October 2009
16 posts
Top Ten Toughest Endurance Races
According to National Geographic, the Furnace Creek 508 is the 8th toughest endurance event in the world. Wish I’d known that before I signed up :-)
10. Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
9. World Bog Snorkeling Championships
8. Furnace Creek 508
7. Arrowhead 135-mile Winter Ultramarathon
6. Manhattan Island Marathon Swim
5. Barkley Marathon
4. Extreme Winter Ultra Marathon
3....
The Official 2009 Furnace Creek 508 Recap
(excerpted from the AdventureCorps email newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.)
The race began with the traditional CHP escort followed by excellent tailwinds as the racers sped north through the Mojave Desert. A full moon would rise that evening. On Saturday, the high was 82 degrees, but that would rise to 90 degrees at night in Death Valley.
Turning east onto Towne Pass, the...
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man...”
– Teddy Roosevelt
The Toughest 48 Hours In Sport
39 hours and 41 minutes after leaving Santa Clarita, I arrived in Twentynine Palms.
There’s only one word that can adequately, and without hyperbole, describe this race.
Epic.
I will post a more thoughtful summary after I’ve had a chance to collect my thoughts, but here are some glimpses into what makes this race great.
- Death Valley is hot. Mojave is hot. And I mean hot. Really...
“Absolutely brutal head winds, the fiercest in the history of the event, are...”
– AdventureCorps realtime race report from the Furnace Creek 508, October 3, 2009
Just Outside Baker
9 miles til Baker and Ross looks terrific. Still a bit of a headwind but nothing compared to this morning (or worse) last night. He’s on a steady 20MPH pace on the flat and shows no material sign of fatigue.
(Tom McDonald)
Backlog Of Posts
No connectivity for hundreds of miles so I’ve been making mock posts. Rather than risk losing the connection again I’m going to paste them all here now… we can make it pretty later. BTW, we’re 15 miles outside of Baker as of now.
...
Listen
Chocolate On The Inside
If I didn’t know any better I’d think Ross and Larry planned what just happened. When Ross was giving us final prep instructions he stressed that we take lots of pictures. Need to make sure we capture memorable events like food prep, perhaps the blender top blows off while Larry is making a smoothie or some such thing.
Well, we didn’t use the blender to make the...
42 Miles in
Signal will be going away soon so wanted to get this in. Ross is in great spirits and much more relaxed than the start of the race. The leaders have spread themselves out a bit which is nice because there are fewer cyclists for us to worry about as the roads begin to twist more.
Ross has a decent climb coming up. It’s beginning to warm up: 70 degrees.
(Tom McDonald)
First transition
Ross dropped two bottles and picked up two fresh ones, one each from Matt and Larry. We drove ahead toward the bottom of a hill. Those folks are *bookin*. Had to be doing 50mph.
(Tom McDonald)
A dedication
Tomorrow I race.
Its been a long time coming and now that time is here. Tomorrow morning at 7am PST, I will turn the pedals on my bike and start an adventure of over 500 miles.
The Furnace Creek 508 Invitational is an ultracycling event like no other. Each year cyclists gather in southern California to start this inimitable race. The course winds its way through some of the most adverse...
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature,...”
– Helen Keller
Watching the Race
The Furnace Creek 508 won’t be broadcast on network TV, but there will be a few ways that you can follow my progress on the web.
First, stay tuned to this blog. We will be posting audio, video and photo updates from the race as often as we can.
Second, follow me on twitter.
Third, check out the AdventureCorps Furnace Creek 508 Webcast.
Finally, watch my time splits.
Demystifying the Queen stage and dinner by the...
Yesterday, we drove 400 miles of the race course and took some time out to climb and descend Towne Pass - the “queen stage” of the Furnace Creek 508 Invitational.
We arrived at the base of the climb, a 16 kilometer behemoth, in the high heat of the day in the middle of a brief dust storm. Temperature was approximately 40 degrees celcius on the tarmac, with winds gusting between 40...