Rushfan

This is an interview with Julian Sanz, tipped as a favorite for this year's RAAM:

https://www.cyclingnews.com/riders/20...ian_sanz_jun08

He discusses the mental and physiological aspects of long distance (200km+) racing. I'd like to hear what others think of his discussion...

mattm

wow, he's quite the cycling machine - 600-800km a week, most of that on the weekends!

interesting that he likes to eat crushed foods, even meats, whilst riding! guess it helps with digestion.

also interesting he mentions numbness, and how it takes a month or so to go away - i've just recently started battling with finger-numbness, but i'm only doing 200k-600k brevets..

spokenword

I never experienced any lingering numbness until doing a 1200k, where two fingers on my left hand started losing sensation about 500km into the ride. In the various post-mortems from other PBP riders on Randon, some folks were sharing their nerve damage reports and it was not uncommon for folks to say "oh yeah, this happens after every 1200k. It usually takes about four months to fully recover sensation."

four months! damn, people, that's not wear'and'tear; that's getting into the world of nerve damage.

ronsmithjunior

It looks like Jure Robic might have some competition this year. Crushed food is interesting. Nerve damage and taking a month to get over something is not. After PBP it took a loooong time for me to get full feeling back in my toes.

For the third year in a row I am on a RAAM crew, this time joining a solo woman rider's crew at the halfway mark (Wichita). Last year I was with her the entire way when she did a two woman team. Just to be a support crew is exhausting.

Goonster

Mildly interesting, but I don't think anyone can be tipped as a RAAM favorite until they have shown the can survive the high desert. There is an article somewhere about the hallucinations, delusions and paranoia that Jure Robic suffers on every RAAM. Scary!

CliftonGK1

That Which Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stranger