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The Story Is In the Struggle - Chad Swanson - RAO 2009

I began thinking of doing the Race Across Oregon about two years ago, after the pain of 24-hour Worlds had faded. That event was supposed to be my last hurrah but I seem to keep coming back for more punishment. It is in my character to put myself if a situation where I have internal battles to avoid quitting. By not quitting, I feel good about myself. The character building moments of these events are when things are at their lowest so those are what I will focus on. This may shed light on why I insisted on my trip to South Dakota be so punishing. The harder I made that trip, the better I would be able to push myself in this event. So here I am again, pushing myself into unknown territory to find out what I am made of. Hopefully I like the answer.

We began with a neutral roll out at 5:00 am on Saturday and after we hit highway 35 the racing began. A Canadian named Ian was the fastest starter and he quickly distanced himself from the field. I was in second, watching mostly my heart rate, keeping it between 145-150 beats per minute. Holding this steady effort, I could see Ian’s pace was a bit erratic as he would get closer to me and then pull away, only to get closer again. Eventually, I caught and passed him and then Nelson Snyder from Hood River caught both of us to take the lead. He seemed to be moving fast, but we all were within a ¼ mile of each other up the 20+ mile starting climb. We continued to push each other through the decent east into the hot, brown, and desolate segment of Oregon, which is the majority of the race. We would not be back on Highway 35 in the cool green forest again until another 500 miles had been ridden. After Nelson distanced himself from me and I from Ian, we all found our own rhythm and pedaled away at the eastern horizon.

After five hours of racing, I caught a glimpse of this Kenneth guy I had heard about. Actually, I saw his pace car come by first and read his name on the van. He had won the event as a rookie and was the man to beat. Up until then, I thought he looked under intimidating. When he passed me I was peeing. He looked steady but not flashy or sleek. I watched his white jersey in front of me for many miles, moving away at a slow, calculated pace. Eventually he disappeared into the horizon. The next time I saw him was at the banquet with his winner’s medal on. I believe he rode that pace the entire time and spoke nothing of the struggles I will be writing about.

During the peak heat and a headwind that was promised to be a tailwind I pedaled east towards Hepner. The landscape is rolling with an occasional drop into a dried up canyon followed by a climb back out. Beige is this seasons color and everything around me has conformed except one. The windmills were giant and graceful with simple lines and an ivory white to them. They gave me something to focus on as I contorted my body to reduce any drag the wind might find. The distraction was short lived and the windmills were soon behind me, and the wind was better too. As the sun was at my back and the heat down in the 80’s (down from close to 100) I could smell slabs of beef on an open fire riding into Hepner. I looked to my right and saw steaks the size of my pillow smouldering over an open fire. I, however, had to stick with my 300 calorie liquid diet and keep rolling. At around 7:30 pm and about an hour east of Hepner (14 hours in) I was feeling worse than my baseline accepted standard of discomfort. Without though process I found myself slowing to a crawl and eventually putting a foot down on the yellow line. When my crew surrounded me I begin to lift my leg off the bike and was violently launched into the most intense hamstring cramp I have ever experienced. My loud groans through my clenched teeth certainly got the crews attention. My dad straightened the cramping right leg but then a different muscle in my left leg wanted some attention. I was feeling very nauseous and reality was defiantly warping. Then it was all gone. I woke up in the ditch. It would be several more minutes before I would be alert enough to see my surroundings. I know we were all thinking it, but no one said it. “How can we possibly finish this race with 300 miles to go?” Answer: By moving forward.

Riding through the night is an exhilarating experience. In this race it was so black at night that the stars were the only indicator of where earth started. This course contaied countless climbs and they all were taking a toll on me. Pedaling slowly up one of those I was fighting the urge to sleep. My eyes were crossing and the detail of the pavement through my aerobars was getting blurry. Then, out of the right I spotted a centaur charging me!

I had a big flinch and after several blinks, my pedaling shadow was revealed in its place. I wasn’t as worried when that same shadow later turned into two aliens walking side by side, or a two person dance line team. Once, I was completely convinced that I saw a giant mountain on the side of the road; I can’t believe my pit crew thought it was a gravel pit. Several other things appeared to me through out the night that I knew, in time, were not reality. When we got home, I shouted: “Look, the wind has blown the deck right off the house!” Wrong again.
Nighttime is also when I lost my ability to urinate. My mom was keeping meticulous records of my intake and output. My intake held steady at about a bottle an hour throughout the whole race. However, partway through the night I could not get the urine out of my bladder. I believe it was a swollen prostate because I defiantly had the urge and pressure in my bladder. When I leaned forward in the aerobars I had significant pain in my distended bladder. I would get off my bike, hold my back horizontal to the ground, (a technique I developed to avoid passing out) and strain, concentrate, and deep breath, to try to relieve myself. Success was when I achieved a couple of tablespoons of output. Other times I climbed back on the bike without a drop. I was looking for something positive, like a good sunrise. I got it about 100 miles from the John Day Fossil Beds. With the sun, came heat though, and some unexpected wind.

With 150 miles left to go, I was expecting to feel some momentum pulling me towards the finish line at Cooper Spur ski resort. Unfortunately nature had different plans. The winds increased with every hour the sun rose above the highway. The last 150 miles had over five substantial climbs ranging from 3 miles to fifteen miles each. Climbing these in the heat is tough. Climbing them in a headwind was tougher. We were greeted with both.

On Bakeoven road heading towards Maupin the headwinds seemed apocalyptic. The power lines overhead made the most eerie groans as I struggled to stay upright. My modest expectation was to have a 15 mph average on the last 150 miles. Now, on a slight downhill I was grinding to get 7mph. The wind slapping me around at this point in the race was fraying my mental stability. As I crouched to hide my chest and shoulders from the wind I felt knots persistently growing in my shoulders. The pain would force me to sit up and try to massage it out. This action promptly would knock 2 mph of my speed. And throw me all around the road. So, back into the crouch position again.

I was loosing grip on my sanity. I was talking under my breath to the wind. “Why don’t you leave me alone?” “Go away!” This opened the door to an eventual breakdown that included more than a few profanities directed at the wind. Later, I found out that Anna was worried I had crossed into a non-reversible mental change as is seen in brain injury patients. I was on highway 197 heading towards the town of Dufur, getting sandblasted along the way. I knew when I got to Dufur I would be turning directly into the wind again, but somehow I was looking forward to arriving at this benchmark. Dufur is 13 miles south of my house and from here on I was on familiar territory.

As I turned off of Highway 97 towards Dufur, the cross wind took one final swing. Going into a blind left corner towards my headwind finish I noticed a car passing me so I moved over to oblige. I was riding near the shoulder when the maroon Ford Taurus was next to me, creating a huge void in the wind, which yanked me in towards her. She passed quickly, however, and the crosswind hit me again and threw my front wheel into the soft shoulder. Before I knew what was happening I was already on the ground. I got pedaling pretty quickly and completed my turn into the headwind. I had a fresh bottle of water and sprayed it on the bleeding quarter sized flap on my knee, cursed the wind, and kept riding.

I knew the climb was tough, but I hadn’t bargained on a headwind like there was this day but, I thought I would have a little adrenalin pulling me to the line. I was wrong. As I pushed into the headwind on this fifteen mile climb I was amazed at my slowing speed. There were times someone could have jogged past me. In fact, Anna, my lovely support wife, proved this when she got out of the support van and jogged next to me while my Minnesota parents listened to Lake Wobegon stories in the van behind.

At this point I could feel and see the weather changing. It dropped from the 90’s earlier to the mid 50’s now. And to my left and right were black storms building and striking the ground with occasional lightning strikes. Mount Hood was getting so close but with each glimpse I got through the trees the blanket of clouds was concealing it further.

All of these factors kept me pushing slowly to the line. The wind had beaten me up enough; I didn’t want the rain to take a swing too. After reaching what I thought was the top of the climb I began a really fun decent. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that there were several rollers before the real decent so as I met each one I kept it in the big ring and hammered over them. That was not easy, especially when I saw one after another, so I eventually reverted back to my snails pace grind. After eventually reaching my fast, twisty decent to Highway 35, I was feeling pretty positive. When we got to the turn, my crew informed me that we needed to put on the lights again according to the rules. This is something I didn’t think would happen in this race but knew I had just one 4-mile climb left so I let that downer roll off my back and set out for the finishing climb.

On the final climb to Cooper Spur I found a rhythm I had been hoping for the past 100+ miles. I wasn’t moving much faster but I finally felt like something was pulling me in. My mom, knowing I would surely make it now, slid her head out the sunroof, started to speak, and paused to rehearse a bit, then shouted out for me and all the tree’s to hear: Go Chad, you are my sunshine, put on a smile”. This kept me going a little further at the increased pace but I eventually slowed back to a crawl. As I rounded the final corner some kids spotted me and rang bells. Then they realized they didn’t know me and stopped ringing, turned their backs, and studied the gravel at their feet. Not quite like a Tour de France mountaintop finish, but I was OK with that. Kenneth, who pedaled away from me at hour five, had been done for five hours when I got to the line. Nelson and Ian did not finish and third place was three hours behind me. My time as a rookie (39 hours) set the standard for those who wanted to qualify for the Race Across America, which third place really wanted to do, and did. I am glad to see he did, but didn’t want to say to loud that I am never interested in racing across the country. Right now, I am just interested in swinging in the hammock.

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