There Are Miles to Go Before This Fitness Entrepreneur Sleeps

It was quite a welcome. Three days after a wide-eyed, naive 22-year-old Johnny Goldberg had arrived in California for a vacation, a gunman relieved him of his naivete and $3,000 in cash.

“I had a gun put in my mouth in Santa Monica,” said Goldberg, who until that point had lived a sheltered life in the confines of Johannesburg’s wealthy northern suburbs. “It was a real eye-opener for me.”

The education continued. Bereft of cash, unable to get money out of his native South Africa because of government restrictions, Goldberg slept on the beach in Venice.

Suddenly determined to stay, he cashed in his return plane ticket. When that money disappeared, he survived as best he could, at one point eating a frozen burrito he had stolen from a local convenience store.

Eventually, he landed a job selling cutlery door to door, making $1.50 for each set he sold and earning about $45 a day, enough to pay for his burritos and rent space on a living room floor.

In Johannesburg, he had run a string of gyms. So one day, Goldberg spruced himself up, walked into a West Los Angeles gym and told the owner he would personally see to it that profits increased 10% each month. He landed the job, made good on his promise, and kept on working.

Ten years later, Goldberg, who has parlayed fitness and determination into a lucrative career, shares a Century City apartment and a comfortable life with his new wife, Jodi.

His life, however, is not without challenge. On Sunday, Goldberg will once again put perseverance and chutzpah to the test--staring down heat, cold, humidity, aridity, ennui, paranoia, doubt, fatigue and frustration, all in pursuit of a single goal--getting across the country as fast as he can. On a bicycle.

Now in its eighth year, the Race Across America (RAAM) has been called the greatest endurance event in the world. If topography is any measure, it’s a legitimate claim.

This year’s race begins Sunday noon at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Over a week and some days, 33 riders will cross California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, finishing in New York’s Battery Park--2,980 miles by bicycle.

Spinning across that sprawl they will encounter a country’s worth of weather and terrain, face problems ranging from cramped toes to night blindness.

The prospect fills Goldberg with excitement.

“RAAM is one of the biggest lessons you could ever learn in your entire life,” he said. “You learn pain, you learn pleasure, you learn persistence, you learn tenacity, you learn self-control, courage, discipline, everything you could imagine. An entire spectrum of life you experience within one race.”

Goldberg learned most of the painful lessons two years ago when he competed in his first RAAM.

A swimmer turned body builder, turned triathlete, turned ultra-distance cyclist, Goldberg was no stranger to the rigors of competition. He was, however, unprepared for the enormousness of RAAM.

After suffering through saddle sores, chronic nosebleeds, weight loss--26 pounds in five days--and painful blisters in his mouth, Goldberg called it quits 2,400 miles into the race, after riding his final 600 miles with a dislocated knee. It took him almost a year to recover.

“Basically, for the first five months all I was able to do was take a couple of walks,” said Goldberg, who interspersed those walks with frequent naps. “I couldn’t stay awake for more than two or three hours. I’d never experienced chronic fatigue and depletion like that before. I didn’t think I would ever get on a bicycle again.”

Such lessons aren’t easily forgotten. Training for his disastrous 1987 RAAM, Goldberg rode an average of 300 miles a week, which proved to be woefully inadequate for an event that asks competitors to ride more than 300 miles a day.

So, preparing for this year’s RAAM, Goldberg bumped his training mileage up to 600-900 miles a week, including 24-hour rides that simulated the sleeping and eating schedules he hopes to maintain during RAAM.

Although riders burn hundreds of thousands of calories during their transcontinental trip, it is sleep that presents the biggest problem. With the clock running incessantly, sleep is wasted time and RAAM riders do their best to dispense with it.

Though strategies differ--RAAM veteran Michael Shermer once rode round the clock for three days--most riders opt for a 1 1/2- to three-hour nap each day, usually sometime between 2 and 5 in the morning. Following convention, Goldberg plans to sleep from 2 to 3:30 each morning, possibly riding the first 36 to 52 hours without a nap.

If all goes according to plan, Goldberg hopes to ride 370 miles between catnaps. If RAAM has taught him anything, however, it’s that plans can quickly go awry.

“I’ll have to see how I feel, but I can’t let myself get too far back because as you get progressively tired, it’s harder to make up lost ground,” he said. “On the other hand, you can’t just go hard off the front because you’ll blow up. There’s a very fine balance.”

That will be one of the few nods the individualistic Goldberg makes to convention. The 15-member crew that will accompany him on his cross-country trek includes two yogis and an acupuncturist who will not only needle Goldberg while he rides but will also supply him with Chinese herb poultices to cool his body during hot spells as well as similar herb potions to keep him alert when his mind starts to dull.

An ardent admirer of Eastern philosophy and religion, Goldberg also comes to this year’s RAAM armed with a mantra and meditation tapes. The mantra, a personal Hindu chant, Goldberg is keeping to himself.

But he airs the meditation tapes, which he plans on using when the ride gets tough, freely. A soothing voice backed by soft, rushing sounds of the ocean repeats a series of positive statements.

“I am disciplined, disciplined, disciplined,” lulls the voice. “I am vital, vital, vital. I am confident, confident, confident.”

Said Goldberg: “When you think you’re tired, you start thinking about being tired, and meditating keeps you from thinking. I’ll listen to the tapes through the stress periods, when I need to cut off everything and concentrate on me and what I have to do.”

What Goldberg would like to do is cross the country in seven days and 21 hours, well under the current men’s record of eight days, nine hours and 47 minutes.

The RAAM has been contested over a variety of routes and this year’s is relatively flat. It is also 150 miles shorter than the record route and RAAM veterans agree that, should the weather cooperate, a record crossing will follow.

Although Goldberg’s RAAM debut was less than auspicious, and a race of 3,000 miles precludes prediction, some RAAM insiders see Goldberg as a longshot, possibly stealing the race from favorites Michael Trail and Michael Secrest.

Goldberg qualified for RAAM last October by riding 550 miles, round trip, from Tucson to Flagstaff, Ariz., in 29 hours 46 minutes and winning by more than four hours.

Goldberg, however, prefers to think of RAAM in other terms.

“It’s not so much about coming in first or last, it’s about committing, putting yourself on the line and giving it the best shot you can,” he said. “I really think it takes a special person to put themselves on the line like this. It takes so much time, it takes so much preparation, so much training and so much support. Everybody that does it is a winner.”

And, in keeping with tradition, when it’s all over Goldberg will face yet another challenge. In early September he and Jodi are expecting their first child. Will it be difficult to come back from RAAM and face the greatest endurance event of them all?

“I’ll take a couple of days to recover,” Goldberg said, laughing. “Then we’re ready for the next project.”