*REPORT FROM THE ROAD: 6-16-2010 8:45 PM EDT*

Lots to report:

• Rob is making really good, steady progress. Everyone - day crew, night crew, Kate (via phone) - all say he looks and sounds great.
• He seems to have gotten into a great pace/rhythm with regard to sleep breaks and how his rest cycles are affecting his riding. He is steady with solid average speeds. I don't want to say too much here about strategy, but I like the way the numbers are trending.
• He is VERY psyched that he has less than 900 miles to go. It seems to be giving him a second wind.
• Within the hour, I expect the first relay teams to pass him on the road. These teams go by like a freight train, as I described on this blog during the 2008 race and what happened in RAAM 1996. Great little anecdote about the "community" of ultra-distance racers.
• When he hits Indiana tomorrow, he'll be in the eastern time zone.
• Mike Desilet (night crew driver extraordinaire) relayed a really nice story that happened earlier today: As you know (because of my constant haranguing), Rob is raising money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. You may have also noticed in many of the photos that he has been wearing one of the yellow "Livestrong" bracelets, which he says keeps his mom constantly in his thoughts.
  
  The bracelet broke yesterday and Rob was hoping to find another. Shuttle crew superdudes Wave Smith and Mike Perron went looking, but came up empty. Later, they struck up a conversation with a woman at a gas station or a rest stop who was asking about RAAM. They told her the bracelet story and she took off her pink bracelet that she was wearing in memory of a family member and gave it to Wave to give to Rob. So, now he'll be wearing a pink one into Annapolis.

  This will likely be the last post for tonight. Another great day for Rob and Team Morlock in RAAM 2010.