[HAMR] Tarzan (Kurt Searvogel)

[mattc]

I wouldn't have thought that Steve's mileages are very relevant to Kurt any more, unless he and Alicia feel they're a motivation simply on a daily basis. I suspect it's simply coincidence; after all, they're both aiming for roughly the same mpd anyway. But Alicia's support, and the RV, are worth their weight in gold!

Looks like 3 days of identical mileages in under a week. that's a heck of a coincidence!

[TimC]

I wouldn't have thought that Steve's mileages are very relevant to Kurt any more, unless he and Alicia feel they're a motivation simply on a daily basis. I suspect it's simply coincidence; after all, they're both aiming for roughly the same mpd anyway. But Alicia's support, and the RV, are worth their weight in gold!

Looks like 3 days of identical mileages in under a week. that's a heck of a coincidence!

Why? Kurt is something like 8000-odd miles ahead of Steve on the 2015 attempt. There's no reason I can think of for him to shadow Steve's miles. They're both aiming for something over 205 miles daily, so I'm not at all surprised that the actual achieved miles per day are very similar. And even if there is some bizarre intent behind it, it makes no difference in the context of 12-18 months of riding!

[mattc]

Why what?

If you mean "why would Kurt track Steve's mileage?", then I think this astute chap may have nailed it:

I wouldn't have thought that Steve's mileages are very relevant to Kurt any more, unless he and Alicia feel they're a motivation simply on a daily basis.

[my bold]

[TimC]

My wisdom is all-encompassing!

I thought about that a bit afterwards, not having anything much else to so, and I wondered if Kurt is really struggling for motivation perhaps at the moment, and matching Steve's mileage is a kind of game he can play that alleviates the tedium (and it must be getting tedious by now!). I really can't think of any other reason to do that. So I'm still leaning toward coincidence, I guess.

[red marley]

I was wondering something similar. That very same benefit of being able to stop at the end of the day whenever he wants (no fixed location to head for) also presents its own challenges. Now that he is a long way ahead, towards the end of the day I could imagine the "Why bother?" daemons could be making themselves heard as he has nothing in particular to aim for on a day-by-day basis. Perhaps telling himself to at least match Steve's daily total is one way of adding some structure.

BTW, nothing posted on Strava for the 15th from Kurt yet. If I've done my timezone corrections correctly and Trackleaders is correct, his last SPOT trackpoint was at 7:10pm yesterday.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Tarzan's missing days have now been uploaded onto the HAM'R leaderboard http://ultracycling.com/sections/records/data/hamr/spreadsheet.php

So he is now showing as (just) 199.0 miles to go, which must be a huge psychological milestone for him.  I guess as he prefers to avoid night riding his mileage may drop from November onwards, but if he can keep turning out 220 mile days his mpd required will drop by 0.25 to 0.3mpd through the rest of August and into September.   So Steve is unlikely to get the record this year but he may well have precipitated someone else breaking the 'unbreakable' record.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Kurt feeling vaguely ill (sounds like a virus or just systemic exhaustion). Abandoned day after 77 miles.

[red marley]

Where does that info come from? According to his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/tarzanrides) he was just feeling tired yesterday in windy conditions. He completed 142 miles in total.

[toontra]

Where does that info come from? According to his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/tarzanrides) he was just feeling tired yesterday in windy conditions. He completed 142 miles in total.

I think the mileage figure came from Kurt's first (of two) Facebook entries.  He will often post multiple Garmin tracks for the same day separately so you have to scroll down to get an idea of the total.

As for the "vaguely ill" bit - maybe just guessing?

[mrcharly-YHT]

Where does that info come from? According to his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/tarzanrides) he was just feeling tired yesterday in windy conditions. He completed 142 miles in total.

First ride of the day - started late - rode 2 hours - took a nap - the rode again - felt like I had no power - I was a sleaking front tire - fixed it - still had no power so I called it and took another nap

I'd posted my comment before Kurt's next comment about 2nd ride of the day was put up.

[red marley]

Ah, that makes sense. I didn't spot his earlier post.

[Wowbagger]

I haven't followed this so avidly as I did before - partly down to the interest having been taken out of it by Steve's injury and partly because I have spent quite a bit of the summer doing other stuff. Reading Kurt's FB pages it looks to me as though he is struggling more than at any other stage. Yesterday "had nothing to give". Previous day "felt like I had no power".

I hope he can ride through this tough patch but I worry that his body is simply telling him it's too much. 8 months of repeated >200 mile days must take a massive toll from the system.

[toontra]

Reading Kurt's FB pages it looks to me as though he is struggling more than at any other stage. Yesterday "had nothing to give". Previous day "felt like I had no power".

Those two comments both relate to the same day - yesterday - when he had very bad weather and mechanical issues.  I think he is looking remarkably well and seems cheerful and optimistic.  If you check his daily stats he has averaged over 210 per day in recent weeks and shows no sign of tailing off.

He has the advantage of being nearly 2/3 of the way through and is comfortably ahead of schedule.  He could afford days like yesterday once a week till the end of the year and still break the record.  Mind you, anything could happen to change all this at a stroke (as we've already seen).

I'm far more concerned about Steve, who looks like he's going to be posting 8 sub-200 mile rides in the last 9 days in his re-load.  Considering this is one of the "good" months, that is worrying.

[Wowbagger]

I hadn't noticed that they related to the same day.

As you say, even though the "psychological" 200 mpd barrier has now been broken, that's still one hell of a lot of miles. Anything can happen in the next 4 months.

[zigzag]

the way i think about the distance on long events is i always add "already" before the distance completed, e.g. already 1/10th! already 1/5th! already 200k - that's one third!
the key is to outsmart your mind is by inflating the achievement and by shrinking what's left to do, e.g. 2/3rd done already (pat on the back) and only 1/3rd left - easy!!

GO KURT!!

[Jacamo]

I haven't followed this so avidly as I did before - partly down to the interest having been taken out of it by Steve's injury and partly because I have spent quite a bit of the summer doing other stuff. Reading Kurt's FB pages it looks to me as though he is struggling more than at any other stage. Yesterday "had nothing to give". Previous day "felt like I had no power".

Both of those posts were describing the same day. He rode well over 200 miles the day before and well over 200 miles the day after (today). Kurt is as intelligent (and honest) off the bike as he is strong on it. He'll be fine.

[Legs]

I'm far more concerned about Steve, who looks like he's going to be posting 8 sub-200 mile rides in the last 9 days in his re-load.  Considering this is one of the "good" months, that is worrying.

This.

[hillbilly]

Unfortunately I agree.  Jo's charts and daily updates are informative, but do not convey how much this drop in summer miles is impacting Steve's chances. 

Kurt, on the other hand, seems comfortably on course to end the year (calendar or 365 day) ahead of Godwin's mark.  I suspect one of the challenges for him will be keeping his foot on the gas when he reaches a point when he "knows" it's in the bag.  As he appears to be a competitor, I'd anticipate this will only really happen when he crosses the Godwin record (ie it is more an issue of how motivated he is to keep going, to make his "the record that can't be broken")

[Legs]

Unfortunately I agree.  Jo's charts and daily updates are informative, but do not convey how much this drop in summer miles is impacting Steve's chances. 

Absolutely.  Looking at the schedule, it appears that Steve's lower schedule has, at this time of year, about the same gradient as the maximum Godwin gradient.  Really, Steve needs to be putting in days of nearly 300 miles in order to make hay while the sun is shining.  Is he paying for not having really had a proper rest in July before his reboot?

[Chris S]

Unfortunately I agree.  Jo's charts and daily updates are informative, but do not convey how much this drop in summer miles is impacting Steve's chances. 

Absolutely.  Looking at the schedule, it appears that Steve's lower schedule has, at this time of year, about the same gradient as the maximum Godwin gradient.  Really, Steve needs to be putting in days of nearly 300 miles in order to make hay while the sun is shining.  Is he paying for not having really had a proper rest in July before his reboot?

In fairness, the sun hasn't been shining this week! Some of us had a month's worth of rain in a few hours yesterday. But that's only the kind of rain that Kurt has to put up with fairly regularly, I guess.

[Legs]

Nonetheless, it's summer.  The days are long, it's not sub-zero, the winds are relatively modest.  This is the time of year that Steve was banking on doing almost twice the mileage that he's managed for the past few days.  It lashed down at 4am yesterday but other than that we had a pretty nice day in Staffs/Derbys!

BTW, I do appreciate that Steve's ill.  GWS and start burning up that road!

[Legs]

Didn't Kurt have a plan to ride through each of the 48 contiguous States as well, this year?  I take it that's been shelved in pursuit of efficiency?

[clarion]

I think weather and pragmatism shot that one down.  As well as a few events he'd been hoping to attend (though he's bagged a few rides).  I think even RAAM was considered (and rejected) at an early stage.

[Basil]

Yes, I don't think that there is much to be gained by mixing organised events into the plans.
Steve didn't add any real mileage by doing PBP, and the days around the Mersey Roads were rather ordinary (by his standard).  Of course, Steve will have enjoyed the change in routine and the chance to ride in company for a change.

[hillbilly]

Kurt had originally planned on doing several US events.  To date, I think he only did one (Sebring) and dropped doing the others.  Which appears to have been the right thing to do given his progress since early January (the Sebring day is from memory one of his longer stints in the saddle, but he had to take a recovery day afterwards that significantly ate into the distance he recorded in the event).