We can still do the 508.

Hi there folks -- it's your celebrity guest blogger here with a non-update post.

Lisa may not have reached the finish line at 29 Palms, California* but we can give her a 508 that she'd much rather attain.

On Friday's blog post we announced that Lisa's 810 has raised over $500,000 for AIDS Orphans Rising, the incredible organization that works to shelter, feed and educate children in Africa and elsewhere so they can become healthy, self-reliant adults. Since 100% of donations go directly to the children -- not a penny to salaries, rent, administration and the like -- it means that those half a million dollars will go directly to helping these orphans.

Let's complete the 508 by raising just 8,000 more dollars by the time Lisa gets home. Send the news to all your friends, acquaintances and family members and ask them to donate whatever they can afford. $10, $100, $1000, $1,000,000 - any amount brings us closer to $508,000.

With the donations that folks have been sending via the internet just during the time that Lisa's been riding is $420.00. We can raise $7,580 within 24 hours if everyone does a little outreach. And of course, if you haven't had the chance to donate yet, you can do so here.

Thanks! And like Will Abrams wrote to Lisa in a great comment -- "All the children don't care about the desert cup, just survival. You have ensured this!"

-M

*Did this town actually name themselves after a Robert Plant song?

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Update

Just a quick note to let everyone who has been checking the time splits page know that Lisa is okay and at the hotel.

Lisa didn't make it to Almost Amboy this year, but did go far beyond what she was able to do last year. I'm afraid I don't have many details to offer, but I did get a message earlier on from Cathy about the weather: "bitter cold, rain and wind... Lisa is having a hard time with the wind. Very strong, gusty winds.... 30-40mph with stronger gusts."

As soon as I hear more, I'll give updates.

Baker ------> Kelso (mile 417.55)

The 508 website has been updated with non-time warp stats, and Lisa passed Kelso around 7:00 PM! She's en route to the second to last stop at Almost Amboy.

Those who followed Lisa's previous attempt at the 508 know that she didn't make it to Kelso last year. She was forced to stop just 100 miles from the finish due to a very serious back problem.

But this year is different, not in a small part due to the fantastic bikes she's riding thanks to the generosity of some amazing people.

For non-cyclists like myself, a bike is a bike. But to take on one of the hardest endurance bike races in the world like the 508, having the appropriate bike can mean the difference between finishing and a DNF.

Last year Lisa rode over 400 miles on a bike that wasn't suited to her, and wasn't ideal for the conditions of the particular race. Her back paid the price. This year, she's riding on some beautiful bikes.

The first one comes thanks to Leigh Corbin and her friend Dr. Kay (below) of the most wonderfully named "Ouch Sports Medical Center". This BMC bike is "fast and amazing" according to Lisa. She'll be using it for climbing.

The second bike is lent to her by her friend Aran and is a lovely little pink number which looks very sharp with Lisa's Pearl Izumi shirt, I must say.

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The third bike was sponsored by a very good friend of Lisa's who does not want to be named.

So this year, rather than one bike that proved to be the wrong one, Lisa has three bikes thanks to some very generous friends. As Lisa said to me the email describing the bikes and the people who provided them: "What can I say? I am blessed..."

Mini-Update.

Time warp confirmed.

Apparently the race timers were just a bit behind on posting the results because they've now put up the info that Lisa blazed through Shoshone at 27 hours and 22 minutes.

She then cycled through a wormhole somewhere around the Ibex Pass, because according to the site she cruised into Time Station #5 in Baker at 7:00 hours and 55 minutes.

I hear that based on the special theory of relativity Lisa could theoretically, be traveling faster than the speed of light. Skeptics might argue that this would be impossible due to the fact that to accelerate to the speed of light any particle, including Lisa, having subluminal velocity would require infinite energy. This means that to surpass the speed of light (in a homogeneous space) Lisa would need more than infinite energy. However, this can easily be explained-- Lisa has many, many packets of GU in the crew van.

Should Lisa have cycled through an alternate energy-vacuum located somewhere between the World's Largest Thermometer and the Mad Greek Restaurant both in Baker, then she could indeed have arrived at Time Station Five in 8 hours.


Or the website could have just screwed up.

Shoshone ------> Baker (mile 382.62)

Mild heart attack averted.

I've been obsessively checking the Time Station splits page on the Furnace Creek 508 site like a woman desperately trying to avoid exercising. (Which, I most certainly am not doing. Not at all. Not one bit.)

The more I hit "refresh" the more anxious I get. There's been no time posted next at Shoshone. It's a very tough stretch with tons of incline, and I've noticed that the DNF rate is increasing exponentially. I knew that Lisa wasn't one of those folks, but the fact that she hadn't hit Shoshone meant she hadn't finished 73 miles within 14 hours of riding.

Add to that the fact that she hadn't shown up on Spot for a while, I got a wee anxious. I text Jay, just because he loves it when I text him repeatedly. But he writes back that he's heard nothing. I call Colleen, my trusty repository of all news. No word.

Finally, I get a text back from Jay that Lisa is 14 miles outside of Baker which means the official 508 website didn't report her stop at Time Station #4. Which can only mean that she blew by them so quickly they weren't even sure if what had passed them was human.

So forget about Shoshone; our girl is practically at Time Station #5, Baker. Word on the web is that this part of the 508 is the least hellacious of the 8 stages. This is a bit like saying having your pinky toe gnawed off by rabid wolves is the least hellacious of the 5 toes, but I suppose it's something.

I'll update the blog when Lisa hits Baker. Assuming that she goes by it slow enough for them to register her time.

Furnace Creek ------> Shoshone (mile 326.39)

Just a quick update -- Lisa finished up the most brutal section of the race and clocked into the Furnace Creek Time Station at five minutes before 6:00 AM. (17 hours and 55 minutes)

NB: Never have an art major figure out your splits. If the race started at 7:00 AM on Saturday morning, I can safely say -- after 6 hours of careful study -- that 18 hours later cannot be 6:00 AM on Sunday, unless Lisa cycled through a worm hole in Towne's Pass.

According to sources who are knowledgeable in these sorts of things, 7:00 AM plus 18 hours = 1:00 AM, not 6:00 AM.

No recent news from the crew, but checking in with their Spot, we can see that Lisa is indeed closing in on Shoshone. Spot 1 is her location at 07:49:33 a.m and Spot 2 is her location at 09:19:56 a.m.

Trona -----> Furnace Creek (mile 252.89)

Ole Eichhorn has done an amazing "route recon" page for the 508, and here's the description of the Trona to Furnace Creek 99 mile stretch.

This is definitely the "queen stage" of the whole ride, with plenty of rollers, long flats through the desert, a massive climb, and a massive descent at the end down into Death Valley. And much of it will be ridden in the dark, whew. Not to mention an uneven road surface through the Panamint Valley.

The only good thing about this stage is that Lisa could do it with her eyes closed. Yes, it's the same place she was just 12 weeks ago, only on two feet instead of two wheels. Not including all those Death Valley training camps, I count at least 10 times Lisa's been racing out there on those roads. She knows what she's doing, which is the only thing that keeps us from going completely out of our heads with worry.

California City ------> Trona (mile 153.78 mi)

here's Lisa in the stretch between California City (TS#1) to Trona (TS#2). This section is where the heat blasts hardest, apparently. Look at a topographical map, and you'll see long expanses of flat desert. (In fact, this route passes the Honda "Proving Center"). But maps are deceptive, as they don't show the phenomenon known as "Desert Rollers".
Lisa & Crew blasted through the rollers and hit the Trona Time Station at 9 hours and 41 minutes.

Now on to Lisa's home-away-from-home: Furnace Creek.

Lisa's "spotted"

Thanks to one of her incredible sponsors, we've been able to locate Lisa despite her crew being out of Blackberry range.

Spot Tracking Device has a page where we can log in and get the whereabouts of Lisa's last message which indicates not only that she's okay, but that she's right about here:Actually, she passed that a while ago (at 3:43 PM) but it's such a nifty thing to be able to spot her whereabouts on a map that I just had to share it with y'all.

As for the latest update, you can check out the webcast on the official 508 site, right here.

Whoooooooooosh.....

...is the sound Lisa makes as she flies by. She came into Time Station #1 (California City) in 5 hours and 19 minutes at 12:20, with 83.60 miles behind her... And she's lookin' good is what we hear from our trusty crew.

508 = 500,000!

Just 14 hours before Lisa hits that starting line for the Furnace Creek 508, the news officially came in. Thanks to everyone who has donated.

= Lisa's 810 has raised half a million dollars =

That's $500,000.00 of which 100% is going straight to help those kids who need so much to be able to succeed. Sister MaryBeth is right now in Brazil working right now to help AIDS Orphans. Let's see how much we can raise OVER this amount!