by Jess Evans
March 22, 2019
Throughout my racing career, I have been blessed with some great teammates. These are people who share my goals and determination while also knowing how to treat people in stressful situations. Racing is hard. There is no reason for teammates to be hard on each other. I found this great teammate dynamic again when I raced the Stagecoach 400 with Shawn. We were compatible in speed, endurance, drive, and humor. We looked out for each other and were supportive during those tough times. I never felt pressure from him that I was biking too slowly or stopping too often. While the route was hard, racing it with Shawn made it enjoyable.
A doodle by Ma Lemaster
Here are some of the stats: The jury is still out on whether the Stagecoach 400 was a good course or just mediocre. Our basic stats were 390 miles in 91 hours and 25 minutes with about 7 hours of sleep total. There was about 28,000 feet of elevation gain. The trails and gravel roads were difficult to travel on bike in many places due to wash outs, rocks, or sand. We estimate we pushed our bikes between 25 and 30 miles.
During day 1, we were making our way out of the mountains to the coast. This by no means meant we were going down hill. The first 60 miles had over 6,000 feet of elevation gain. Much of this climbing took place in the “Land of 1000 False Summits”, and it was. But what made this day most difficult was the cold Santa Ana winds. The wind was very strong. One moment I was sweating, and the next, my sweat was frozen to me. By evening the winds had died down, and we were riding on a single track trail along the Santa Ysabel Creek. A cacophony of frogs were serenading us during the entire trail… it was lovely. The night grew cold very quickly. By 5am we were at the ocean. I was shocked at how cold the air was. Isn’t this southern California?
With Day 2, we wove through San Diego and into the Sweetwater River Valley. We were making our way back into the mountains to reach the deserts beyond. The wind had died down and it was a warm day. The highlight of this day was meeting a vendor along the road who sold us 5 avocados and 2 oranges. We sat in the shade and enjoyed a delightful snack. That night we reached Alpine, CA and decided to have our first sleep. It was about 38 hours since we started, a good time to sleep. Unfortunately, we only slept an hour because the temperature was dropping, and we woke up cold. We got moving and the temperature continued to plummet. Luckily, we were climbing again, but a fair bit of it was bike pushing. Around 4am we made a poor decision. We both were getting very sleepy, and I suggested we lay down to sleep for a while. I woke to Shawn shivering. I am not sure if he woke me up or if I just woke up, but immediately my mind was in a panic. I feared that Shawn would freeze to death if we did not start moving immediately. My mind was still hazy from the sleep, and I imagined his face was covered in icicles like the men who climb Mount Everest in snow storms. I was so worried that I had dealt a fatal blow to my friend, that I hurriedly got myself together so that we could start moving again. His core body temperature increased as we climbed the hills. When the sun began to rise, we felt a sense of relief that we had made it through another cold night.
Day 3 brought those strong Santa Ana winds again. We had more single track, which I grumbled about because they were not pristine. They were like riding down a rocky gully with a drop off to your right. Once through the single track, we began our descent into the Anza Borrego Desert. The ATV trail down was very difficult to ride, but we rode most of it. Half way down, we stopped to sleep again, this time in the warm sunshine. We were out of the wind, and the sleep was heavenly. Two hours went by quickly, but we were ready to get started. By night fall, we had reached the desert and our 25 mile ride through sand. Shawn was much better at riding in the sand than me. He quickly pulled away and as his light disappeared in the distance, my front wheel got caught in the deep sand, I fell down, and I began to panic. “What if I get lost? What if he cannot find me again?” I got up quickly tried to get on my bike and fell again. Of course, my fears were needless because I also had the map and could navigate my way out of the desert, but I really feared being left behind. It was likely the fatigue setting in, but part of me wanted to sit in the sand and cry. I kept moving and caught up to Shawn while he was munching away on food. I was relieved when we finally left that place. It was beautiful and frightening simultaneously. The sun rose as we were biking on a paved road heading towards Borrego Springs and breakfast in a local restaurant.
Day 4 was hot. We were so close to the finish now, I was sure we would be done before mid-night. I even guessed 6pm at the earliest. But the day would not go as smoothly as we envisioned. Once we entered the mountains, we slowed down to a walk in many places due to the deep sand. A man in a jeep stopped and gave us two bottles of water each – little did we know he was saving us. There was very little water on this section. We reached the end of the road where the Middle Willows started. Only foot and bike traffic could continue. Luckily, Shawn had researched this section thoroughly, hearing that if you took the wrong route, it would take twice as long to get through. We began pushing, pulling, dragging, and lifting our bikes through the willows in the stream. We chose one route, realized quickly we were blocked, back tracked and tried another. We finally made it through and felt triumphant at our accomplishment. But our triumph soon shifted to discouragement as we realized it would be a bike push through deep sand for at least another 8 miles. To top it off, it was very hot and we were low on water. We had not seen anyone for hours. We decided to sleep because it would be better to push our bikes in the cool evening rather than under the hot sun. Just as we were preparing to sleep, two trucks went by in the sand. Shawn flagged them down and got four bottles of water! We were safe once again. When we woke, we had the long slog back to Idyllwild. We put our heads down and gutted it out. The night grew very cold again, but the last 5 miles were a steady climb to the town. I was so relieved when we arrived at our cars at 2:40am. The last 10 hours had taken forever.
Even with this race being so physically and mentally hard, I am looking forward to the next one and looking forward to racing with my awesome teammate Shawn. I am so grateful that we choose to live life to the fullest by pushing our bodies and minds to its limits while getting to see the beautiful places in this world.
