Last minute 190 mile 2 person realy race.

[Wahine]

Every year my friend George Thomas puts on a RAAM qualifier called Race Across Oregon. RAO is a 520 mile race with insane amounts of climbing. Seriously, there are only 2 relatively flat parts on this course, one is 10 miles and comes very early on, the other is 20 miles and comes in at somewhere between 300 and 400 miles I think. It's a killer.

Needless to say, I'm not doing the full RAO. But my BF and I will be doing a two person relay for the baby RAO which is just as hilly but only 190 miles. We decided to do it at the last minute as a way to get a good training day in, under fun circumstances. I'm excited.

I'm dedicating my ride tomorrow to Raleighdon.

[Veronica]

That sounds... fun. Yeah that's the word I want - fun. :D

Seriously, have a blast!

Veronica

[Catrin]

Ooooh, have fun!

[lovelygamer]

That is sweet-be safe:D

[Wahine]

It actually ended up being a lot of fun. We rode 188 miles (300 km) in 11:58. That's actually pretty dang good for the terraine out here.

BF and I rode nearly the exact same amount of time, 6 hours and we split the big climbs. I was really happy about that as he is so much strogner than I am that we often end up throwing him out on all the big climbs where he usually gains on other teams and I just try to hold my own otherwise. But we split it and I rode extremely well. :D:D I did however only have 88 miles in the end to his 100. He's still way faster than I am.

I raced each leg that I did like it was it's own individual TT, holding nothing back. By the end I was wiped out!

I'm training for a multi day stage race in Portugal next spring, so I got up this morning and rode another 35 miles on very tired legs. I'm trying to experiment with how to manage my recovery and eating for multi day long efforts and I learned a lot this morning. I also managed about 3500 feet of climbing in that 35 miles. Ouch.

This is a really fun event and very manageable in a team format. You finish before dark and it's through beautiful country. I'd highly recommend to anyone interested in endurance racing.