Steve Born and Furnace Creek: 1016 miles

We caught up with Born, the super-affable senior technical advisor at E-Caps and Hammergel in Whitefish, Montana, and talked to him about his adventures and the kind of mental tenacity it takes to finish what you start÷when what you start is 1,016 miles of heat and hills.

Born's introduction to the world of endurance athletics might be familiar to many who take up these sorts of challenges later in life.

"I got into cycling because I was sick of being overweight÷I weighed over 210 pounds in my early twenties÷and I wanted to quit smoking, which I never did for very long but I didn't want to get too hooked on it," he recalled. "I decided to fix up my old bike, a Fuji Royale which I had used years before to commute to and from high school and my job. I decided to forgo the annual family vacation and instead go on a solo bike trip."

So he quit smoking cold-turkey, fixed up his diet and took to the roads. A month later he paced up his bike and rode the train to his sister's home in Portland, Oregon from his home in Thousand Oaks, Calif. And he rode back home.

"I didn't know a damn thing about training or anything like that," he recalled. "I didn't even know how to fix a flat tire. All I knew was that this was going to be a great adventure no matter what came my way. I was planning on riding my bike as far as I could each day, then stop at a motel for the night. All in all it was a fantastic trip with very few problems÷and no flat tires! I had a couple of panniers and a saddlebag and carried my stuff with me. I rode about 80-100 miles a day all the way back. Although I was already past 21, this was like my 'coming of age' trip."

After that trip, he got more and more into cycling, but never joined a club. Born has always preferred to ride solo. "Riding was always my way of clearing my head and to have some time alone," he said.

Then he started to feel like doing something "more competitive." In the fall of 1986 he saw ABC TV's coverage of RAAM and recalls thinking, "This is it. I may never be able to do that race but it would be an incredible goal to pursue."

So he started training. In those days, there wasn't much information available about training or nutrition over such a long haul. Born admits he "just winged it" without the help of a coach or a diet protocol. He set his sights on the RAAM Open West, a qualifying race in October 1987, and rounded up a support crew÷his father and his older brother, Jeff.

"We did the thing pretty much on a wing and a prayer," he said. "It was a 565-mile route from Tucson, Ariz., to Flagstaff, Ariz., and back. I had never done more than 200 miles at one time in training and I had never been in a race."

He finished second overall and qualified for RAAM. He finished his first RAAM the next year, in ninth place.

"I've never looked back from then on; I was hooked," he said. "Since that first qualifier in Arizona I started thinking that maybe I found the sport I was good at."

Since then, Born has finished three RAAMs, two Furnace Creek 508s (winning in 1994 and finishing second in '99), and he's set two Ultramarathon Cycling national records.

Born originally got the idea of the 1016 in the late 1990s after conquering RAAM a few times and winning the '94 Furnace Creek. He entered the '99 Furnace Creek with the idea of doing the double but went out too hard on the first 508, riding with the race, and finished in second place overall but spent from the effort.

Although he then left the competitive scene for a few years, he couldn't shake his idea of the 1016. "There's nothing quite like being the first to accomplish something," he said.

For his assault on the 1016, Born armed himself with two Kestrel 200 EMS bikes, set up identically and outfitted with aero bars÷old ones built by Mavic that he loves. He also brought an Ionic steel bike set up for climbing that had no aero bars and lighter wheels.

Born started with a crew of five in two vehicles. He started at the 508 finish line in Twentynine Palms, Calif., and planned to ride back to the start line in Valencia. He hoped to have enough time before the start of the official 508 to catch a few hours of sleep, then compete in that event. He figured the reverse 508 would be more challenging, profile-wise, and would take about 36 hours to finish. His calculations showed him he'd be best off with a 1 p.m. start on Thursday, Oct. 10 to meet up with the rest of the riders early Saturday morning. He wanted to get over the 20-mile climb out of Death Valley, over Towne Pass, without the full heat of the sun.

"There's a huge difference in the terrain between the two routes," Born said. "Although the actual Furnace Creek 508 route is a real beast, the 508 route backward seemed to be even tougher in that the climbs, for the most part, seemed longer and more difficult, with less of a downhill 'payoff' after the summit was reached. Some of the climbs are severe to the point of being cruel."

And the landscape of the desert can be deceptive: "The climbs are a little different in that for many of them, the whole lay of the land rises up with the climb. It gives it somewhat of the illusion of not being as difficult. Sometimes there's no depth perception to gauge your progress or the fact that you're even climbing. It's deceptive and can make things very discouraging if you're not mentally prepared. Some of these climbs are only 3 percent or so but they can go on for over 20 miles."

He finished the first 508 with no sleep and arrived back in Valencia shortly after midnight for a total time of 35:22, slept for about five hours and then remounted for the "regular" 508.

"I have to admit that I was not really ready to race another 508 miles÷how could I be?" he said. "After the start I found myself in dead last but, once my body started coming around, I was slowly moving up the field."

The highlight was climbing Towne Pass again÷from below sea level, it ascends 5,000 feet÷this time 200 miles into the regular 508, or after 700 miles of riding for Born.

"I felt better on that climb and rode it faster than in either of my two 508 races," he said. "I can't explain it, but I felt as though my body was completely liberated from pain; I just stormed up those 10 miles÷to the amazement of my crew, myself, and a rider on a two-person team whom I passed. It was an extraordinary feeling, one I don't think I've ever experienced before but one that I knew wasn't going to last."

By the time he reached Baker, at noon, he was about 380 miles into the race and almost 890 miles into his record attempt, and his body was starting to rebel. Ahead of him were some arduous climbs: the Kelbaker climb ahead, 21.4 miles at an average of 2.4 percent ("demoralizing"), the Granite Mountains, a 12-mile climb, and then the "monstrously long and deceptive" climb over the Sheephole Mountains.

After the last summit and descent, Born had only 20 miles to the finish÷over a slight uphill and into a headwind.

"Although my body desperately wanted to stop, I stubbornly stayed glued to the bike," he said. "I was still in control but now was hallucinating pretty severely at this point÷which means I start babbling nonsense to myself as well as seeing a few unusual things."

He reached the finish line at 11:16 p.m. Sunday. He had finished the "official" 508 in 40 hours and 16 minutes, good for an 18th place finish out of 38 starters in his division, the men 50 and under, and 21st in the solo men.

"I don't remember a whole lot about the finish, I was almost completely spent," he said. "'This was really, really hard,' is about all I can remember quietly saying to race director Chris Kostman."

The total time for the Furnace Creek 1016 was 82 hours, 16 minutes, counting the five-hour sleep break. ("There are no timeouts in ultra-marathon races/record attempts," Born notes drily.)

Born said while RAAM was more difficult, if only because of time and distance, the double done on such a small amount of sleep, and through the desert, was a daunting challenge. It featured as much climbing as an entire RAAM in one-third of the distance.

Given all of this, we figured that Born would be a good source of information about the mental side of endurance sports. And he did not disappoint.

"I think the longer you go in an endurance contest, the more it becomes a mental and emotional challenge rather than just a physical challenge," he said. "I've learned that there's nothing out there that I haven't encountered before in my training, so I don't let the enormity of these types of events overwhelm me or discourage me. I try not to think about the race as a whole. Instead, I set short goals along the way such as getting to this town or checkpoint.

"I guess, subconsciously, I tell myself things like 'OK, so what if it's 2 a.m. and it's pitch black outside. That doesn't mean it's time to stop riding.' I remind myself that sooner or later the sun's going to come up, the wind will die down, the summit of a particular climb will be reached÷those kinds of things÷and it will all happen sooner and more rewardingly so if I just stay on the bike."

"Most of all, I just tell myself 'You can do this. You know you can do this.' And I do. It's not terribly magical or anything, it's just me following an old saying: 'The heart controls the mind and the mind controls the body.'"

And we wanted to know if Born thought any of his experiences with the kind of mental fortitude needed to finish an event like RAAM or the "Furnace Creek 1016" could be useful to triathletes attempting a relative "sprint" like an Ironman.

"I once gave a talk prior to a Furnace Creek 508 a few years ago. I told everyone that was in the audience who were entered in the race to take a few moments for themselves before they went to sleep. I suggested they even go into the bathroom and look at themselves in the mirror and tell themselves a few times, 'I know I can do this.' A few people laughed when I said this, but most looked at me and shook their heads approvingly. I know for myself that this self-affirmation practice has been extremely valuable. I think we're all our harshest critics, our worst enemies at times. Literally looking at yourself in the mirror and positively affirming that 'I can do this and nothing is going to stop me from reaching my goals,' is so simple, yet has a powerful effect.

"The other thing I suggested to them sounds even more esoteric but has worked wonderfully. I told them that when they got to their darkest moment in the race, when things seemed to be their most difficult to NOT avoid it, but rather embrace it. Instead of trying to shut out the difficulties or the pain, embrace it, take it all in. I told them that by taking it all in, they would be able to more fully grasp what the achievement of their accomplishment would be and that it would have even more value. One of the early RAAM competitors once said, 'Success doesn't necessarily mean winning all the time. Success is having the courage to face your fears and still have the guts to go on.' To me, embracing the difficult times in training and in the race, not trying to shut them out, is what helps make you successful. It's really liberating and allows you to get the full value out of what got you into being an athlete in the first place."