saints to sinners 2010

this past weekend we rode in the inaugural saints to sinners bike relay. it was a riot. over the past many months as i organized and cajoled to get a team together i've gone back and forth with excitement and concern for whether my teammates would enjoy the experience. we went from a team of 12 at one point to a team of 3 men at the beginning of july. jonny, ryan and myself. jonny and ryan were with us from the start and when we thought we might not get a team together they were still with us. luckily, two friends from high school with whom i've biked for years came through to round out the team--jared and brent.

my uncertainty stemmed mainly from the safety of the roads and whether the race would be engaging enough in-between legs. we had 5 riders so it meant a greater challenge and longer miles. i knew this would be a cool aspect of the ride. i was worried enough that i went to great lengths to get a good mix of movies and TV shows that we could play in the car while others were biking. 'pacific', 'generation kill', 'karate kid' and 'green zone' among others. however, even with all that good entertainment at our fingertips, we didn't crack a dvd case once...

as a warning. before i launch into my thoughts and the play-by-play of the race. you may want to just skip to the 10 minute video at the end of the post that contains all the photos and video we took while out on the course. your call.

i worked till 1 am the night before and was up at 5:45 am the morning of the race friday, july 30th. four of us converged on the public park in south jordan where the race would start. the day before i painted the car windows and put on jared's hitch rack.

on arrival we signed wavers, ate pancakes and cheered brent as he began the race for us. from the moment brent began the race there was this ever-present tug on my mind. an inexorable march towards vegas that pulled us forward. at any point we could not stay for too long or we would miss our compatriot at the next transition point. it was this tug and excitement regarding the next leg of the race that led to constant attention and enjoyment.

we raced past brent in the car overlooking the gorgeous sunrise from the west side of utah lake. in retrospect we are really glad we started at 7am. it would be nice to start even earlier next year. as we headed south i began to feel excitement and anxious about my first leg of the race. this was the constant enjoyment of the event. that you had your part to do and you didn't want to let the team down. that constant concern for doing your part led to a variety of interesting emotions.

my leg started in goshen. brent paced with a team from vegas 'chupacabra' during his leg and this definitely helped the two teams time! the goshen post office graciously lent its bathroom to participants and was rewarded by the loss of all its toilet paper.

my mom, amy and our kids arrived in goshen to cheer me on just before i started. they made some great signs and it was a great send-off.

my climb up through goshen canyon was beautiful but with a headwind. i'd hoped to pace with another team, but left him behind with concern that i would get caught out in the wind and neither of us would move that quickly along the route. that concern was unfounded.

i passed through nephi quickly where i waved fleetingly to my kids who'd come south to one more transition to wave and cheer.

beyond nephi was the busiest section of the road. a road i've traveled for years en-route to grandma and grandpa's. a few semi-trucks passed and with them the wind at your back or face, but i didn't feel as nervous on the road as i thought i might. however, i wouldn't complain if the race started earlier next year and we could fly over that road in the dark with less cars to the prettier areas of the race.

after 40 miles, ryan spelled me and headed south towards salina. ryan kept up a very quick tempo as our team was averaging over 20mph on each leg to this point.

south of salina jonny and i rode together. it was fun to pace with jonny. the winning team of ten ('we abuse crack') paced each other throughout the race (each rider rode double the legs.) we did this to a degree as a 5-man team and it definitely helped.. brent, ryan and i each found other legs to double up on so that we could increase our overall speed. over 500 miles, 1 mph will decrease your overall time by nearly an hour... the winning 10-man team averaged 20.1 mph and we averaged 19.3 mph as the winning 5-man team.

our first mishap came in richfield when i was hit by a car. some middle aged woman pulled past jonny and me and then made a sharp right hand turn immediately in front of me. i bruised my shin on her bumper and landed on my left backside. i held the bike up and sustained one small scratch on the quick release and an almost imperceptible brushing on the paint of the top-tube. i was furious and looked my bike over for a few minutes while jonny talked with the woman who'd hit me. we hopped back on the bikes and minus the pain in my leg we were as good as new. we finished our 40 mile leg on an uphill to big-rock candy mountain. who knew there was a big-rock candy mountain south of salina? the whole river and canyon area around big rock candy mountain was beautiful.

our second mishap came with jared's first of two punctures. luckily we weren't too far ahead and as soon as his pacing partner came by without him we raced back to help him. we had the tire changed and him back on the road within 8 minutes. ryan jumped from his seat and offered to pace jared back into the race. this was good of ryan as he and jared had the longest combined solo mileage.

in panguitch we saw quite a few teams as this was the second major transition after gunnison. in gunnison, we'd seen kelly, kathy and kayli. it was fun to talk with them before we headed south. in panguitch we saw the 'death star' team. amy and mel were at this transition as they had been at gunnison. it was fun to follow them down the course. what a sacrifice for them to volunteer those 24 hours with very little sleep. thank you!! luckily they claim that volunteering was a lot of fun...

in panguitch, brent started the climb up cedar breaks. the climb up cedar breaks is about 32 miles and we ascended from 6632 to 10,581 feet above sea level. brent took half the mileage and 1500 vertical feet on his climb and i took the rest. his climb began with some very steep grades early on as a warm-up.

i've never climbed to an elevation on the road above 8700 feet (little cottonwood.) the two things that stuck out was that we climbed from 80+ degree weather in panguitch to 55 degrees at the top. i also noticed that if i took too long drinking from my water bottle (breath holding) that i would become nauseated and air hungry.

the views at the top were gorgeous. it was one of the best parts of the course. the views were idyllic as we rode past farmland, lush meadows, a breezy lake and stunning views of the redrock at sunset.

ryan descended into cedar city at impressive speeds and while we were all worried for him on the way down, he was careful and said the descent was a lot of fun. other teams i spoke with said the ride down the canyon was a riot even though it was in the dark. we took a 30 minute nap in cedar city and headed out west of cedar en-route to saint george. jonny rode solo past amy and melinda's next volunteer transition point.

then jared and brent took us down another big descent and up another big climb through saint george and just shy of mesquite.

another great aspect of the ride was all the other riders and teams. we rode most of the course in tandem with 'the wookies', 'one for the money', 'chupacabra' and 'we abuse crack'. each had different vehicles ranging from RV's to mini-vans. the other teams varied in biking experience and life experience. along with meeting the volunteers along the route, riding with and getting to know the other teams was one of the very cool aspects of the event. you bond with people when you're all pushing as hard as you can to achieve a goal. there was always friendly competition, but also camaraderie as it was common to have other teams drive by and cheer you on and we would do the same for their riders.

another impressive aspect of the race were steven and jill (the race organizers.) with very little sleep they were always smiling and calm. steven was unflappable as the teams barreled down the state of utah with (and sometimes without) the volunteer stations being assembled just in time to catch them. he was impressive in his calm as two volunteer teams dropped out the week before the race. there were also teams much slower than their projected times making the logistics delightful. they were calm in the midst of a good time...

the worst part of the event for me was the hours surrounding my 5 am ride. i'd slept 3 1/2 hours the night before the event and only 30 minutes during the event. i was physically spent and definitely felt more like hopping into bed than hopping on a bike. the ride through mesquite was not sexy with black dirty rain covering my bike and me and these rollers on the road that required climb after climb with seemingly no end in sight. for a moment at the start of this leg i thought i'd be able to pace the leg with stu segura (a friend from highland--whom i met at loma linda during his pediatric dentristry fellowship.) however, it was not to be as his compatriot was 10-15 minutes behind ours and so i soldiered on alone.

ryan and brent then conquered 18 miles of I-15. they said it was surprisingly smooth and they flew in their paceline of two.

jonny and i rode his next leg together. the terrain of this ride was something i'd never seen. pure rocky desert bordering lake mead. there were strong headwinds and climb after climb. it was great to ride that section with jonny. we neared the end of that leg and could see the tent at the end of a distant climb. jonny turned and said, 'i've always wanted to race in a mountaintop finish.' we pushed hard to the top of the climb and we both felt like we'd given our all to the team as jared began the final leg. nick and kelly (sp?) were at this transition point and nick cheered us up in our BYU kits. hopefully we did the school proud?

due to some problems with tent/support placement, the final leg was 5 miles longer than we'd bargained for. jared got beat down by the extra five miles and the heat. he soldiered on with great strength as he had another tire puncture and was forced to ride brent's bike with the wrong clips for the pedals. he held it together as we switched out water bottles for him and poured water over his back. he rode brent's bike for at least a mile by the time we brought him the other bike with the repaired tire. brent and ryan both paced for a period during this final leg.

reaching the finish was a definite relief. we enjoyed some post-ride food. and headed to the golden spike for swimming and a nap before the awards ceremony. i haven't felt that good in a swimming pool for a long time.

that night we went to the wold buffet at the rio and ate as many calories as we could possibly stuff down. what a great place. we collapsed in the hotel and slept for 12 hours after dinner. 12 hours of sleep was heavenly after what we'd been through.

we were excited to win the 5-man division at the awards ceremony and to get jerseys! we did not enter to win the race but to do our best and have fun. i'm sure we'll have trouble defending our division title with many more participants next year, but either way there will be a ton of fun waiting for us at next year's event...