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 informed us that Jon was about 15 minutes away. After a quick ‘hello’ with Coz, I made my way out to the roadside with Kim and Jess. Kim continued on to the corner of the mall to lookout for Jon and to make sure he took the left turn to make our change. A few minutes later Jon arrived and I was once again on my way. As I climbed the road by the side of the mall and rounded the corner, several members of a local cycle club, who were manning the time station at that point, gave me a huge cheer, which helped to lift my spirits and surge me on. RAAM has 53 time stations along its route to which crews are required to report (usually by phone) once their riders have passed by. In effect, it’s the way that the organisers and the media keep tabs on who’s doing what in the race. Anyway, after enjoying a lovely descent towards the end of the first mile, I settled into a nice steady rhythm on a leg that, despite a slight headwind, was relatively flat. I did make my first minor navigational error after about 5 miles when, halfway across a sort-of flyover, I glanced down at my GPS and thought I should have taken the adjacent sliproad. After tracking back down the equivalent of the hard shoulder and taking the said sliproad, I realised I was wrong. Fortunately, my error was pretty minor and I was soon back on track, albeit having lost about 2 or 3 minutes of time fannying around. Mind you, I definitely lucked out by having the first leg of this stage as Tom’s first leg involved a very hot and very tough 1,300 ft climb. Still, Tom did really well and even passed a couple of other riders in the process. Nevertheless, by the time he reached the summit he was more than ready to hand over the baton. I had a steep descent to begin with and though descending is not my forte, I knew that a poor descent would cost us time. As such, I did my best to resist touching my brakes and, after several hairpin bends and a one of my infamous wheel wobbles, I was soon at the foot of the climb enjoying the much flatter terrain for the rest of the leg. Despite the extremely hot conditions, we made good progress for the next few miles and Tom (rewarded with much flatter terrain) passed another team on his second leg. However, as the last 33 miles of the stage involved 3,500 ft of climbing, we decided, for the only time of the race, to change to half hour shifts for the final four legs of the stage. During the first of these legs, shortly after leaving the town of Sedona (AZ), a car pulled alongside me and the lady passenger asked me if I’d like some water (such was the temperature at that point). After tussling with the pair that Tom had passed in the previous leg I was relieved, on my fourth leg of the day, to finally see a sign for the summit, athough the rolling terrain thereafter offered little in the way of true respite. Mind you, our difficulties on the stage weren’t over yet. As Tom approached our destination of Flagstaff (AZ) the route got extremely complicated. In fact, at one point, Tom, having stopped at a red light, was informed by a fellow racer that it had taken him an hour to find the same time station the previous year. In the end, after a couple of wrong turns and much frustration with the instructions, we finally rendezvoused with the rest of the team at around 7.00 pm. After a quick chat with Jon (as Cozza rapidly disappeared up the road) to wish him good luck and to tell him to just do a seven hour shift (to give them a bit of a break), we got some food and a Starbuck’s (Latte for Tom; Vanilla Bean Frappuccino for me!), and I climbed into bed (mattress reinflated; at least temporarily).