Ramble On, And now's the time, the time is now, to sing my song.
I'm goin' 'round the world, I got to find my girl, on my way.
I've been this way ten years to the day, Ramble On,
Gotta find the queen of all my dreams.
- Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
"And miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost
(Photo by Joe Murphy)
The pace crew has checked in a couple of times today and say that Rob is riding like it's 1999. I estimate that Rob will be at the 1,761 mile mark at exactly six says into the race, at 3:48 PM EDT. The last time Rob rode this far in such a short period of time was RAAM 2000 - ten years to the day (to quote Led Zeppelin). Simply awesome.
This means average daily mileage of about 294. That takes a sub-10 day finish off the table, unless he figures out a way to throw in some 310-plus mile days and that is not likely, but not impossible.
People have asked what day/time he might finish. It is WAY too soon to pinpoint, but if I had to make a wild guess at this point, I would put it at some time between midnight and noon on Sunday, June 20. We'll keep re-evaluating that up or down as the race progresses.
Were I in the pace van talking to Rob over the PA, I would be telling him all of this (he likes to know the numbers) and telling him to shoot for any of these goals:
- Pass all the women (he only has one to go)
- Top three American finisher
- Top five overall finisher
- Top seven overall, which would beat his two previous RAAM finishes, both of which were 8th place overall
- Stretch goal: Finish by midnight Saturday.
In the end, the body is going to do what the body can do, but past RAAM crew members can tell about some, pretty inspired riding in the last 500 miles of previous RAAMs.
Stay tuned...
1 comment:
A quick thanks again, Bill, for all or your feedback and comments; and to the crew for keeping Rob going and doing so much every 24 hours.
Post a Comment