“Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life.”

-Robert Greene

The Silver State 508 has built a special place in my life that I never could have anticipated. I used to dread riding my bike long distances. I saw it as a chore and did my best to stick to shorter, faster rides and races as much as I could. This was until I started long-distance bike touring 5 years ago and started challenging myself to go longer. When triathlon racing got canceled in 2020 I started searching for another athletic outlet. I stumbled upon the 508 website while searching around the internet and thought it would be a wild new challenge to embark upon.
I finished the 2021 solo event and it was by far the most challenging physical event I had ever competed in to date. Until that race I had never dug so deep physically or mentally. In 2022 apparently I went deeper and ended up pulling out at mile 490 to go to the ER to get treated for rhabdomyolysis. I swore to never participate in the 508 again. The combination of extreme temperatures, smokey air, and altitude made it seem like a cruel and unusual punishment for my body that was largely unnecessary. I went months without thinking about the race, having blocked most of it out of my mind temporarily. But as the time went by I started ruminating about how pissed I was that it ended the way that it did, and how I needed to get back out on highway 50 to seek redemption.

I fully intended to take this year off and not race. I went so deep last year I felt like the race took part of my soul with it and I needed another 365 days to regroup. However, earlier this summer I got a text from Shane (the 2021 overall winner) wanting to put together a 4-man relay team to attempt to break the course record. As soon as I got that text I knew I was all-in and ready for a new challenge.

Leading into the race I was feeling pretty fit and ready to go mentally. I didn’t really know what to expect from an event like this or how tough it would be physically. I obviously knew it would be a very different type of effort from the solo event, but a shorter race means a more intense race, so I was expecting a big effort regardless.

Our team’s strategy was to rotate riders continuously every 20-30 minutes for the duration of the event. This meant for every 20-30 minutes of riding each person had they would get around 90-minutes of rest. With this much rest after each ride we could keep the effort pretty high and do our best to recover enough to do it again and again.

We arrived in Reno the afternoon before the event and spent some time preparing all our equipment and race strategy. The weather was set to be cool with a high of only around 70 and lows down in the 30s overnight. The winds looked very mild which was a blessing because they can be very cruel out in the desert.

That afternoon I spent some time preparing my fueling strategy for the race. In the last two years I have treated this event like a rolling buffet, consuming everything from fruit to cookies to Taco Bell burritos. In hindsight this strategy was not very smart as I experienced major gastrointestinal issues in the latter hours of the race. This year I tried to be a little smarter and more prepared with what I would eat both on and off the bike. My new fueling strategy consisted of drinking a lot more fluids and electrolytes as well as calories in the form of sports drinks that would hopefully be easy on my guts. In terms of solid foods I planned to keep it to low-fat low-fiber foods such as bananas, Clif bars, and rice krispy treats that would be easy for my body to absorb.

The morning of the race I woke up and immediately started pounding calories and fluids. Oatmeal, yogurt, and pudding for breakfast along with a lot of water and electrolytes. After eating we went down to the start line to watch our first rider take off. Due to tight, windy roads he would have to ride the first 30 miles without support so we drove to meet him at the first checkpoint in Dayton.

Because this race is at altitude and I was not able to acclimate to the thin air I knew my recovery between legs would be difficult. My plan was to go out at a reasonable pace I knew I could hold for a long period of time and try to increase the effort as the race went on. If you speak cycling jargon I was estimating holding around 85-90% of FTP and trying to increase output from there. My first ride was the 4th leg of the race so I got to watch all three of my teammates finish their first pulls. Excitement was high this early in the race and everyone wanted to prove themselves to the rest of the team and help us get a lead on the previous course record. This eagerness got the best of me and I started my first leg way too hard. Within 10 minutes my heart rate was near maximum and the thin air was burning my lungs. The course elevation ranges from 4,000 ft. above sea level to about 7,500 ft. which significantly decreases your maximum output and increases overall exertion. I knew this going into the race, however, the adrenaline pumping through my body led me to blow out the pipes early in my first leg of our 508-mile journey.

Making a rider exchange at time station 1

I got through my first 9.5-mile pull in 21 minutes but by the end of it my effort was very nearly 100%. I was kicking myself because I knew this output was not even close to sustainable and I needed to reign in my excitement. I did my best to recover before my next pull by eating and drinking and practicing some deep breathing. By the time I hopped back on the bike I was feeling pretty good. Unfortunately after setting the bar high on my first pull, I kept the effort pretty constant and put in another almost all-out effort on my second ride. Stupid. I was still a bit too excited and covered the 10.3 miles in about 22 minutes which was still too fast. At this point as a team we had knocked out the first 100 miles in under 4 hours and we were flying, under record pace by several minutes.

My third pull was up the first half of Carroll Summit. I didn’t have a power meter on my climb bike and again, I went out way too hard. I wanted to hold my own on the hills and not let my team down so I pushed really hard up the climb before handing it off to my teammate to finish it off.

On my first three pulls of the day I had managed to set yearly max heart rate PRs on each consecutive ride. I was struggling to pace properly due to the altitude and even though my intention was to not overdo it there was nothing I could do to get my heart rate down on these first few legs. Luckily my 4th leg only had a short climb followed by a long false flat downhill and I was actually able to keep my effort low. I hopped back off the bike unbothered by this ride and was able to get right back in the car to try to recover until it was my turn again.

Stats from my second pull of the race LOL

My 5th pull up the climb from Austin to Austin Summit was my shortest but most taxing of the day. I knew it would be my last climbing leg for a while so when my teammate handed it off to me I took off hard. The climb took me about 16 minutes but by the time I was 5 minutes in my legs were already torched. My heart rate was at levels I usually see when doing 3-5-minute all-out intervals and at this point I had close to 90-minutes of riding in my legs. I was approaching 7,500 feet of elevation and the thin air was torching my lungs. I gutted out the rest of the climb holding a decent pace, but by the time I got to the top I was in a very rough spot. I couldn’t catch my breath for several minutes and my lungs and heart felt tight. While trying to recover from this climb my mentality hit its lowest point of the race. We hit about 180 miles of the 508 and my body felt absolutely destroyed. How could I expect to be a productive team member for the remainder of the race?

As we descended from Austin and made our way towards Eureka I focused on having fun, keeping my mentality relaxed and eating and drinking as much as possible. I took one more pull on the way out to the turnaround and luckily I was able to settle in a bit. I had a slight tailwind and I just focused on staying aerodynamic and not exerting myself too much. I averaged close to 30mph for this pull and knew that it didn’t make sense to work too hard here.

Our team reached the turnaround in about 10.5 hours, 49-minutes ahead of record pace. We all knew we had probably gone out a bit too hard and were going to suffer on the way home, but nobody wanted to say it outright. I was still feeling a lot of deep bodily discomfort, however, I felt amazing relief that I was not in the solo division embarking home alone. Coming straight up from sea level, the past two years I did the solo race the altitude definitely got to me. I ended up in the hospital with rhabdomyolysis last year and I also had major signs of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE). These included urinating every 30-45 minutes, gaining 10 pounds of fluid, cerebral and muscular swelling, and fluid production in my lungs. Going into this race I was not worried at all about experiencing these symptoms because I would only be riding one quarter of the race distance. However, the intense effort paired with the thin air had me feeling a little uneasy at this point in the race. I had developed some fluid in my lungs and breathing was getting tough. Additionally I was peeing every 30-45 minutes no matter how many electrolytes and carbohydrates I ingested. Additionally my normal resting heart rate of 40 bpm was elevated to about 85-90 bpm while I was just sitting in the truck. My body seemed out of whack and I was having trouble figuring out how to make it right.

Pull #7 was flat and uneventful. It was my first ride heading back west with the sun setting in front of me. It’s always this point in the race when the sun is setting and I’m riding out in the middle of nowhere where the magnitude of the endeavor really hits home. Watching the sun fall behind the mountains after a day of riding, and knowing you still have a whole night to ride produces a very strange mixture of emotions. Awe of the desert landscape, apprehension of what’s to come through the night, appreciation for being physically able to push myself in a race like this. These emotions are why I do races like this even though on paper it doesn’t seem like a fun activity to sign up for.

Pull #8 was my first night ride. I love the night shift. There is a sense of peace felt while riding through the darkness with only the trailing car’s headlights to help guide you. Fatigue was getting to me at this point but I was trying to remind myself how cool this shit is. As my teammate rode up to trade off to me I heard him say “try to enjoy it.” We had all been pretty quiet for the last couple hours and spirits weren’t exactly high, so when he said this it really lit a fire under me. This simple exchange of words reminded me to stay positive and not succumb to the fatigue like a little b**ch. The fact of the matter was I had to keep riding through the night, so why not try to enjoy the experience? This pull ended up being one of my longest, about 7 miles and 1,300 feet up to Bob Scott Summit. I hit another new 1-minute max heart rate PR…

Pull #9 was back up towards Carroll Summit. Another climb of about 750 feet. I just tried to keep the effort steady and not set new max heart rate PRs, in which I was finally successful.

Pull #10: Flat and uneventful. I was back on the TT bike and started to feel really good on the flats. My climbing legs were shot from the 4 ascents I had already done, but my legs felt snappy on flat roads. We were back on highway 50 now which was a big milestone and meant we were almost at mile 400. The end was in sight, and spirits were starting to turn around a little bit. The clock was just hitting midnight and the temperatures were dropping.

Our team worked together really well on the way home, sharing the load and taking bigger pulls when necessary to give the other guys rest. When we got back to Fallon I felt good enough to take my longest pull of the race. My previous effort was downhill and with the help of having my head lower than my torso I was able to discharge a lot of fluid from my lungs and my breathing felt easier. Additionally I felt like I was starting to recover from my efforts of the previous day and my body actually felt better than it did hours ago. On pull #11 I was able to knock out the 15.7 miles through Fallon in 37-minutes (25.4mph) up a slight incline which was really great for me even if I were fresh. At this point in the race we knew we were going to beat the record and it could be easy to rely on my teammates and not put in a full effort on each leg. However, I knew if I didn’t finish the race off right and go IN on each ride I wouldn’t be proud of my effort. I knew I had a little more juice in me and I wanted to squeeze it all out.

At mile 485 there is a huge climb we were saving one of our riders for, so the turns before this came a little quicker for the other three of us. With shorter rest I hit pull #12 for 8.8 miles in about 23 minutes and could feel my previous effort in me. I knew this was my last flat ride which excited me cause it was getting very frigid and we were pushing against a very slight headwind. I hopped off the bike ecstatic that I only had one more ride left.

Our climber crushed that huge climb back up to Virginia City and I took the last ascent to the top of Geiger Grade. I pushed up the last 4 miles and 666 feet of climbing as hard as I could and arrived at the top of Geiger with my fuel gauge below “E.” I limped to the car, thankful I was done and didn’t have to ride the descent. For the bike nerds, at this point in the race my power dropped off about 50 watts since my first pull from 340 to about 290 which wasn’t as bad as I was expecting for how wrecked I was.

I fell back into the support car and we followed our teammate down Geiger Grade to the finish line. We arrived at 4:54am, covering the course in 21 hours and 54 minutes, averaging 23.1mph. I was ecstatic we were done, but the fatigue was so high all I could really think about was packing up and going to bed. There wasn’t any cheering or jubilant high fives. There was a sense of, “We took care of business and did what we knew we could do, now let’s go to bed.”

I think it took a while for the magnitude of what we just accomplished as a team to sink in. Only when I got home and rested up a bit I could really start to feel joy about our performance. I had never done anything like this race before, and the feeling of pushing hard and doing it for your team motivated and inspired me more than racing for myself. Even though my body hated me for a few days, I hadn’t felt so alive and inspired to ride and take on more challenges than immediately following the race. Doing crazy stuff like this is super important for me to keep my fire lit and keep moving forward.

If you made it this far, you are a hero. Thanks for reading :)

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