Race Across Oregon – Race Report – 1,000K Route

George Thomas puts on a heck of a race… I can remember many times in my life cursing race directors along the route in my head for how methodically they must have conceived routes that could literally bring grown men to tears at weakened moments. George outdid himself on the 1,000K Race Across Oregon route, and I am all the more grateful for it!

The adventure started the day before the race on Thursday, June 16th when our crew traveled to the race start location at The Dalles, Oregon. I was accompanied by my running partner Kyle Downs, 14-year old niece and crew chief Madisyn Heistand, Mother-in-Law Holly, my mom Lila, wife Kristin, and the two munchkins, Hudson and Kalea. We met up with my good friends Darren Sweeney and Aaron Swenson in The Dalles and also the Executive Director of In Our Backyard, Nita Belles and her husband. We spent the afternoon getting our racing gear ready, I had an encouraging stop at Rose City Recumbent Cycles where I was able to get my last minute cycling supplies from Robert Holler and his mechanic. At the race start we met up with George and received all our last minute advice and supplies for the course, took some video footage with Peter Hall and headed for a wonderful Mexican dinner in The Dalles before heading to bed. 

That’s where plan A shifted to plan B. For some reason I was so excited for the race ahead of me that I managed to lay there in bed all night with my eyes open waiting for the morning to come. It wasn’t an uncomfortable or restless night per say, just too alert to nod off to sleep. I eventually got out of bed around 5am and began to get my gear together to head to the start line. I headed out from the hotel at 6:15 to make the half mile cycling trip to the start line for my 7am start. 

After a quality goodbye to my family and George at the race start I was off onto the first 27 mile unsupported loop which happened to be the windiest section of the whole race for me.  I had some great climbs with spectacular views of the Columbia river off in the distance. It was a great warm up to what was assured from my past experience DNF’ing on the course to be a weekend to remember. Peter the videographer/drone pilot who I just met the week before was incredible and I couldn’t have asked for a friendlier and more available person to step in last minute and capture some key moments of the kick off of the race. Leading up to the race I had quite a few cancellations of crew mainly related to COVID issues and the current world situation. My favorite adventure videographer Luke Rafferty felt uneasy coming and then also having to go back and quarantine from family that could be compromised. I feel in the current world situation if you feel uneasy about something just stick with your gut and I am hopeful that the world around us will give extra measures of grace. I tend to have a few other older crew members and with some health issues and exposure concerns it left me with a little leaner crew than usual but, thankfully, just what I needed. 

To start off day one it was Madisyn, Holly, and Kyle, my core day crew. They had all been with me on Race Across America and are go-to crew for any of my adventures. The first day the only major struggle I had was about a six mile climb at 120 miles where there isn’t much support from crew and I got a little behind on my nutrition and hydration and didn’t realize it until it was too late. When I arrived at the top of the climb I was pretty spent and ended up spending about 10 minutes recovering in the van, getting additional bottles of fluid down, taking my first round of 4 salt tabs, eating some pickles and bananas and an apple vinegar elixir I had in my kit and decided to try at random with some solid food. From then on the rest of the afternoon went pretty steadily. We had planned our first crew transfer later than usual because my friend Greg got off work at a normal time and couldn’t get to the course until about 11pm. When we got close to the transfer I decided to try to take a nap break so that it could give the crew time to pass down information while the vehicle was stopped. On courses like RAO at a certain time of day (8pm – 6:30am) the support vehicle moves into direct-follow position and is required to be directly behind the rider with flashing amber lights and signs notifying that there is a cyclist ahead. After about thirty minutes of tossing and turning I decided to get back on the road and ride as far as I could until I slept later in the evening. My first hour and a half sleep break ended up being at 3:30am about 215 miles into the course heading up the longest climb of the course at around 4,200 feet over a 25 mile stretch. After I woke up I felt great and powered up the rest of the climb and onto the morning. I started passing another one of the riders in the back of the pack Lucas Spencer back and forth. It’s always nice to see other riders for me and reminds me I’m in a race which is sometimes hard to remember if you haven’t seen someone for hours… or days. The descent down the backside of the pass was the only time on the course I was cold and had to bundle up and put on gloves and my hands were still pretty cold with the wind passing by. 

The rest of the morning was just beautiful with the greenery near the river side as we went through canyons and descended onto the path towards John Day which was close to the halfway point of the course. I ended up catching up with day crew about 20 miles before John Day just after 11am and the night crew headed to John Day for a much deserved sleep break. I was in good spirits on the second day. My only major physical complaints was some numbness and tingling in my feet, a little catch in my right knee that I was watching pretty close to ensure it didn’t get exacerbated with the ongoing exertion, and two abrasions on the inside of my thighs because of a poor choice of shorts on the first night that cut into my legs. 

The climbs seemed to never end. On the Garmin it highlighted 44 climbs, and few of them disappointed. You would make your way up a 500-foot climb, descend, then the next climb would click on the screen at just over 800 feet. The only time I took pause to get my mind focused on the task ahead was when the climbs were over 2,000 feet which thankfully was only half a dozen times or so. 

Mid-day on Saturday I started feeling overheated and could feel my energy dropping. The crew was doing a great job putting ice in a neck buff and arm sleeves about every half an hour. I had plenty of sunscreen, but it’s just a lot to push through in that afternoon high desert heat for me. Eventually I told my crew they needed to find a river for me to cool off in or I thought my performance was going to start being affected. Within about 30 minutes Kyle spotted a creak worthy of jumping into and I took about 10 minutes just floating in the chest high water filled with fish and crawdads. I couldn’t have asked for a better remedy. After getting back on the bike for about an hour I started fading, this time from the lack of sleep instead of the overheating. Madisyn and Kyle found a nice tree in the shade to duck under. They rolled out the bed in the back of the minivan, and I took my second hour and a half nap which took me to about 5pm. 

After our nap my wife Kristin took over for Holly on crew which is always a joy seeing her on the course during races. In typical fashion for me on ultras, after waking up I pretty much felt 100% and was back on the road. The rest of the evening went great and we passed off to Greg and Heather at about the 400-mile mark before Spray, OR. The night started off well and I was dead set on trying to go straight through the night and pick up some serious mileage before morning and surprise the day crew. That plan lasted all of about 2 hours when I started to fade, and we were having some charging issues with the amber reflective lights. Thankfully we had two sets of lights and multiple external battery packs and plenty of electrical tape, so we had options. I decided to take another nap and told Greg and Heather to let me sleep up to 3 hours and set my alarm accordingly. About an hour and a half later, around 4am, I woke up about as fresh as can be and made my way up the last 2/3 of another 3,000+ foot climb. The rest of the night and morning went great catching up with Greg and Heather a bit and listening to songs on my playlist. I made it to the 500-mile mark of the course in Condon, OR at the center of the figure eight looped course at about 11am. It was just in time to transfer crews again. This would be Greg and Heather’s last night and the day crew would have to take me home, however long that would take. 

I took a quick break to have my first shower in a few days in the hotel and was back out on the course. The course was starting to heat up again but with just over 100 miles to go the end started to feel within striking distance. I started to see Tony Musorafite as we would pass each other at different places along the route. He was on a fixie and would go on to be the first person to ever finish the 1,000k course on a fixie. I loved the sign on the side of his van, “One man, one mission, one GEAR”. For those of you who know anything about cycling and fixies, covering a course with almost 50,000 feet of climbing is tough enough. Throw in the lack of ability to change speeds and you have someone more than a legend taking on the challenge. A couple hours after the crew switch, the heat of the day was picking up and we were climbing steadily up and down hills and it was starting to wear on me. My crew notified me that we had about a 2,500 foot steep climb ahead of us, and I was getting pretty sleepy again. I decided to take a 45-minute nap in a trailhead parking lot before making the climb. I’m so grateful I did. After waking up around 4pm I told my crew to keep me iced up as much as possible and we’d take the climb one mile at a time. Kyle, Holly, and Madisyn were machines every mile loading up my neck buff and arm sleeves and then getting me back out on the hill. To be honest, because of the close crew support, the ice, and draining my iced electrolyte mix all the way up the hill, this section turned from something to dread to a highlight of the course from me. 

From there we were flying across the high desert planes of Eastern Oregon and the rolling gradual hills were a much appreciated reprieve for the moment. We made our way past Analope and into Maupin, Oregon just after sunset and prepared for the last 40-mile stretch of the course. This course if nothing else is relentless. As we were starting to pre-celebrate I still had 2 hills left on my Garmin to get over. As the Garmin shifted to reveal the next hill it was over 2,000 feet of climbing in under 4 miles, which is by far the longest steep grade of the course. I was pretty spent and decided to take one last nap before heading into the final stretch. After a 45-minute nap I woke up and again felt 100%. I took the same approach of getting aid every mile which was just a few stops and before I knew it we were up and over the hump. We had an incredible downhill stretch for most of the next 20 miles and then we were at our final checkpoint and where the race officially finishes with a 7-mile victory lap as we roll into The Dalles. 

It was so surreal being past the finish of a race that took me out almost a decade ago. I had always hoped to come back to it, but never knew if it would happen. Throughout the course I had memories of the previous attempt with the heat, the sleepiness and the unrelenting climbing. For me this race was a confirmation of the increased capacity in my cycling ability that I correlate directly to Race Across America and the lessons I learned and incorporated from that epic journey. 

As we came into the finish line at just after 2am, I was so grateful for Kyle, Madisyn, and Kristin who had spent so much of their own energy getting me to that place the last few days. It was a pleasure to get the RAO 1,000K medal handed out to me at the end of a fishing pole by George Thomas. I even had the pleasure of meeting up with Michael Davis Hughes and Reed Frinfrock, both RAO competitors, as we waited together for Tony to come in and officially be the first rider on a fixie to finish the 1,000K route! This was the last major hurdle leading up to Uberman in less than 3 months. Now it’s off to swim training and getting some time in the lakes, ocean and pool in the months to come.