PCG Elite Coach, Randy Catron competed in the Race
Across the West and walked away a record holder! Read about his experience:
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Randy more than 36 hours into the race near Mexico
Hat, AZ
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“I just
returned home at 0500 after finishing Race Across the West. My partner (Colan
Arnold) and I set the a new national record for 50+ riding from Oceanside, CA
to Durango, CO (858mi). Our time is shown below. Colan was a former
coaching client of mine before I joined Peaks. Both of us, of course, primarily
train as “weekend warrior” bike racers (RR, TT, Crits, CX).
In
addition to winning our category, we also finished before 2 of the Under 50
teams, and one of the 4P teams. This was a good result for our first year doing
this race, which has a steep learning curve. During our race we were actually
off our bikes for at least 3 hours to work out crew sleep issues, and to help
me get my nutrition going again (“….it was deep into the race and a
screaming night descent in the desert…my bike started to shimmy but I kept
riding thinking it was just a ‘little shimmy’…my crew yelled out the window and
used some colorful language to make me stop…”). I stopped, we got my nutrition
and other issues back on track, then rode very well the next 18 hours to the finish.
I haven’t analyzed all the stats yet, but I expect we will have a couple of the
fastest elapsed stage times. We had the 5th fastest time (5/54) on the last
stage (time station 14 to 15) of our race for all riders and teams (Solo RAAM
riders/all RAW solos and team).
Bottom
line, we had challenges during the race where we expected to have challenges
(nutrition and sleep), and we learned a lot. If we had to do the race again in
3 months, we could cut our time by at least 2 hours by adjusting some tactics
at the start of the race, and better managing sleep and nutrition (assuming no
mechanicals or injuries). I’ll be able to apply much of what I learned to my
RAW/RAAM clients in the future. We are already talking about racing RAW again
next year with a 4P team, then doing 4P RAAM in 2015.”
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Randy & Colan are now RAW record holders!
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Awesome job, Randy!!
