Today is Thursday. I thought I was going to have a relaxing morning and it was everything but.

#1. It started out with my three year old son having a blowout in his diaper. Which meant I woke up earlier than I wanted to and to quite a mess.

#2. Then I find out one of my crew members changed his flight to San Diego Airport which is 100 miles from my base of operations and in the opposite direction from the race site. It was a shock but a couple of hours later it was resolved and now he is flying into Los Angeles which is better since it is somewhat along the way to Valencia.

#3 The rental van was not going to be ready until 5pm, and they were in San Diego I’m in Huntington Beach. They also couldn’t guarantee Captain’s chairs which would be easier for van setup than bench seats. A tip from another ultra racer about 1/2 rates got me interested in the first place. I had to cancel the reservation and find another van on the day before leaving for the race. Everywhere was sold out for mini-vans…who knew they were so popular. Brandy found a mini van with a decent rate and closer to home. It would be more but we would save on one day’s rental costs and gas costs for the pick up and delivery.

#4 A four digit erroneous charge on my debit card was the next fire to put out. after numerous phones between bank, merchant,merchant services we finally got it resolved…I think.

All this happened before noon. Ok now let’s see if the rest of today goes smoother. I just want to get on my bike.

So what is the Furnace Creek 508 anyway? It is a 508 non stop, crew supported, bicycle race through Death Valley and other remote areas. Along with the 508 miles there are also 35,000 feet of elevation gain. You experience the high heat of the desert and the cold of the mountain passes…truly an epic adventure.

Here is the route and course profile. You can look at the profile above or you can go to the cool 3d graphs broken down by time stations. Doug Dog Sloan put in a lot of work creating this graphs. They are extremely helpful in giving you a feel for the race.

While I was training for 508 FG I was having trouble finding time for the miles. So I decided to commute on my FG. I would commute home on Tues nights and commute to work Wed am. Then commute Thursday nights and commute to work on Friday ams. The commute was 65 miles each way. My Tues/Wed commmute was the toughest because I would leave work at 5:15pm and get home about 9pm, eat, shower and NAP until 1:30am and roll from home at 2:00am. I would ride that early because I had a client at 6:30 and wanted to experience sleep deprivation and night time riding.

Brandy providing me with a leg message with the “Stick” on day 8 of RAAM. Luckily Furnace Creek has a 48 hour time limit…Brandy is quite happy about that. Terry standing next to my cycling hero and RAAM legend, Pete Penseyres and Timmmer is seen here hammering into Ashford Mills in Death Valley.

Monday early afternoon. 5 days to go before Furnace Creek 508. I thought I would spend a little time talking about my nutrition plan. Last year I had a lot of issues and I think the only thing I can see doing differently is…fewer calories. Shocking, isn’t it? Allow me to explain.

Last year my breakfast was too rich and plentiful, and it was too close to race time. Once on the bike I think I had too many calories (340 per hour) without having fully digested my breakfast.

This year I will stick to only 250-300 calories an hour. I will take most of my nutrition in a liquid form. I will be using products from Sportquest. My primary fuel will be CarboPro 1200 and my electrolytes will come from Thermolytes. There is an assortment of other supplements that I will also use. They have a unique feature where you can submit the race you are doing and Sportquest will send you a race protocol. In the coming days I will post the other supplements so you can see the breadth of their product line. I also plan on drinking a lot more fresh water than I did last year.

I will also be using Red Star Energy tablets to maintain alertness during the wee hours of the morning. I used Red Star Energy during RAAM 2007 with great results.

With 6 days to go, I am looking at the race course and trying to remember areas where I suffered last year. I did this event multi-speed last year and I am trying to recollect the harder climbs.

If you have been following this blog during the year, you will remember that I have done two double centuries and numerous centuries on my fixed gear. As far as climbing, I have gone up Palomar Mountain and various other shorter climbs using a pretty big Gear Inch.

One of the things I love about riding fixed gear is the advantage I feel I have over multi-speed riders on shallow grade climbs. I think the 21 mile climb out of Baker is perfectly suited to fixed gear riding.

Today I changed the tires on my bike. I plan on riding tubular tires because the terrain is so bad in certain parts of the race that I would like to lower the air-pressure so that the ride is much tolerable.

In the pictures above you will notice that I have Phil Wood High Flange hubs laced to Velocity Fusion rims 32H with a 25mm rim depth. It is built to the 508 spec. But after riding so many miles from commuting on my tubies this year (I rode tubies on RAAM 2007), I realized that I could ride them at lower pressures to improve ride quality over rough terrain. When riding clinchers at low pressures you run the risk of pinch flats.

I will be riding Mavic Reflex tubular rims 32H laced to Campagnolo Pista High Flange hubs.

Jim Riskas from RED STAR ENERGY has come through again with financial support and product for my next adventure.

“RedStar Energy is great way to get your “boost” without that “wired” or “jittery” effect usually associated with energy drinks or too much caffeine. That’s because RedStar Energy is scientifically engineered with amino acids and vitamins to let your mind and body achieve greater alertness and that “get-up-and-go” feeling without large blasts of sugar or caffeine.
So, as we like to say, “Keep the boost…kick the can.”

THANK YOU RED STAR ENERGY AND THANK YOU JIM RISKAS