{"id":37116,"date":"2021-07-09T01:59:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T08:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37116"},"modified":"2021-07-07T15:40:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T22:40:07","slug":"goldstein-wins-5000km-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/07\/09\/goldstein-wins-5000km-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldstein wins 5,000km race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leah Goldstein is the first woman, and the first Israeli, to win Race Across America. (photo by Vic Armijo \/ RAAM)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Leah Goldstein became the first woman to win Race Across America in its 38-year history. The Vernon, B.C., resident also became the first Israeli to win the cycling tournament.<\/p>\n

The 5,000-kilometre race \u2013 from Oceanside, Calif., to Annapolis, Md. \u2013 must be completed in under 12 days, and Goldstein completed it in 11 days, three hours and three minutes, rolling past the finish line at 9:41 p.m. on June 26.<\/p>\n

\u201cRace Across America (RAAM) is like no other race,\u201d Goldstein told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019ve done the equivalent of the Tour de France for females. I\u2019ve done major races and other ultra endurance races of 500, 800 miles, and nothing compares \u2013 because it\u2019s not a matter of if, but when you\u2019re going to experience all sorts of discomforts, back, neck, knee, constipation, diarrhea, swelling, some major saddle sores.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the latest in a lifetime as a top athlete. Goldstein won the 1989 World Bantamweight Kickboxing Championship and was Israel\u2019s duathlon champion. As a youth, she was a kickboxing champion and a Taekwondo champion. Later in life, she competed in a string of professional cycling events. That toughness carried forward to her becoming an officer in the Israeli commando and elite police unit.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s race was particularly extreme, during a heat wave that punished riders with temperatures of more than 40\u00b0C; not just through the desert, but for the first eight days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat can break people down, where they almost feel defeated before they start, but that\u2019s the thing with RAAM, those things are going to happen whether you like it or not, and you have to prepare for them,\u201d said Goldstein. \u201cIt\u2019s really something that pushes you far beyond your limits. You\u2019re going to have more bad days than good days, and that\u2019s just the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

During certain parts, she said she had hallucinations and her \u201cbrain felt like a potato.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what I was doing on my bike. I didn\u2019t know where I was. And then you kind of snap out of it,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt\u2019s that element of the mental challenge of really pushing forward, knowing that whatever you\u2019re doing, you just can\u2019t get off the bike, no matter what the situation, the temperature, no matter what kind of pain you are in.\u201d<\/p>\n

It helped that this was her third RAAM, she said, and the crew was able to analyze past performance to build on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wrote down every single mistake that we made in 2019, with weather conditions, navigational problems, bike positioning, training, with sleep patterns, and we tried to perfect it as much as possible. And because of COVID last year, I had an extra year to prepare for this. I trained as if RAAM was still going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her onboard crew included a medic, a kinesiologist, massage therapists and nutritionists. \u201cI think they know how I roll, and know how to read me on the bike, when I\u2019m starting to fade or things are going sideways, or I\u2019m low on nutrition,\u201d she said. \u201cWe won as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Leah Goldstein during the Race Across America. (photo by Vic Armijo \/ RAAM)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whereas riders fought the heat this year, they fought \u201cuncontrollable rain and hail\u201d two years ago. The crew prepared her with specialized clothing and pre-tested water-resistant equipment, just in case those conditions would prevail again.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrepare for the worst that possibly can happen, no matter how fully prepared you think you are,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of how badly do you want it, and how much are you willing to sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Goldstein has experienced severe challenges. In 2005, during the Cascade Classic, she was involved in what she calls \u201cthe mother of all crashes\u201d \u2013 she landed on her face at 80 kilometres an hour, \u201cbreaking practically every bone in my body, ripping my face right off.\u201d Doctors were astonished she survived. In 2008, she was hit by a car, ejected 25 feet in the air and, in an attempt to cushion the fall, put her arms out, breaking both of them.<\/p>\n

Neither accident kept her down. She returned to the racing circuit in 2011, winning the women\u2019s solo category of Race Across America, breaking the previous record by 12 hours.<\/p>\n

In 2016 she published a memoir,\u00a0No Limits<\/em>, outlining the triumphs and tragedies of her athletic life.<\/p>\n

While the naysayers \u2013 who called her \u201cinsane and crazy\u201d \u2013 said she was \u201cpast her prime,\u201d the 52-year-old proved them wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t use your age as an excuse or your past experiences as an excuse,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t get second chances. What we got is what we got and, if you have a desire to do it, goddamn do it. What are you waiting for?\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the high temperatures, the latest race took her a couple of days longer than expected, but she said the next one she plans on doing in under 10 days \u2013 and she\u2019ll keep competing until she can\u2019t anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m alive at age 90 and I can still pedal my bike, I\u2019m doing that race,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s my biggest goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave Gordon <\/strong>is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leah Goldstein is the first woman, and the first Israeli, to win Race Across America. (photo by Vic Armijo \/ RAAM) Leah Goldstein became the first woman to win Race Across America in its 38-year history. The Vernon, B.C., resident also became the first Israeli to win the cycling tournament. The 5,000-kilometre race \u2013 from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20693,4311,5389,20431,20692,20691],"class_list":["post-37116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-athletics","tag-cycling","tag-leah-goldstein","tag-raam","tag-race-across-america","tag-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}