Author: Matt Ruscigno
New Zealand Kepler Track
New Zealand Christchurch
Philadelphia Marathon
Team PSU Alliance for Animal Rights 2000
After
running the half marathon with Brad last year
he made it clear that he wanted to do the full. I knew he was down for the training, but I couldn’t make any promises cause of school, the great divide and the 508. When I was in Philly in the Spring I mentioned this idea to Mary and Christian, both of whom go running occasionally, and they were done. That’s it. In late Sept I figured out that I could get away to fly to the east coast for the race, which was the wknd before Thanksgiving, and then stay and see family.
I booked my ticket and started training five weeks before the race. Everyone says, ‘ You’ve done it before, it’ll be fine.’ But long distance does not work that way, if you have done the time you’ll suffer for it. I ran two or three times a week, got my long run in and just didn’t have time to taper (it’s recommended to do your longest training run 3 weeks before the race, I did mine 6 days before).
After some bib difficulties, we were chowing down on a great dinner Saturday night. Mary insisted on arguing with me about nutrition, but I let it go because I know that she’s an engineer and they think they know
everything (ha ha). I spent the night on Brad’s couch, which was the best night sleep I had gotten in days. My flight out was super early on Fri morning and then on Sat I went to NYC real early to see my good friend Tom Hooper before he went back to London.
When running a marathon, I think it helps a lot of people to have a routine. Brad, Mary and Christian all had there little things they did every morning before running or certain things they had to wear. I imagine it helps somewhere in your brain to recognize some commonalities to ease the stress of race day. Brad and I rode bikes down to the famous art museum for the start, but we were early and were trying to stay warm and not stress about not seeing Mary and Christian. Finally they show up, we strip down and lock our extra clothes with our bikes and head towards the corral.
We agreed to stay together the best we could as we were all shooting for around 4.5 hours. Mary was stoked on the Clif bar pace team and we followed them for quite awhile. The picture above was snapped pretty early on, just beyond the museum heading towards City Hall. The pace was a little quicker than I was used to, but it was so fun to be running with some great friends. The route wound through old town, south philly, south st and then into some back parts of Fairmount park before looping back past the art museum before the final out-and-back to Manayunk.
Notice that Brad is not in the picture here, around the half-way point. He took off and sprint finished for a time of 4 hours and 22 minutes. Congrats Brad! Christian took off not long after this photo and then I ran just a bit behind Mary for a couple of miles.
Somewhere in Manayunk, when the out-and-back section was only separated by orange cones, I heard someone yell my name. Who would know me here or know that I was running this? It was my old friend Steph Surch. She was running it and recognized me! I have not seen her in at least 3 years. She used to race pro bmx and her and her family use to take me to races all over the country. Now she is an ultra-runner and has done a 24-hour mountain bike race. How rad!
The last six miles were kind of brutal. Mary’s knees were really bothering her and the back end of a marathon is a gritty sight as people struggle along well past their last bit of motivation. Mary kept running though! We were even passing people. She had run this section a bunch in training, but was frustrated with how much longer it took to get any where at our slow pace. So far at this 
point we had all been diligently eating our gels, but that was the only food we had. I had talked about how much I wanted a soft pretzel; Mary thought that eating a soft pretzel while running was the most revolting thing ever (and told me so whenever I brought it up). But then this guy had some! They were a little old, but hey, I got almost half of one and was elated to munch on it while I ran. Mary didn’t look at me once.
Then were at the end. Just like that. Crowds lined the streets, cheered us on, etc and we ran across the finish with a time of 4 hours and 49 minutes. Christian had finished strong about 10 minutes earlier. Nice.
Thank you Mary, Christian and Brad for everything. It was so good to take this on with all of you. Much congratulations are in order. Yeah vegan team!
Brad has a report and some more tiny, blurry pics (cause that’s all they’ll let you see) on his myspace page.
Fall Potluck at the A-partment
Winter in Los Angeles
Maybe us bike kids do spend too much time together.
Thus Climbed Zarathustra
Stephen Krchmer, the infamous journalist, put on a benefit race that was half alley-cat, half cyclo-cross. After a run-to-the-bike start you had to follow the route slip to a set of stairs, where you would hoist your bike up on your shoulder, run to the top, hop back on your bike and then race to the next set. Ten sets total throughout Echo Park and Silverlake. The race was really well run (thanks Stephen!) and about 30 people started it. There was even a prim and at the top of the last set the route sheet just said, ‘Now find your way back to the start.’ That’s a little tougher than it sounds when you are oxygen deprived and disoriented. Nonetheless, fresh off the 508, Team Bonobo ruled it 1-2-3, all on fixed. Alec came up fourth on the tall bike. Yeah, he carried the tall bike up all those stairs.
Thanks Stephen, all the people/companies that donated prizes and everyone who raced and helped to raise money for Orlando. It is some fucked up irony that someone who was pictured in double-paged ads (as a courier) for an insurance company, can’t afford health insurance.
Wire Donkey covered the race if you scroll down from here you can see it.
Alec: The cap is rad and all, but I bet you thought Jack was going to win, eh? He might be the only person who can pull off a cap with a 1st place ribbon on it. I am seriously stoked on the number of Alec caps I have now!
Team Bonobo and The Furnace Creek 508 on Fixed Gear
In 2005 Megan, Max and myself crewed for Morgan ‘Goat’ Beeby’s solo Furnace Creek 508. Crewing requires feeding the rider and, at night, following behind him in the support vehicle.
We kept track of his caloric/water intake and motivated him along the way. He slept little and we barely slept any more (except for Max who earned the Adventure Snore award). Some time during those 41 hours from Santa Clarita to Twenty Palms, via Death Valley, we came up with the idea to ride the 2006 race as a 4-person relay. Fixed-gear. And it really happened. Morgan could not ride because of his car-induced injury in May so Brian Davidson became our fourth rider. The following is my account from the long weekend.
What is The Furnace Creek 508?
The 508 is a non-stop bicycle race from Santa Clarita, CA to Twenty Palms, CA (on the northern border of Joshua Tree National Park) via Death Valley put on by Adventure Corps. ‘Non-stop’ means that the clock never stops running. Can you sleep? Yes, but at the expense of your time. For relay teams there is always someone riding. The route is broken down into 8 stages and each team member rides two stages in the pre-determined A-B-C-D-A-B-C-D order. The other three are crewing for the current rider and preparing to ride or resting post-ride. Five different riders have completed the race solo on fixed-gears, but no relay team has ever ridden fixed. Finishing guaranteed us the course record! Lastly, an important part of the race is the ‘totem’. No boring numbers: each person or team gets to choose an animal (loosely defined) and it’s assigned for life. Morgan ‘Goat’ Beeby, and only him, will be ‘Goat’ whenever he races again. The totem must be displayed on all four sides of the support vehicle; looking at people’s creative totems entertained us throughout the race.
Pre-race
The most difficult pre-race aspect was picking a totem. We couldn’t decide between Tofu Antelope (from the Far Side cartoon) or Bonobo (the chimpanzee species famous for it’s egalitarian and sexual promiscuous lifestyle). Which would be funnier? We chose bonobo and then took it a step further and used the race as a fundraiser for bonobo conservation. ‘Los Angeles vegan bike kids race across death valley on fixed-gear bikes to raise money for endangered bonobos’ sounded like an LA Times worthy headline to us.
Did we train much? Well, I rode 2200 miles on the Great Divide trail on a cyclocross bike (see previous posts and Steevo’s blog), Megan became a messenger and road the track at night, Max road his tall bike around a bunch and Brian just did everything he does, which includes running, riding and swimming, at 110%. So, sort of, in our own way.
Our rad friends came through: Vmaas made us a logo and did layout for our fundraising postcards, Alec made us cycling caps and a screen for t-shirts, Jen Diamond made us jerseys, Orange 20 sponsored us and numerous others helped us with logistics. Eleven days after getting back from my Great Divide trip we were loading up Max’s mom’s van and heading to Santa Clarita.
Friday October 6th
‘I thought you had the cooler?’ ‘I thought you had it!’…etc, etc. What else would you expect? Finally we are on our way to the check-in hotel. Megan’s friend Sasha and three of her classmates are making a documentary about us and are around all day filming us. Just what we need: A camera in our face egging us on to be more obnoxious. We check in and tell Chris Kostman that we are using a banana as our baton. ‘Yeah, it’ll make it 36 hours in our jersey pockets. Of course.’ Morgan is helping with the webcast and interviews us. Mostly we mumble jibberish that is only funny to us. We get some good points in about our team being vegan. Later we play foot-down in the parking lot. Max and I skip most of the pre-race meeting to get tamales for everyone. We make it back in time to be on stage with all the racers. Amazing! My main thought is: At least I’m not riding solo.
Brian tells us he is not feeling well. Uh-oh. Brian is one of the most resilient, disciplined athletes I know. Sure, I don’t know many athletes, but he would top most people’s list. He’s the type of person you just expect to never get tired or to slow down. Him being sick was scary. We got some water into him and he went straight to bed. While Morgan and our friend Chris Cheung finished editing the sound files for Adventure Corps the rest of us crashed out in their hotel room.
Saturday October 7th
After the alarm goes off at 630am we savor the last couple minutes of comfort. We know that we won’t be sleeping much over the next two days. A few of us head downstairs to watch the solo racers’ start. We wish Emily Archaeopteryx O’Brien, the only woman to do 508 on fixed, a great race. We get back, wake everyone up, get Megan sorted and load the minivan. Brian is feeling better! All of us are nervous as Megan sits on her bike with the other teams’ first riders. The race starts with a huge climb out of the valley; we know that Megan will not be off to a fast start riding fixed. The remaining three of us head to mile 24, the first point where we can assist our rider.
Last year at this point we waited while almost every other team helped their rider and drove off. Where was Morgan? Him and a couple of others made a wrong turn and went 7 miles out of the way. Megan stayed on course and was looking strong as she rode by. We passed her some fresh water bottles. The first leg is a tough 80 miles. We leap frog her a couple of times and before I know it, and before I am ready, we are in California City, the first time station. This is where Megan passes the baton (our banana!) to me.
My friend Catra, whom I met when she was crewing in Badwater, is there crewing for the same woman, Linda McFadden. Yep, Linda ran the 135-mile Badwater ultramarathon and is now attempting the 508. Chris Kostman (Adventure Corps director) and part of our film crew is there as well. That would be fun and all if it weren’t for my nervousness. Not sure why I am so nervous. Probably the realization of how little I have trained on my fixed gear. Or the pressure of being on a team. After hanging out about ten minutes we see Megan coming. I trackstand in the street and she rolls up and passes the banana. I take off. Definitely faster than I should be going. Soon Chris rolls up in a car and starts filming me. I continue to push. He shoots some pics and is off.
When the climbing to Randsburg starts I am ready for it. Glad to be out of the saddle and climbing. Since I do not have a cyclocomputer on my fixed I do not know my speed or how far I’ve ridden. Megan and I talked later about how this may have been beneficial. I’m still not sure. Soon I am passing people. Some solo riders and some teams. As the 7-mile climb gets steeper I gain on more riders. I’m not a particularly strong climber, but the gear I chose to run is hard. This means I can go faster on the flats and spin less on the downhills, but have to push harder on the climbs to keep the pedals turning. When I hit my first fast descent I realize I made the right decision. Struggling uphill is absolutely worth the price of a slightly lower RPM coming down. The downhills are real challenging. On some occasions the rider I passed going up would pass me going down. 30 MPH on a fixed for any extended period = not fun.
My goal was to reach Trona, the second time station, before 6pm. ‘Night’ starts officially at 6pm and the support vehicle must follow behind the rider. I came up about 30 minutes short, despite my pace of 17.75 MPH for the 70-mile section (the fastest team rode the section in 3.5 hours, 20 MPH).
Saturday Night
Max hops on his bike and we are off right behind him. This is one of the best sections of the whole course. You ride out of Trona, past the church with no windows, climb out of the Searles Valley and into the Panamint Valley. From here you ride across the valley and can see, way off in the distance, Townes Pass. It is a monster of a climb: 13 miles with 3800 feet of climbing and sections at 10-13% grade. Max’s bike is geared for the climb so his flat speed is limited. Finally we reach the turn and start climbing. Metal is blaring on the roof speakers and Max starts picking up the pace. It’s phenomenal to watch him passing people like they are standing still. Some people see him, step on it, but can’t hold his pace. At some points he can barely turn the pedals, but he pushes on. At the top we dress him in warm clothes for the 17-mile descent. It’s brutal to watch him spinning away for so long. Other, coasting, cyclists pass us. Eventually we hit Stovepipe Wells and then Furnace Creek and the end of his 100-mile stage.
Getting Brian out of the van and on to his bike was a relief. The kid had been in the van, watching us ride, for 17 hours before he got on his bike for the first time at 2am. All that stored
energy came gushing out. I’m pretty sure he sprinted the entire 74 miles. On Jubilee and Salsberry Pass (15 miles of combined climbing) he went faster. We counted something like 14 people passed in 3 hours. There was one short period where I was driving and handing him his bottles while Megan and Max napped. The sun started to come up as he descended out of Death Valley into Shoshone.
Sunday Morning
Megan is back on the bike and we have to follow behind till 7am. Then we start leap frogging. Her knees are bothering her, but that doesn’t stop her from holding a strong pace on a tough section. The road quality here on out is very poor. We leave her early so I can get to Baker and get ready. Here the time station volunteer tells us how much he admires bonobos. Very quotable stuff like:
‘The christian right wants to keep bonobos from having fun’
‘I wish I could live the life of a bonobo for a day’.
The bonobo totem has fulfilled our goal of being funny and an opportunity for jokes. It started early on Saturday when we ran into Team Swallow, a team of four female, super friendly, triathletes. ‘Do you think they know their totem is funny?’ They have to!’ When we were both waiting for our first rider I asked them which totem would be the butt of more sexual jokes. They said when they picked up their jerseys and got a look from the guy they said ‘Yeah, it can be a noun and a verb’. The guy’s response: ‘It can be a noun?’ Very funny stuff. Throughout the race they cheered us on and we all made pointed jokes (Props to them for later posting to their triathlon list about our fundraising efforts). Good times.
Sunday
I’m back on the bike straight into a boring 20-mile gradual climb through the Mojave Desert National Preserve. The reality of having not slept for over 24 hours hits me pretty hard. The team rolls up and I tell them there is something wrong with my bike. ‘It’s not fast!’ The road is empty and I don’t see anyone except the one solo male on fixed. Damn we didn’t pass him till 400 miles in! As I roll towards the Kelso time station I see a line of cars. A train is stopped on the tracks and we can’t get across. I hang out at the van and we eat Molly’s crazy chocolate raspberry blondie bars till the train leaves and I can pass the browning banana to Max.
Max’s section is a lot like mine. One big up and a big down over 35 miles. We do some math and realize that we could finish before ‘dark’, 6pm, if we held a good pace. Even with the 30-minute train delay this still looks hopeful. Max turns it out and at the final checkpoint he passes the banana to Brian for his last stage. Traffic picks up as we get closer to Twenty Palms. Tons of dickwads pulling trailers of 4-wheelers in their big trucks at 80 MPH. We stay behind Brian and he pushes along as if he’s fully rested.
He passes some more riders, but one in particular does not look happy about it. Team Swamp Rat has 4 bikes for 2 people, each one worth more than all of our bikes put together. The dude is on his aero bars with zipp wheels and, about 5 miles from the end, pushes up and past Brian. It’s on. Then he runs two stop signs! We, by no means, are purists about stopping at stop signs, but it is an official rule of the race. Adventure Corps could lose permits if riders are caught blowing stop signs. The worst part is that he did it to pass Brian.
So Brian catches him again. About two miles away Brian rolls up to a red light right behind the guy. So he runs it! What a chump! We ‘boo’ his team and are astonished he wouldn’t sprint finish verse someone on a single speed. So Brian catches him for a third time. We pull ahead so we can be at the finish and, in our rearview, see Brian pull into the wrong hotel! The mileage was just off and he thought he was at the finish. Then he pops back out and catches the guy AGAIN. Amazingly they pull into the finishing hotel together and climactically Brian slides out in some water and the swamp rat pulls ahead and beats him. Brian was alright and we walked him across the finish. Did swamp rat come over and congratulate us or see if Brian was okay? Nope. Total suckas.
Sunday Night
Chris awards our medals and takes our pic at the finish. We are elated on our 32 hour 23 minute time. Hours faster than anticipated. We ceremoniously ate the baton banana. Alec and
Jenny (Brian’s wife) are there as are Morgan, Chris and Sasha. We take some more pics and head over to our hotel (thanks Jenny!). Some more antics, food and filming and then back over to the finish to hang out. Watching solo riders finish is a beautiful thing. It goes way beyond physical aptitude; it’s a mental and spiritual adventure that is unimaginable. We start to talk about next year. Who is going to ride solo? Could our crew put together a strong female team? Around 1030pm we call it a night. After 40 hours without sleep I’m ready. Well, after a second dinner (burritos!) of course.
End
Working on a team and riding 508 miles in less than two days was fantastic. We have such a tight bond. Again and again I say that the bike is merely a medium to experience the world and to enjoy life with your closest friends. That, and a reason to eat a lot. Thank you to everyone who was a part of our adventure. Thanks to Chris Kostman and Jenny Davidson for the pictures.
Fundraiser Update
We have raised over $1200 for the Bonobo Conservation Initiative, but are still thousands short of our goal of $5000. The money is going towards sending bikes to the Congo for a sustainable transportation infrastructure. Please log in and donate! Mention the Furnace Creek 508.
Yosemite and Half Dome
A crew of us, organized by Morgan, headed up to Yosemite National Park to hike up half dome. It’s only four days after getting back from the Great Divide, but we wanted to do it before the weather got too cold up there. We all piled into Brian’s old van and drove up Friday night. We camped outside the valley and then did the day hike pretty much all day on Saturday, as it’s 17 miles return. Was super packed with people, which I did not mind so much, but bothered some others who were hoping for some the usual solitude that accompanies good hikes.
When we got the section just before the ropes, the image of hordes of people trapped together on the ropes to the very hop was scary. It is beyond me that no one fell off while we were there. If you look closely at the photo on the left, you can see everyone lined up between the waist high cables designed to get you up the steepest section. We heard it took an hour and a half. Some of our group skipped going entirely and some took rockclimber Brian’s lead and went on the outside of the ropes, only holding on to one. I think this was safer. The view from the top was great; you can walk right to the edge of the valley side (I’m equally amazed that no one fell off here either. Statistically it was bound to happen).
After chillin a bit outside the restaurant area in valley and eating a free meal, we decided to head back to camp and cook a proper meal.
The next day we tried swimming at Hetch Hetchy, which apparently is not feasible. The guy working gave us directions to Rainbow Falls, located just outside the park and conveniently on the way back to LA. The water was super cold, probably the coldest I’ve ever swam in, but Morgan said it wasn’t shit. The panorama Chris took gives a pretty good idea of the place. If you look closely you can see me jumping off of two cliffs at the same time. Thanks for the pics, Chris. And thanks Brian for driving!
Team Bonobo benefit in NYC
My friend Michel organized a benefit for Team Bonobo at a raw food restaurant in New York City that is actually called Bonobo’s. I made a bunch of calls, sent out emails, they put flyers up all over NYC, the restaurant helped advertise and almost no one showed up. NYC: What happened? Where were you? I want answers. Some of you told me you didn’t go when you found out that I wasn’t going to be there, but I just got back to LA, how could I be? It really bummed me out that it went so poorly. What could we of done differently?
Thanks a ton though Michel for making this flyer and setting it up.
