They celebrated with their support team members, attended the banquet that evening, visited the Naval Academy and ate crab the next day and left for home at 1 p.m. They got back into Oxford at 1 a.m. June 30 still in need of more sleep.
“For several nights, I woke up at 3 or 4 a.m. thinking I needed to get to the next exchange point,” rider Lisa Brunckhorst said with a laugh. “We call it Post Traumatic RAAM Disorder.”
Brunckhorst is a nurse who took a year off to train the RAAM. She obtained her graduate degree in nursing from UCLA and took accounting classes at Miami.
Other members of the team said they had the same experience.
Ian Cramer, who completed his graduate degree at Miami University and is an athletic trainer for Alfred University in upstate New York, said he woke up in the middle of the night five of the first seven nights home.
“I was talking about getting started and started getting dressed in my cycling gear. I said, ‘It’s my time to ride or asked who’s riding now.’ I was still in race mode,” Cramer said. “It shows how the race was 100 percent focus of my mind. The race had a big impact on me.”
Fatigue played a big role on the road. While the four riders were getting some rest between shifts, it was well under what they needed, although their support crew was getting even less sleep as they kept up with maintaining the bikes, switching off between timing stations and even doing maintenance on the recreational vehicle when its air conditioning went out, making for uncomfortable sleeping. Even doing laundry so the riders had clean riding pants to prevent chafing fell to the crew.
Brunckhorst said the fatigue made their judgment a bit suspect, such as taking a downhill in the dark at 30 miles per hour when she could only see ten feet in front.
Nelson Gaker echoed that, saying, “(Fatigue) gives you a lot of false confidence.”
Gaker is completing his degree in vocal performance at Miami and works part-time at BikeWise in Oxford.
The team raised $4,000 for the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, the cause for which they were riding and Brunckhorst said she appreciates those who contributed.
They had no specific goal as to the amount they wanted to raise, but that amount was appreciated. They did have three goals, however, and met all three, as Cramer commented.
“The goals were important to the team. We had a goal of finishing under eight days and we did that, with no penalties and we did that,” Cramer said. “The third goal was rider and crew safety and we kept everyone safe.”
All four riders praised the efforts of their support team.
“At the riders’ meeting before the race, they told us your crew can’t win it but they can lose it for you,” Brunckhorst said. “They did not get any more sleep than we did.”
Gaker said the crew had the tougher job.
“They told us the crew’s job is harder. We had it easy. All we had to do was ride. The first thing they told us is do not let the riders manage the race,” he said. “All we had to do was sleep, eat and ride.”
The worst part of the ride may have been coming through Illinois during a lightning storm in the early-morning hours June 26 with flashes every couple seconds and a drenching downpour in the dark. They were going to stop but got passed by a Brazilian team and took it as a challenge to get back on the road, leapfrogging the Brazilian team all night.
“We were 15 minutes apart from the Brazilian team from Illinois to Annapolis but we beat them by four minutes,” Brunckhorst said. “For three days and three nights, it was neck-and-neck.”
The early going was difficult with riding in the desert for two days.
“The hardest thing was the desert,” rider Dustin Weida said. Weida is an architect with BHDP in Cincinnati and teaches architecture part-time at Miami University, where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Cramer agreed the desert was difficult, but said they had made smart decisions in preparing for it and got through better than he expected.
Brunckhorst said the toughest part, aside from riding downhill in the dark, was fighting the headwinds in Kansas.
“The first two days were the toughest but when we got into a routine, it was helpful,” Cramer said. “Not only us, but the support crew. It was more of a challenge but once we got into a routine, we got more efficient as the race went on.”
When the team came into Oxford to Timing Station No. 41 on June 26, they were greeted by more than 100 cheering people. That was a highlight for all four Team Autoimmune riders but it led to a bit of a letdown when the race ended.
“After Oxford, I found it frustrating. We had 150 people here and when we got to the finish, there was one person at a table,” Gaker said.
Cramer probably summed up the experience best saying they shared a sense of relief that it was over but it was a good feeling about the experience.
“I’m sure we are all glad the race had ended, but it was a sense of accomplishment,” he said.
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