If you need proof that the Race Across America (RAAM), a 5,000-kilometre endurance bike ride, is unique for more than the unfathomable suffering felt by the riders, you need only look at the reasons race organizers accept for dropping out.
Typical explanations for why racers “did not finish” include mechanical problems, accidents, medical issues, heat and time violations — but only RAAM allows competitors to claim an epiphany caused them to pull the plug.
Twenty-five year-old Ryan Correy was the youngest competitor in this year’s RAAM, and his 11 day, 21 hour and 44 minute traverse of the red and blue states between Oceanside, California and Annapolis, Maryland made him the youngest Canadian to ever complete the gruelling test.
And while successful, it’s safe to say Correy’s ride wasn’t without a few epiphanies.
“I came to a point where I was wondering if I was doing the ride for the right reasons,”
Correy recalls of a low moment when, just before he was to cross the Mississippi River, he took an unscheduled nap while riding his bike and crashed at the gates of a cemetery.
His support crew had to coax him back onto his bike, but Correy’s mind started to conjure elaborate exit plans that included getting a real job so he could pay off what he believed would be his soon-to-be-failed ride.
“I started coming up with some pretty good justifications for quitting,” he laughs.
“I thought that I could always swerve into a car, so it looked like an accident. And having been hit by a car during training, I believed that a car accident would be an acceptable option.”
The job of motivating the young rider across the Big Muddy fell to Correy’s father who, at 2 a.m., donned his son’s spandex, hopped on a spare bike and rode alongside the exhausted racer for 15 minutes each hour until sunrise. It was his father’s comment that they’d just go for a little ride together and have some fun that put everything into perspective.
Correy recalls the breakthrough: “Suddenly, I remembered the two of us riding across Canada when I was 13. I stopped worrying about what place I would finish, and before I knew it we were past the two-thirds point and riding on.”
With RAAM behind him (along with several other cycling feats, including cranking 14,000 kilometres around North America in 2002 and covering 25,000 kilometres from Alaska to Argentina in 131 days), Correy is looking toward trying out for Canada’s national cycling team in hopes of riding in the 2012 Olympics in London.
Ryan Correy — Distance Defier
Dr. Aru Narendran — Cancer Cure Crusader
Anouk Kendall — Energy Innovator
Light Up the World Foundation — Light Bearers
Nathan Armstrong & Motive Industries — X Prize Fighters
Gary Burns — Alberta Auteur
Yvonne Tollens — Innovation Sensation
Honen's International Piano Competition — Classical Music Mentors
Robert Allen Sulatycky — Culinary Celebrity
Raghav Mathur — Hip Hop Hope
Post new comment