Two Hundred Thirty-Six

Julia, Andres, Jon, Mike, moi

Tuesday we left Hillsboro after lunch and stopped by Jon Wolf's house to pick up his bike. We took it with us to Oceanside. In a few minutes Dad is going to drive down to San Diego to drop off the bike and pick up my brother, Dan, at the airport. Jon departs San Diego tomorrow on an Elite Pac Tour.

We took the scenic route along Hwy 101 and arrived in Oceanside Thursday around noon. Our hotel reservations had been canceled by mistake. The RAAM staff reserved rooms at the same hotel and then cancelled. The hotel manager cancelled our reservations too. We ended up across the street at a Motel 9. All's well that ends well.

Yesterday we had some more drama when we couldn't find the car keys. After turning the hotel room upside down and making plans to get new keys, Dad finally found them under the bed. I think he planted them there.

Mike, our crew chief, is the the detailed-oriented engineer. He makes schedules and check lists for us every day.

Upton Dabney is the Head Athletic Trainer at Oregon Institute of Technology. He's been showing people how to give me massages and hook up the TENS unit to my tendon in case it acts up. Yesterday he lifted me by my shoulder blade to stretch my upper back.



Julia and Andres are grad students studying exercise physiology at Purdue. Yesterday they collected all my urine and Mike's. Today they drew some blood. During the race they'll be taking small samples to see how the race affects me.



After breakfast my dad reviewed the process for changing a flat tire on the van. Upton, Mike, Andres, and Julia are watching in the picture above.

I met Perry Stone yesterday. Perry is features quite a bit in the 2004 RAAM DVD. Then I had my pictures taken. I chatted with Rick Bothling and his mom for a while. They gave us some good tips about preventing and dealing with saddle sores based on Fred's experience last year.

The interview with Allen Larson and Danny Chew was so cool! I'm sure I sounded like a bumbling rookie, but I was thrilled to be talking 1:1 with two RAAM legends. Allen know a lot about me from RAO and Danny seemed genuinely interested in my story. The single speed thing gets people's attention. Both Allen and Danny seemed somewhat concerned about whether my gearing would be small enough to get me over some of the climbs late in the race. The issue is really how much of an affect fatigue is going to have on my ability to mash a relatively big gear up grades that could approach 20% at times.

Mike tells me that activity at the start is really picking up today. I can't wait to get down there and snap some more photos.

Later gator!