Avg high this time of year is 77. Avg rainfall is about 14". They'd had 3" inches of rain this year.

Mimi, read over on bikejournal about RAAM. Homey was a member of the RAAM 4-man team Cyclonauts and will be doing it again this year on a coed 4-man team. He's raced Furnace Creek 508 6 times and finished 4. He's a machine on the bike and just a great guy to know. Fredwina and bikerchick68 are more (somewhat) local friends of his. He kept me on the bike when I was truly scared about the heat and my MS. The weather bothered him also but he didn't admit that he was going to hurl because it wasn't "manly." He said that several times I stopped just in time for him. His normal training buddies only finished 90 mins before we did so I don't think we did too badly even though that was the slowest 87 miles of my life.

Bill finally figured out his shoes when he realized that this version of cramps was the front of his leg so he needed to bend them. The vastus medialius seized when normally it's his hamstrings.

No stats are kept on finishers and DNFs unless the SAG drivers take some kind of note but I don't think they were. They and the CHP were frantically cruising the course trying to pick up bodies before they became carcasses.