A strong heart: firefighter plans solo effort in cross-country race
By Vicky Gits, Clear Creek Courant
Tim Case has a firefighter job in Boulder and owns a house in Idaho Springs, but what the 31-year-old spends most of his time thinking about is getting from Lake Henshaw, Calif., to Annapolis, Md., on a bicycle in about 10 days.
Ten days traveling solo across the country translates into 20 hours a day on the bike with two to four hours of sleep a night.
“Usually about half the people that attempt it solo don’t finish, but I don’t intend to be one of those people,” said Case, one of only two dozen people who are registered to compete as solo racers in the 2008 Race Across America.
Beginning June 8, Case will be bicycling cross-country in the “world’s toughest sporting event,” according to Outside magazine. It consists of 3,100 miles, 110,000 feet of climbing and 15 states. Categories include eight- and four-person male and female relay teams, mixed relay and solo.
Case’s goal is to help a group called Team Strong Heart raise $100,000 for Camp Odayin, a residential camp for kids with heart defects and their families.
Sponsored by Medtronic, Team Strong Heart is a collection of bicycle racers who came in third in the relay portion of the 27th annual Race Across America last year.
This will be the first year Case has attempted to complete the route as a solo racer, and he is definitely obsessed — in a good way.
“Every single day that I wake up, I’m thinking about this race. It seeps into everything,” Case said. “When I go to work in the morning, I’m thinking about the race. Every single day you just try do things that let you get a little closer to your goal. It’s like climbing Everest.”
“The great thing is I’m just an average, run-of-the-mill person who knows how to set goals,” Case said. “The most important thing is to have the mind-set (that) I’m going to be on a bike for 20 hours a day.”
Case suffered from severe asthma when he was growing up. “So when I think about Camp Odayin, I see a bit of myself.” Every kid and counselor at the camp has been diagnosed with a heart defect, and campers come from all over the country.
“Activities are adapted to their needs. I know what it’s like to be the kid in class that can’t finish the run,” Case said. “It gives them a three-week experience as a normal kid.”
What’s his training regime? Case spends a lot of time riding the bicycle outside, getting a lot of sleep and staying active. He races 15 to 20 times a year with a bike team in Boulder. Last week he took vacation time to go and train in California where the weather’s better.
To get through the race, Case will have a van and a crew of six people. The hardest part is after dark. “Overall it was extremely tough, mentally and physically, to get through the late and long nights. It’s very lonely and isolated out on the road in the middle of the night,” Case said.
He doesn’t necessarily live only on power bars and sport drinks.
“Food is a process of trial and error. There’s nothing like a cupcake at 3 o’clock in the morning.” He said his first real meal after the race last year was a double bacon cheeseburger with large fries.
For information on the race, visit www.raceacrossamerica.org
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