24 hours on a mountain bike

No not me but my good friend Mr Chris Strout.

Number of years ago I told Chris about a race named 24-9 and asked him if he had thought off doing a 24 hour mountain bike race. He hadn't but then did. He asked me to crew that year but I was already crewing at Badwater (Badwater and 24-9 were same weekend that year) but the next two, 2008 and 2009 I was there crewing for Chris and cheering on his teammates, Brad and Todd from http://www.worldbicyclerelief.org/ sponsored by http://www.sirenbicycles.com/

You'll no doubt read about Chris' race via his blog http://cstrout.blogspot.com/2009/08/238-mile.html so I'll leave the details to him and his teammates but here are a few random photos in a random order.

Badwater 2009 PR

Another great year crewing at Badwater for my friend Kelvin Marshall. This was my third time at Badwater and second crewing Kelvin. I love this event and the Badwater family. http://www.badwater.com/

Kelvin ran a very smart race changing his plan due the high heat during the day and this enabled him to ran almost 3 hours faster than 2008 and become the fastest Aussie at Badwater ever in 37 hours and 36 mins. http://dbase.adventurecorps.com/results.php?bw_eid=49&bwr=Go







Before race start














At finish line










Some random race shoots that blogger will likely place where it feels like it








Runners check in




















Race morning














Badwater Basin






On the course






















After race, Kelvin ready to go again!!















Steve Hanes who crewed for Kelvin in 2008 and
was given a start (and finish( in 2009

Badwater 2009

This coming weekend I head to Death Valley to crew my friend Kelvin Marshall at the Badwater Ultra. Kelvin will be running 135 miles from Badwater basin to Mt Whitney portals which takes him and the 85+ other runners through Death Valley from 282 feet below sea level over 2 mountain passes with long climbs to finally finishing at 8360 feet. The temperature can easily be over 120 degrees and possibly very windy.

Kelvin ran Badwater last year finishing 1st of the 6am wave starters in just over 40 hours. This year he has an 8am start. Matt and Steve are back to crew along with me plus a new addition in Rita. Steve Hanes who crewed last year was invited to the big dance. Congrats Steve.

Kelvin is being sponsored in part by the awesome folks at http://www.drymaxsports.com/ who have supplied him with some fantastic signage for the crew car/van. This will be so different than last year LOL

Last year followed by this year

Here's a great TV video about Lisa Tamati fro New Zealand and her 2008 race. Nice job TVNZ and Lisa. She is back in 2009

http://www.lisatamati.co.nz/gallery/video/2

Lisa and Kelvin at the 2008 awards party