The Training Diary

My sleep was disturbed by a horrible scraping noise as someone pranged our RV. I heard Mike trying to resolve the issue but I was too tired to get involved. The next time I awoke we were at TS31 in Camdenton (MO) where the words ‘if anyone fancies any chilli there’s a big pot of it on the table over there’ met my ears. TS31 was by far, the best time station on the route, and as I’d just got my appetite back, the two bowls of chilli that I had were lovely and just what I needed. The la...

During the previous night, Jon and Coz passed the halfway point of RAAM (time taken: around 3 days and 10 hours). Unfortunately, Jon had taken a wrong turn at one point and, during the confusion, had been passed by the German team. Still, the tussle between our two teams was helping to keep us all motivated.

I woke at around 5.00 am to a clear and, at least for the moment, relatively cool morning. There was a small daschund-like dog lying in the middle of the road and the girls informed me ...

I awoke the next day at around 11.30 in Keyes, Oklahoma, to another scorcher of a day (probably the hottest so far, though to be honest it was difficult to distinguish them). I felt refreshed after a good sleep and, though I still didn’t have my appetite back yet, I tucked into my usual pre-race bowl of Raisin Bran. My stomach cramps seemed to have settled, though even the sight of a sports drink was enough to make my stomach turn. This was the stage I’d been looking forward to the most s...

This stage was to be the first attempt at our original plan of 10 hour shifts. It began at 2.00 am with Mike and Hayley as our crew. The terrain was a bit lumpy to begin with, but with a slight downhill trend and the entertainment of the odd rodent dashing across the road in front of me, things went well. Mind you, the novelty of night riding was beginning to fade, particularly when there was nothing to look at apart from the 30 metres or so of road ahead. The absence of any moonlight made th...

I awoke at around 11.00 am in a deflated airbed (no idea how it happened). The weather was baking hot and we were parked in one of those large, out of town, outdoor shopping malls that are far too common these days in the US. I was informed that we probably had about an hour before the changeover, so I had a bowl of Raisin Bran and some orange juice, and visited the restrooms in the adjacent Walmart before getting ready for the off. About 40 minutes later, the support vehicle arrived and info...

Race day arrived and we were all eager to get started. Jon had called ‘shotgun’ sometime in January to be the first to ride, so he and Corinne were on the first shift. We’d decided to work in pairs using 10 hour shifts to maximise efficiency and to rotate through a variety of daylight hours, though in the end, 8 hour shifts proved to be the best option. However, to prevent Tom and myself having too much night riding at the start, we agreed to begin (thanks to Jon and Coz) with a couple ...