.
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| Shower time. This is the advanced set up. After my first shift I jumped out of the van for my shower and was met with a crew member and a bladder of water, and nothing between me and the rest of the world. After some feedback, the crew established this relatively private set up which was appreciated by all. |
RAAM 2007 breakdown
It is too difficult to break down a detailed summary of what it felt like to race RAAM and to be quite convincingly the fastest of the whole event. It was such a great achievement for everyone involved, and something I am so proud to have been a part of. We achieved our record, we showed to all that with the right management people with diabetes can be even better than those with working pancreas', and we supported the causes we are most passionate about. So here's my attempt at the real bits of details that are very useful in all of this:
Important Sightings On Route:
US State border crossings by me while on bike = 3 (Arizona, Colorado and Illinois). I led the tally right up to the final days where the frequent border crossings got Andy over the line.
UPS tally = 3 (measured by way of counting each UPS truck seen. This is usually a daily summary each day I am in the US (record is 9 so far), but because of the weird times we were racing throughout the night and with time zones, I elected for a total race summary)
Horse and buggies = 22 (measured during a 40minute period between 2 and 2.40am in Amish country - they were returning from an Amish rave)
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| Not a State sign, but just as cool - riding parts of Route 66. This one just outside Williams, Arizona |
Impacts on me:
Heart Rate
Heart Rate was an interesting one in which I closely monitored, given the need to maintain a constant level output (ie, as max as possible) for such a sustained period of time (5 days, 15 hours). My first shift was combined with the enthusiasm of finally being out in the race, as well as the impacts of racing into harsh dry heat. As a result I was constantly 7 or 8 beats above my Anaerobic Threshold (AT) which is typically 169bpm. The physical effects of this was seen early, as I spent a lot of my first shift cramping, dehydrated and feeling crappy! Electrolyte replacement and a more settled and sustained output helped with both regards. And once we hit the Interstate freeway section, my spirits lifted noticeably (night time riding along with interstate trucks is something I simply loved doing and couldnt get enough of). Naturally as the race wore on I never saw my heart rate anywhere near this high, despite having greater physical outputs and strains at different stages. The first reason for this was ongoing fatigue, which impacts on the heart rate, and the second major reason in the early shifts was the impact of altitude. During the mountainous sections, and despite breathing so hard my lungs hurt, my heart rate would not budge above 155, probably averaging closer to 150 during each time out on the road. Following our long mountain stage which covered 200 miles and taking over nine hours, we had a short rest shift (less than five hours) before heading out again to cross Kansas. This had another impact on my heart rate as I was extremely tired, and it showed as soon as daylight arrived along with a slight headwind. My resolution lifted as I had the ride shift through Greensburg, the town absolutely obliterated by a tornado only six weeks earlier. All that remained were the grain silos and the base of trees, a disturbing image. In the spirit of progress it was interesting to see both temporary military-like hospital and emergency facilities set up alongside new home builders keen to 'assist' in the rebuilding.
From memory the slowest heart rate max I achieved were in the dismal low 140s which usually occurred at moments of extreme fatigue. This also impacted mentally, being emotionally charged from a lack of sleep and desperation and seeing the low heart rate and not being able to do anything about it. This occurred more frequently the closer we got to the finish, with one of the worst moments on a flat section in Illinois outside of Effingham where I finished my ride shift crying my eyes out and sobbing uncontrollably on the shoulder of one of our support crew.
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| Kicking off a rider exchange (you can see my teammate's shadow) - on the flat lands you had to get up to speed very quickly. |
Sleep deprivation
Our first shift was followed by a very short recovery period in which I possibly received an hours rest. I noticed this immediately on our second shift as we hit strong head and cross winds, but by the end of the second shift we had an opportunity to get a longer break, and the sleep received was helpful. Despite the 'longer' breaks, we would receive less than four hours sleep during these, and naturally less so on our shorter breaks. There was a strong trend with achieving more than two hours sleep and being able to start the next shift off well. Typically as the race progressed each shift became hard no matter how much sleep we received. But the ongoing cycle of sleep deprivation and short recovery periods hit us worse during our time in Amish country, less than 100 miles from the finish. Not only did it allow us to be inspired by all the horse and buggies and their companionship at 2am, but it also contributed to some major navigational errors which costs us at least half an hour in time. It further emphasised the need for our support crew who had the additional responsibility of navigating our way across the country to have a proper recovery. In this instance our navigator was so thrown off by a small directional error that he began to doubt himself at every major turn, which cost us time and plagued our sleep-deprived enthusiasm to finish our shift.
Standing on the stage at Altantic City we were all interviewed by the race organisers on where we were from, and what this race meant for each of us. As the commentator introduced me, he mentioned that I was the only female of the team (he allegedly called me the 'token female' but I missed that) and that I had been a part of this fastest team. Nothing to break down about, but with no sleep, I stood on stage for a few long moments with tears and being unable to speak into the microphone. I can imagine most finishing teams would have similar stories, with finishing such an epic event and the thought of sleep so close at hand, its enough to bring anyone to tears.
The other impact of sleep deprivation was my inability to open my eyes. Seen in a lot of post race photos. Sorry about that.
Motivation
Each shift required one key input: to go as hard as possible. The sentiment was easy to deliver particularly in the early stages. Comments from the blog at team exchanges were an awesome source for inspiration, but out on the road these seemed far away. The support crew handling our bikes who also had extremely long shifts were always high spirited and were so great that we felt obligated to get our shift over for them so they could rest. It was on day three when the follow van pulled up from behind me and said, 'Mo-nique, I need you to go harder. We need to sit on 24 miles an hour - can you give us another mile (per hour)?' The road was pretty flat, but there was a slight head wind. I was absolutely miffed that after putting everything into every ride shift, that someone could consider the possibility that I was not putting everything into my shift! The comment made me angry, but not necessarily any faster. But it came at a time when complacency was starting to settle in, as we dealt with pain, fatigue and all the rest of it. The borders we had initially set ourselves to be at 'our limits' were coming closer, easier to reach as we nurtured ourselves. We needed more motivation than what we could provide ourselves. The follow van had to try other motivational techniques. This was when Joe Eldridges father, Dave, stepped up to the plate. As one of the navigators in the follow van he was in a key position to monitor our speed decay and to also provide the key comments to keep us going hard. This ranged from music, to scenarios (okay Mo-nique, picture you are in the final lap of a criterium and you need to start sprinting now!) and to anything else that would get us going (false reports that Beaver Creek were catching us, speed reports, 'official concern over your speed'). The leap frog van which arranged the rider changeovers also employed motivational techniques. One of the most popular was to give the 'long carrot' - that is, to arrange a rider change at the top of a hill. From within the van the conversation would be along the lines of, 'where should we stop for the change? how bout the bottom of the hill here for fresh legs?' the rider about to take the shift would inevitably reply, 'how bout we give him (the rider out on the road) the long carrot?' From the perspective of the rider out on the road, they would be no question if they had been given a lovingly long carrot just by seeing the flashing lights of the leapfrog van sitting up on the hill. There was no other option to get the pain over with than to sprint up the hill. There was never much animosity from the technique given the number of hills in which we could return the favour.
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| You can see teammate Andy is pulling off from his ride to get his bike back on the leap frog van, while I take off on a hill. Dave Eldridge is in typical mode in the follow car hanging out the window and yelling his head off at us. With love, of course. |
Type 1 Diabetes
New pump, new ongoing monitoring device and new insulin. All of this three days before the event began. Luckily I have had three years of pump usage, so getting used to the new OmniPod was concentrated to learning how to wear the new device on the arm, and initial reductions to basal rates by 10 percent. In my first ride shift I reduced the basal by 60%, but towards the end of five hours my needs had increased and instead changed the reduction to 10%. Typically I would reduce the basal by 50% for each shift. However on some shifts I didn't reduce the basal at all. I am not sure why this was the case, but it was for a couple of the shorter night shifts where the blood sugars weren't drastically reducing, so I just left the basal as is. Within the final 10minutes of each shift all riders were encouraged to deliver a big bolus, which would coincide with receiving a recovery bomb from our chief cook, Tim. The recovery bomb - a powered drink mix with carbs and proteins contained about 80g of carb in the drink. I usually have a 1:10 unit:carb ratio, and I would still take almost the same ratio despite the impact of all the exercise. Following this we would eat something more substaintial before trying to rest. And this would where the Navigators became critical as they would alarm us on the rate and extent of low blood sugar indications. As the race wore on the Navigators became more and more essential, often replacing the need to test particularly between each ride shift just from the sheer convenience. In fact, for the first time ever I really felt like I was competing as an athlete - a quick glimpse at the indicator trend on the Navigator, and then the rest of time just preparing for the ride. Having a ride-dominated focus is unheard of in a diabetic's world, and I was so excited to be able to do this for the first time in my life. The trend info was used heavily immediately before and after each ride, but we never referred to it during the actual ride. You would occasionally hear the alarms go off during the ride, but I would not take any action until the rider change had taken place and I was off the bike. It was nice to know what was going on without needing to return to the vehicle, finding the blood glucose testing equipment and performing a test. Little inconveniences are being reduced with each new product for diabetes management, and they all contribute to a better quality of life. The Navigator and OmniPods were terrific in this respect. Although there is always a bit of room for improvement, with one of the biggest challenges trying to keep both devices secured despite the insane sweating we undertook. Tegaderm and duct tape were more common securing devices. Bumps against head rests in cars, or when removing clothing is just something we'll have to reprogram as things to be careful around. It was similar with my old pump though, this is just a new and luckily smaller challenge.
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| Matt positions a new insulin pump site using whatever is available.. |
In Summary..
I have never worked so hard, pushed myself so much, felt so strong, felt so weak, felt so tired, but overall challenged by this experience. The guys were great to ride, sleep, recovery, and joke around with, and the support crew were unbelievably awesome. It was a fantastic thing to be a part of, and the sense of achievement is awesome. I have learnt so much about myself and what others can do despite our diabetes, and hopefully I can take this experience and bring it forward to my future pursuits (ha!).
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| After our last 'race' shift. Totally spent. We then had a cruisy 10mile ride into the finish at Atlantic City. |
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| Gold Members after some sleep. |
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| Official RAAM finisher and fastest team award |
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| Our time for 2007, which at the time was the fastest crossing ever. We averaged around 36km/h. The record has since come down considerably, and after some great conditions in 2013, now stands around 5 days, 9 hours. |
