RAAM puts premium on problem-solving, working together

By Jeff Welsch


Mid-Valley sports editor


ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The who, the what, the when, the where and even the how of the bicycle Race Across America are simple enough to describe, though never easy to achieve.

The mysteries of RAAM are always in the why.

It is especially confounding to a sedentary nation, revealed with frightening regularity this past week in the prevalence of overweight and/or over-smoked Americans, whether the locale was the onion fields of California's Imperial Valley, the speedboat-streaked Lake of the Ozarks or the coal mines of West Virginia.

"They're going from where? ... To where?" was the common question, uttered with incredulity.

Invariably, in the many times we were approached in restaurants and filling stations, the next question was how many cars were in this race from San Diego to Atlantic City.

We'd look up from our brief meal and glance out the window at the Toyota Camry loaned to us by John & Phil's. Spiffy wheels, yes; decked in Race Across America decals, sure.

But not, we presumed, the choice of Jeff Gordon for the Daytona 500. No, we corrected, a bicycle race — 2,958 miles, as quickly as humanly possible, one pedal stroke at a time.

"That's nuts."

At first glance, perhaps.

Certainly my wife Sherry, photographer Ryan Gardner and I thought as much with each of our wake-up calls between 2:30-4:30 a.m., when we'd stumble out of our respective motel beds and try to remember the city, the day and, most mind-numbing of all, the time zone.

(OK, we're in Osage Beach, Mo., right? So it's 4:30 here, it's 5:30 race time and 2:30 back home ...).

We pondered even more why George Thomas and Terri Gooch would undertake such an expensive, time-consuming, painful and thankless endeavor as we watched them suffer from lack of sleep, aching joints and open groin wounds that left both wailing in agony when medications were applied every two hours.

We also wondered about the nine-member crew, which gave up two weeks of their precious summer for spotty two- to four-hour sleep breaks, food on the run and sporadic showers.

Their immediate daily reward was fatigue, guilt over communication miscues, and the emotional drain of trying to limit the suffering of two close friends, on and off the bike.

Well, why then?

The answers come not in the applause Thomas and Gooch received during their parade finish on the sunny Boardwalk in Atlantic City, or their place in the RAAM record books as the first two-person mixed relay team to finish, or even accomplishing their goal of finishing in less than eight days.

No, the reward comes that night, around a breezy dinner table on the Boardwalk outside Trump Plaza, where 14 people from both coasts with but one connection — Thomas and Gooch — sat and toasted the riders and each other.

Theirs was, and is, a bond they'll share forever, knowing they were all an integral part of an extraordinary accomplishment.

If nothing else, RAAM is a microcosm of life, and thus teaches its lessons in a harsh one-week crash course. There are exhilarating highs and depressing lows, sometimes within hours. The lesson is in how to respond.

RAAM puts a premium on creative problem solving, because the reality is that no matter how prepared we are, a surprise is guaranteed to rear its head — whether it's a motor-home generator conking out in the desert, communication equipment dying, a bee sting in the middle of a ride, or a flat tire in a rider's support van 50 miles from the finish.

Creative problem solving is using duct tape to fix spotlights in the lonely desert; knocking on strangers' doors in Missouri to beg for a shower on the fly; coaxing free rooms out of motel managers for two hours of sleep; setting up makeshift massage tables on the side of the road, and healing unexpected medical woes.

The crew becomes singularly focused on one goal — helping Thomas and Gooch with the goal on which they are singularly focused — and thus quickly becomes an intimate blended family, complete with the humor, the spats, the make-up hugs and lack of modesty.

Small wonder, then, that when it was over, 14 who had been relative strangers only a week earlier embraced as they parted ways on the Boardwalk, many never to see each other again.

In different ways, they had pushed their physical, intellectual and emotional abilities to their absolute limits, and they had succeeded, collectively and individually.

That's not nuts.

That's life.

Mid-Valley Sports editor Jeff Welsch can be reached at 758-9518 or jeff.welsch@lee.net.