Day 11
Start: Grayville, IL at 5:21 AM (east)
End: Cranberry Township, PA at 8:36 AM (east)
Length: 1407 miles / 52 mph average
I didn't get to sleep that full 30 minutes. I woke back up before the screaming meanie, and got back on the road 23 minutes after I had stopped. The power nap had truly helped quite a bit, and I was again focused and intent on my goal. It also helps when the sun starts to come up, as that wakes up parts of the brain and body that sometimes can't be willed to do so otherwise. On this last day, it was still not clear whether I would or would not make Kitty Hawk in time. Sunset was 8:24 PM at that location, which means I needed to get there at 8:54 PM to take that picture. Yes, there is sometimes special dispensation if you have small errors at a single bonus that would otherwise cost you finisher status, but I didn't want to count on the charity of the organizers to push me over the top. So I needed to be at that bonus location by 8:54. Which was convenient, as that was pretty much exactly what my GPS units were telling me by the early afternoon that day. I had used up all of my slack time, and if I wanted to be a finisher, I needed to buckle down and just do the miles. Yes, it was tiring. Yes, it was raining for a good portion of the afternoon and evening. But with the goal so close in front of me, it was easier than it had been to push all distractions aside and just keep moving in the right direction.
When I made it to North Carolina, there was quite a storm going on over the Outer Banks. To nobody's surprise, the strongest lightning was happening directly over the Kitty Hawk area, and I was heading straight for it as quickly as I felt safe. At this point it was pitch black due to the storm and cloud cover, but I was still on schedule based on the published times. I pulled up to the gate at 8:54 PM, and quickly snapped the picture. It was so dark that I wasn't 100% sure I was in the right place, but the GPS waypoint had led me straight to this point, and it appeared that the strip of land could be nearby on the other side of the gate. With lightning hitting right across the street, I got back on the bike and raced to a nearby gas station for some weather cover. I also grabbed a timed receipt at that station to document the daytime status of the picture.
I had accumulated enough points to be a finisher, but that means nothing unless I can get back to the final checkpoint in time, without accruing too many penalty points. I knew that I had about an hour's cushion based on my point totals, but that still wasn't a huge comfort, as it still was going to be a challenging ride. As I left the Outer Banks, the weather had improved a bit, and I was hopeful that it would stay that way all the way home. Sadly, that was not the case.
A very strong storm was brewing all over the Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia area, and my route home was taking me directly through the strongest parts of the system. Fantastic! I was making my way up I-95 near Quantico, when it turned into a deluge. There was so much water coming down that it wasn't clearing from the highway fast enough, so there was standing water that felt an inch or two deep in some cases. Lightning was frequent, loud, and near. OK, I guess it was the thunder that was loud, but the point stands. I pulled off the highway to put on my electric gear, as it was starting to get cold, and I was soaked through every layer of gear I had on. My audio system started to flake out on the bike, cutting off any communication and much of the entertainment, due to the large rainstorm. I was crawling along to try and go slow enough to see, but also to go fast enough to not be run down by the trucks that were still going at speed. None of the lane markers were visible, so it was pretty much a free for all on the highway. My system was pretty much shocked awake by the level of attention that was necessary to keep the bike upright, pointed in the right direction, and maintaining the appropriate speed. This system didn't break for roughly two hours, making it two of the most challenging hours I've had on a bike, factoring in my mental & physical state along with the conditions.
My ETA for home base kept creeping up, due to my relatively slow pace going through the storm system. It was at 6:30 AM when I left Kitty Hawk, but it crept up to 7, then 7:15, then 7:30, and eventually reached 8 AM; the cutoff time before penalty points. I knew that I was risking a DNF after all of this effort if I didn't make it in before roughly 9 AM, so I pulled together every internal resource I had to make my goal. By the time I reached the Turnpike weather was not as much of a factor, and the chief rival was instead fatigue. I did have to pull over a few times to catch my bearings, shut my eyes for a short while, and refocus before pulling back out into traffic. After a long, hard night, I found myself in Cranberry Township around 8:30 AM, and pulled into the Marriott parking lot at 8:36. There was a large crowd at the entrance waiting for the riders, and one of the volunteers quickly shoo'd me inside to the scoring table to stop the clock as quickly as possible. This is what I looked like right after that moment when I was back at my bike, removing my earplugs and getting ready to move the bike to a more suitable parting spot:
I now had 1 hour to get myself sorted before presenting all of my information for scoring. I had so few bonuses and receipts this leg that I was pretty much ready immediately, so this gave me time to check in, and go up to my room to take a quick shower. I changed into some clean clothes, downloaded my pics to the computer, and got in line for scoring. Nancy Oswald scored this last leg for me, and I was on pins and needles to find out whether my efforts would take me over the finisher hurdle:
In short, it did.
Even with the 36 minutes of penalty points, my final score for the 2013 IBR was 60,659. When I walked back out to unload the bike, I physically couldn't keep from smiling, I'm sure I looked goofy as all heck at the moment, but to be fair all my fellow riders probably looked a little strange after 11 days on the road.
I locked up the bike, went back to my room, set the alarm for the banquet, and fell fast asleep. At 5 PM, I noticed that my cell phone kept ringing. This was both strange and welcome, as I had planned to be downstairs by 5 PM, and yet I was still fast asleep. A big thanks to my wife, who accurately predicted that without her forcefully waking me up via annoying cell phone ringtones, I'd sleep right through the banquet and likely the rest of the night as well. I cleaned myself up, and made it down in time to get in line for the buffet and find a seat in the main hall. I sat next to a fellow bay area LD rider, Mark Starrett. We had run into each other a number of times during the rally at various bonuses, and had finished at right about the same time. During the finishers presentation, we were informed that the official finisher level would start at 55,000 points, which did save 5 riders who had run very successful and challenging routes, yet were just under the initially suggested finisher threshold of 60K. With Kitty Hawk being worth 7,500 points, it wouldn't have made a difference to me either way; I needed that bonus to be a finisher no matter which of the thresholds applied. My point total landed me a 56th place finish in this year's Iron Butt Rally (
link to final results). I'm happy I persevered at the beginning of Leg 3, I'm happy that I rescued a crappy Leg 2 by at least salvaging the Pikes Peak bonus, and I'm happy most of all that I had the chance to test myself for almost two weeks of LD silliness on a motorcycle, and I came out the other side no worse for wear.
Here's my full track for Leg 3:
3,915 miles from GPS track, 3,859 according to the calibrated miles based on my odometer check during tech inspection. (this does seem somewhat quirky as the GPS was lower than the calibrated miles in each prior leg, but who knows.)
