Race Day 4

Fatigue sets in. Caloric depravation. "A prison with no walls". The veteran RAAMer Rick Schultz is experiencing the effects of this race. It's not just another ultra race. The formula for success is so varied. From team to team, day to day, even hour to hour. At this moment Rick is in what he calls a prison with no walls.

Take a moment to place yourself on your bike riding across this country for 3000 miles. Mentally what this image do to you? Instead of the imagine or bars, guards, and cinder block walls you are subjugated by the elements and your thoughts. Heat so intense not only do the rays of sun incessantly whip at your back you also feel as if the never ending blast of heat from the tarmac taunts at your feet like at any moment, with out any further notice, they will just burst into flames. With a concentrated plan to buffer yourself from the heat you dress you self in the life saving coolness ice has into your jersey, water bottle, into your shorts as you watch the strategy to stay in this thing literally melt away. Your intentions literally evaporate in front of you eyes. Now feel the chill of the Colorado air cut through every layer clothing you have on at 11,000 feet. All you want to do is get out of the cold...the only sensation your mind obsessed over just 5 hours before. This wind that will blow without reprieve all day long drying your skin, mouth, and all desire to roll forward transforms you into a sad out line of a dried up salty puddle.

Go beyond the cranky short tempered mood low blood sugar puts you into that place where making a simple decision requires so much effort. To a place where you want to eat, no you must eat, and because you have planed so well you have everything you could ever want to eat with you on this adventure but nothing looks good, tastes right, or could ever fill the vacuity of your stomach. If that isn't enough your mind is making you second guess everything.

Any good athlete understands the power of the mind and knows being successful means believing you will be first. Focus, getting into the zone, and visualizing. So when your mind plays tricks on you making your fortitude into a mirage and even planting the seed of doubt and watches as it insidiously grows is a dangerous place to be is where Rick might be.

This is just an opaque idea of what is happening to these athletes. Rick comments to us to inquire if the thoughts and feelings he is having are real. He judges by our response as best he can. We must be careful in our response. He trusts us. My impression of the man is one of respect, intention, and intelligence. When someone like this asks if his suspicions are true I am taken back. In my mind I say of course not. Is that all it takes. Can I connect with him. Have I already to a point he will simply trust what I say because he understands the place he is in? We must at times be his heart. Yes the pumps the blood around this bag of tissue we are. But beyond that the heart is our spirit. Our truest nature. We must speak to that place inside him where the reason for doing RAAM resides. If we can meet him there that is Truth meeting truth. That is a real place. From here this RAAM is history.

Well this is where we are.... Rick is safe. We are safe. But it's time to come up with a new strategy.
Stay tuned,
Steven