Back on June 26th the Seattle International Randonneurs hosted the 2010 Cascade 1200. Actually it was 1240 km, which works out to about 770 miles, with the objective to finish the course no later than 3:00 a.m. on Wednesday, June 30 within a 93-hour time limit.
In 2008 I played a very minor supporting role in this amazing event, and as a result I became superficially acquainted with the names of some of the riders. One name that stuck out was Jennifer Chang, who was hospitalized for dehydration and could not complete the ride. Everyone was quite worried about her, and we felt relieved that she successfully recovered.
Jennifer Chang, Steve Davis, Matt Dalton, and James McKee at Washington Pass. Thanks to Chris Heg for providing this image.
As ride reports started to flow in about this year’s adventure, Jennifer’s name once again stood out, though this time for different but no less epic reasons.
While almost every rider no doubt experiences their own version of heaven and hell on a ride like this (along with the rewards of persisting through those ups and downs), Jennifer Chang’s account is a particularly compelling read:
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When I DNF’ed 2008 Cascade 1200 at Farmer due to heat stroke, I was devastated to find out that there would be no 2009 Cascade. I contacted two Mark’s, Mark Roehrig, the director of Cascade 1200, and Mark Thomas, SIR and then RUSA president, via e-mail, asking them to “please have one in 2009, because I don’t think I can keep up with this type of training for another two years.” When their final and simple answer was “no,” I went into hiding for 1-1/2 years. The year 2008 had been my first, accidental year of randonneuring, after hearing a friend’s PBP story, and I was physically, mentally and emotionally traumatized by the experience. I got on my bike seat exactly twice, between completing Rocky Mountain 1200 in July 2008 and the end of 2009. Once was a club forty-miler, I went on to support a friend in fall of 2008, and the other was a flat, 15 mile, out-and-back trail ride on Burke Gilman at the end of December 2009, to meet my stated goal in 2009 to “get on my bike seat at least once.”
At the end of each year, I review the year and set new goals for the following year. The biggest goal I set for myself for 2010 was to ride and finish Cascade 1200. The goal became refined, however, and took on a personal meaning when I responded to Don Boothby’s e-mail, inviting others to join him on a Hood Canal 200K permanent. You see, Don is a hero of mine. It’s difficult to point out one individual volunteer, as THE volunteer, whose support meant so much to you, on a ride like Cascade, when so many sleepless, volunteer hours go into food support, sag support, water and ice sock support, overnight support, and moral support. As a straggler, hours behind everyone else, after getting lost in 2008 Cascade, how can I not be grateful for the headlights of support vehicles of Albert Meerscheidt and Dan Turner, Joe Lloyd and his then 10 year old son, Jesse, and Erik Anderson, who swept long 770-some miles of the road, that reminded me that I was not forgotten and still on course? Or those of Carol Nussbaum and Amy Pieper, who efficiently and competently organized and fed hundreds of hungry, exhausted randonneurs each night? Yet, in the midst of this sea of faces, who provided wonderful support, Don Boothby’s that year, meant particularly a lot to me.
Don is a cycling friend of mine, whom I’d known through other club rides. I’ve always enjoyed his energy and enthusiasm for life. I hadn’t known he was a randonneur until I began to participate in brevets two years ago. In 2008, Don Boothby was one of the volunteers, who got only an hour of sleep, through the entire duration of Cascade 1200, supporting other riders. Perhaps because of my prior connection to Don, all through 2008 Cascade, I always felt that he personally, really wanted me to finish the ride. It was his headlight that came by several times to check on me, when I was climbing White Pass after complete darkness had descended two years ago. It was him, who advised me to take Advil, when my knee started to hurt and handed me a cooling gel pillow, a gift for me from his wife Mimi, to hang around my neck in 100 degree temperature at Lodgepole control. And him again, that provided water support on the hot climb up, between Dry Falls and Farmer, when the temperature rose above 100 degrees and I ran out of water. An indelible image in my mind from that 2008 Cascade is Don’s wordless, serious face, looking straight into my eyes at Farmer, where I suffered heat stroke and didn’t have the full presence of mind. I was pleading with him to talk Mark Thomas, the RUSA president, into letting me continue on with the ride. Don, who had been my cheerleader all through that ride, stood without answering me. He knew right then, that I did not have the capacity to continue on with the ride without endangering the safety of myself or others.
So, it was only appropriate that I would respond to Don’s invitation, sent out to the SIR list, to ride a 200K permanent with him the first weekend of March this year. I asked him, if I could join him, though the longest ride I’d done up to that point this year was an 80-miler on Ralph and Carol Nussbaum’s winter training series. He said, sure, come on over, and that he’d be happy to see and ride with me, after over a year of no face-to-face contact. On the ferry ride over to the ride start at Bainbridge, when I told him I’d signed up for 2010 Cascade, Don didn’t look surprised and said, of course, you have an unfinished business. Up to that point, my stated goal for 2010 Cascade was simply to ride and finish it. But, it was the welcome that I felt in Don, on my first permanent of the year, and the graciousness of his presence, as he waited for me at the top of the hill to ride some and chat with me, which helped me to fine-tune my goal. I don’t think it was anything in particular that was actually said, but what bubbles up in companionship one feels in fellow riders, who understand the journey. As we reminisced over 2008 Cascade, all of a sudden, I wanted to expand my self-absorbed goal to ride and finish 2010 Cascade to something much more honoring to people like Don, who supported me on 2008 Cascade, before I DNF’ed. I wanted to ride and finish 2010 Cascade with grace and dignity that I didn’t possess as a rookie the first year around.
Last night, or actually, this morning at 3:25 am, when I ran into the Monroe hotel lobby at the finishline with my bike, lay stretched backward on the floor, after receiving congratulations from friends like Kristie Salinger and Don Boothby, who were waiting for me at the finishline, and SIR president, Mark Thomas, I was elated. I finished, I finished. However, when Mark Thomas handed me the finisher’s medal, telling me that I could have it anyway, even though I didn’t officially finish, I was stunned. I threw the medal, hard, on the floor and told him I didn’t want it, the mercy gift, and that I would submit an essay on why the decision should be repealed, so I could officially go on to the finisher’s list. All through this year’s rides and through Cascade, even as I was stuffing myself with food, like a pig in a rush, before the ride, or going for three days without a shower, I’d felt good about the way I rode. This morning at 3:25 am, when I threw the pin down, started arguing and bawling, lying back, stretched out on the hotel lobby, I felt like I rode, but didn’t finish, and I didn’t particularly feel graceful nor dignified.
Randonneuring is hard. It stretches you to your limits. And in a way, it’s a lot like life. On club rides, which I love and enjoy very much, too, there is a sense of camaraderie and socialization that occurs, in casual way. It’s easier to go on club rides with a smile and enjoy the company of other riders for few hours, even if I had a tough day. On randonnering rides, where you’re stretched to your limits and limited by time and physical resources, this is much more difficult to do. This is the aspect of randonneuring I had difficulty with the first year. You wait for them on the hill, why do they leave you on the downhill? If it’s really about finishing, why are the finish times recorded and published? Is there an unspoken pecking order, like the elephant in the room? What is the right way to give on rides like Cascade, when you, yourself, are stretched to your limits and down to one hours of sleep without showers? Is there a right way to ride? Is there really a rando way?
This second year of randonneuring has been much more fun for me. If the first year was the year of unanswered questions that left you psychologically traumatized, this year was the year that some of those answers came, riding long, stretches of roads at night, in company of other riders like Narayan Krishnamoorthy and Bill Gobie, who help you out and make the hours before dawn seem a little less dreary, or through e-mail and phone check-in’s before and after each brevets with other fellow randonneuses, like Lyn Gil, Leslie Larson and Peg Winczewski. And through people like Kole Kantner, a very fast rider, who regularly rides 100 miles on a work day, whom I’d heard of, but known very little of, who helps you out like a dear friend, on a short notice, with the GPS set-up, so you could navigate at night on brevets. He got up in the middle of his precious sleep, on the second night of Cascade, to help diagnose and fix the problems with my hub generator. Or Geoff Swarts, who repeating the theme of my first year of randonneuring, once again provides you with a wheel with the generator hub, so you could continue with your ride.
Going back to my story of 2010 Cascade, there is a person, who helped me to come up with yet one more answer. Steve Davis is a gentleman, whom I like to ride with. I’d say we have a perfectly compatible riding pace, when I am drafting him. I can’t return the favor, because he is faster than me, but hanging onto his rear wheel, I like the unhurried, steady pace he sets, that makes you feel like you could ride forever, and the company he provides. This year, Steve signed up for his first 1000K, follwed by a 200K permanent, and I signed up for my second attempt at 1200K, when Cascade registration opened up. Except for the bulk of first day, when I wanted to climb White Pass with Bill Gobie, one of my favorite randos, who’s helped me out in the past, I rode 2010 Cascade with Steve. No matter how much I tried to hurry, Steve was always three times faster than me at the controls, but he would wait for me, without ever letting on that he was frustrated. He is that kind of man. And he smiles and lets me to rattle on and on, during rides, though he probably catches less than half of what I say, because of the wind in his ears and he’s in his own thoughts.
I felt strong, the first two days of riding Cascade this year. I was close to being stretched to my physically limits, but not all the way, so I had enough to give, here and there, and remain sensible and clear-headed to problem-solve when the unexpected happened. The third day, however, was hard for me. In my imagined scenario, before the ride began, I wanted a complete redux of 2008 Cascade. I wanted to ride from Dry Falls to the Farmer control, where I’d DNF’ed on the third day of 2008 Cascade with heat stroke, strongly and gloriously, proving once and for all, I was the rando material, who could do these hard rides. But, I don’t think I have the randonneur’s body. Something inevitably starts to break down in my body, after couple of sleepless nights of riding, and this time, it was my left knee. While the temperature was several degrees cooler this year than two years ago, climbing out of the deep canyon, baking in sun, still took a wind out of me and I bonked for the first time in three days of riding. I had to stop several times on the climb to ease the sharp pain, zipping through my left knee, and at one point, Steve gave me Advil and shared his energy bar with me, which I gulped down in three large bites. I rode into the Farmer control, exhausted, where Tom Martin, a randonneur and an ER doctor, and Sue Matthews, the most nurturing of the volunteers, were waiting, and confided, “This second time around, it was still very hard.” They kindly fed me and rehydrated me, and packed me off with a supply of Advil that would last me for next couple of days.
Steve and I parted our ways on the third night of Cascade at Malott control, when he went straight to add 12 miles for his 1000K finish that night, and I turned left to climb Loup Loup Pass and to my third overnight control. As I started climbing Loup Loup Pass alone, the sharp pain I tried to control with regular intake of Advil, returned with vengeance. At one point in climb, an involuntary, mountain-shaking yelp of “Ough! Ough!” escaped out of me with each pedal stroke. Then rode along Wolfgang from Germany, whom I’d met previously at 2008 Rocky Mountain 1200. As happens on these rides, you find a lot about a person, whom you know nothing about. I know nothing about Wolfgang, in terms of what he does for living or who his family and friends are, but I like the stories he tells that give glimpses of his relaxed, philosophical approach to life. When he found me, unpoised and in screaming agony, he calmly suggested that I walk my bike for a while. Then in a slow, walking pace, he biked along side me and told me about hunting dogs and a large dog he has and asked me about my own. He also told me about how he’d lost his control card, which he’d kept casually in his jersey pocket, and had to wait thirty minutes for the kind volunteers to find and delivered it to him at the last Malott control. He said that it didn’t personally matter to him, whether or not he lost his control card. He said he would have just continued on and finished the ride, just as he would have done with the control card, and it would have been enough for him to know that he had done it. After a while, he suggested I try getting back on my bike, and when I let out a pain-filled scream once again, as my left knee got locked into a position and I couldn’t clip out of the pedal, he held my bike steady, so I could lift myself onto the saddle, using handlebars, and then bring my knee down. But, when he told me that I had only two knees and there would be other rides I could complete in future, I looked him in the eyes and told him those words weren’t encouraging and not what I needed to hear at the moment. These randonneuring rides, they certainly have a way of making strangers feel like old friends, allowing you to be direct and real, in ways we don’t get to be, even among the close associates in the real world. Wolfgang didn’t want to leave me, walking up Loup Loup Pass alone, but I knew he had his own journey to make on Cascade, apart from my own, so I urged him on. I told him, if I needed, there would be sag supports, sweeping the roads and that I would be alright. We will meet again, few more times, on the fourth day, as we continued our rides.
After Wolfgang left, I discovered, quite accidentally, that I could pedal painlessly with my left knee, if I stayed clipped out of my pedals. After walking my bike for a while, I tried getting back on the bike, by pedaling only with my right foot, while leaving the left leg unclipped, bent at the knee, out of the way of the circulating pedals. I could manage few, jerky strokes at a time, and I knew, though I didn’t want to admit it, that this impractical, valiant effort would never get me to the top of Loup Loup Pass. Then the amazing discovery. When I got tired of holding my left leg bent, out the way of the turning pedals, I rested it back on the pedal, though not clipped in. I was expecting shooting pains through my knee, as my left foot followed the motion of the rolling pedals, as would happen when clipped in. But, no, there was no pain. The pain came from that particular locked-in position of the clipless pedal, and as long as my foot was left to freefloat over the pedal, there was no pain! That’s when the hope returned, the amazing element of the human soul that gets people through concentration camps, and in my case, up the mountain pass.
Pedaling with one foot unclipped takes concentration. The metal clips that protrude from the pedal surface mean that there is no wide, smooth surface for your foot to rest on, so you have to find a particular place on the sole of your foot, like the ball of your foot, to hold the clipless pedals, so the pedal doesn’t slip from under your foot, in rolling motion. You also have to learn just how hard to push, so there is enough power transfer to the pedals, but not too much so that you lose grip of the pedal as it rolls round back up. It helped that I had Time ATAC mountain bike pedals, which have wider, squarish pedal surface than other clipless pedals. Flats and gentle inclines are easier, because there, you have enough low gears to make your pedaling stroke smooth and rhythmic, so the unclipped pedal doesn’t slip from under you. Steeper grades are more difficult because you’ve then run out of low gears and you have to use muscle power to push down on the pedals, and since the unclipped left leg can’t push down as hard as the right clipped ones, the balance is off and the bike starts to wiggle and you can’t go in a straight line. It takes lots of concentration to get it just right, so that you stay within the narrow bike lane, as you wiggle small s’s, going up Washington Pass, in the morning, with other car traffics, but sometimes, the grade and the curvature of the road just doesn’t allow for this, so you have to stop and walk your bike for a bit. Steep rollers, especially the ones on Jordan Road leading to Granite Falls control, and on that final stretch around Lake Roesiger, are particularly hard, because you have to vary your pedaling power from the top of the hill to the bottom. You want to make the most of the downward pull of the gravity as you ride down, but you want to make the smooth transition to slower pedaling pace, or else the pedal slips from under you and it’s then really difficult to get your left foot back on the pedal again, as the cadence is higher and you can’t stop pedaling because you’re on an uphill and you’d fall if you stopped. Hardest is when it rains, as it did going into Granite Falls control on the fourth night, because rain makes metal clips and plastic soles slicker, it’s that much harder to find the gripping surface and your foot slips off the pedal, again and again. When this happens and you have stopped on an incline, the only way to start back up, is to head downhill first and then to make the smooth transition to an uphill u-turn, to get back on track.
After climbing Loup Loup Pass, when I finally made it to Mazama overnight control on the third night around 4 am, I was exhausted. The fourth day, at 162 miles, through some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in all of Washington state, should have been the easiest day of the ride, that comes as a reward at the end of the grueling days of hard riding. It’s offered as 261K Permanent #413, for those who have completed the 1000K, and want to get back to Monroe on their bike. As a permanent, you have less time to finish this route than those who do it as part of 1200K route, but you can start the ride any time you want, which means you can sleep in, if you’ve just finished 1000K, as long as long as you finish it within 15 hours and 20 minutes of time limit.
When I met Steve Davis, back again at Mazama, his 1000K finishline and my third overnight control, I asked Steve if he’d be willing to start his permanent in couple of hours, without much sleep, so he could accompany me to the finish line. I’d studied and knew the fourth day’s route. The first part of the day would go over two mountain passes, Washington and Rainy, followed by gentle rollers and flats, which would lead to two stretches of steep rollers toward the finish line in Monroe. I thought I could make it, but it would take me much longer to get there, with one foot unclipped, and I felt, when it got hard, it would be helpful to have moral support of a cycling buddy. Steve consented and after much pampering by all the volunteers, who were present at Mazama–Jon Muellner, Geoff Swarts, Bobbe Foliart, Carol Nussbaum–and the other fellow randonneurs, we started out the ride with less than an hour of sleep.
I was tired and didn’t feel well that morning, so had to make frequent stops, along the way. I was still getting the hang of climbing, unclipped on left side, and again and again, had to make mid-track stops to keep myself from losing balance and falling. Few miles up Washington Pass, I had to take an early morning, ditch nap on the side of road. The concrete never felt so comforting under my face and my weary body. It took a lot of focus to climb Washington Pass, but my proudest accomplishment in all of 2010 Cascade occurred right there, toward the end of the climb, when the grade becomes very steep on switchbacks and the bike lane narrows and Liberty Bell Peak stands high, right above your head. I had been planning to walk up that stretch, but as I began to master the art of pedaling with one foot unclipped, I told Steve that I would like to at least give it a try, to climb that portion on my bike, before prematurely giving up and walking it. I asked him to give me wide berth, in case my bike wiggled, and give me space to concentrate on each pedal stroke. It took all the concentration, and my bike did often wiggle and leave the bike lane, but one pedal stroke at a time, I made it up,up and up, all the way to the top of Washington Pass, without stopping, where the sag support, Dan Turner and Matt Dalton, and other cycling pals, James and Chris, were waiting. I was jubilant. Oh, what a mountaintop experience that was. Then came the Rainy Pass, which is actually only a half of a pass. Still, when I reached the top, and knew all the passes were now behind me, I got off my bike, fell to the ground and wept.
After making a very slow progress up two mountain passes, both Steve and I were exhausted. We decided to get off of the windy pass and find a sunny spot, after a partial descent, to take another ditch nap, the second one for me for the day and Steve’s first one. It was after that refreshing 20 minute nap, that my rational mind, which had been put on hold since Loup Loup Pass, kicked back into gear and started clicking again. It was then that I realized that Steve, by deciding to accompany me to the finishline, was sacrificing his 200K permanent control time limits, which are set earlier than mine. At the rate I was going, there was no way for both of us to make it to Marblemount within his time limit. I urged him to go ahead of me, but he stuck around, pulling me on the descents, giving me berth on climbs, telling me that it didn’t matter to him if he completed his 200K. If he could do it within the time limit set by 1200K route, he said, then he would know that he has helped a friend, and he could have done a 1200K, as well as the 1000K. With or without the record. Hm. His calm reasoning made me feel less guilty about the sacrificed permanent, and I became even more determined to finish the ride, so his sacrifice would have meaning.
But, what if you don’t finish the ride within the time limit? The simple scenario would have been that a friend makes a sacrifice, you become the beneficiary of that sacrifice, and you provide back the meaning to the sacrifice made on your behalf, through your success. But, what do you do, when it doesn’t happen that way? A friend makes a sacrifice on your behalf, you’re the beneficiary, but you cross the finishline 25 minutes outside of the time limit? What then?
I was a mess when I arrived at the finishline and was informed that I didn’t officially finish, though I did unofficially finish. I was angry and upset and threw the finisher’s medal down on the floor, saying I didn’t want it, unless it was official. Don Boothby, who came to the finishline, with flowers at hand, and waited until the wee hours of the morning to see me cross the finishline, saw me break down emotionally, mentally and physically. Kristie Salinger, gently comforted me and gave me food and drinks to refresh my body, that was buzzing with electricity. Then she lay down my sleeping bag on the floor of the conference room at the hotel and helped me to take off the cycling gears I was wearing. I was crying the whole time, half grogged up with sleep, and wasn’t fully aware of the kind care she provided me with, until the following morning.
I woke up, crying, the next morning in my sleeping bag with my baselayer cycling clothes on, and realized that I’d fallen asleep with the cycling shoe on my left foot. Then I remembered that the night before, Kristie had tried to unclick the buckle, but it had stuck, probably from uneven pedal strokes, and couldn’t get it off of my foot. Since I was very tired, she just let me crawl into my sleeping bag with the shoe on, so I could get the sleep I needed desperately. I still felt shaken by the events of the night before, and I wasn’t sure if I should head back home or stick around for Finisher’s Breakfast, since I wanted to congratulate many of my randonneur buddies, whom I’ve come to care for, for finishing the ride. But, first, I needed to process what had happened, so I woke Steve up at 7 am with a phone call from the hotel lobby, asking him if he’d help me to make sense of what occurred. He came down to the hotel lobby, showered and presentable, and there, in talking through my thoughts, limping around with one cycling shoes on my left foot, in my salt-embedded, putrefying baselayer, that I came to see the light.
What do you do when a friend makes an official sacrifice on his permanent, so you can have an official success on your randonee, but you officially don’t make it? Well, then you grasp the unofficial. The fact that Steve officially DNQ’ed on his permanent, doesn’t mean that he couldn’t finish the ride in time. There are unrecorded stories behind every official time records. He can be proud of what he did on behalf of another rider, to help her to accomplish her dream, whether or not she succeeded officially. In the same way, I could learn from Steve and embrace the unofficial accomplishments of my ride that transformed Cascade 1200K from a very difficult ride into an epic journey. It was that morning, the story that Wolfgang told me, climbing Loup Loup Pass slowly, along side my walking pace, came afresh to me. It didn’t matter whether or not he lost the control card. He would have continued on with the ride, with or without it, and would have known that he had done it, officially or unofficially. In the same way, Steve knows he’s earned the right to wear the Cascade 1200 jersey, officially or not. I know I finished the ride, though outside of the official time limit, and the meaning of my journey wasn’t accorded by the number on the record, but by the stories and names and faces that I connected with during my ride. The official finish would have been nice, but it was still the cherry and wasn’t what was important, in the scheme of things.
And I am coming away with many treasurable memories. Bill Gobie, who overcomes much physical obstacles each day to randonneur and shows me how to do it gracefully with each brevet; Michele Brougher from Minnesota, the first year randonneuse, who embodies randonneuring spirit and stories I wish I could hear more of next time we meet again, on one of our rides; Wolfgang from Germany with his anecdotal stories; James and Chris, who waited for me at the top of Washington Pass climb; Kole Kanter, who didn’t mind being woken up in the middle of second night of his 1200K to help diagnose and fix the problem with my GPS and lighting system; Geoff Swarts, who let me borrow his hub wheel and switched it out in the middles of the night at Quincy and filled my water bottles for me at Mazama; Eamon Stanley, who, unasked by me, adjusted the brakes after the wheel were switch out; Charlie and Kathy White, who provided comfort and food at Mattawa control; Mike and Nicole McHale, who handed me the Starbucks ice coffee at Malott control and stocked me with extra batteries and diaper rash cream for saddle sores; Tom Martin and Sue Matthews at the memorable oasis of Farmer control; Carol Nussbaum and Barbara Blacker, who filled my requests for double and triple portions of chicken and rice soup at overnight controls over and over; ever-present Dan Turner and Matt Dalton in their sag truck; Terry William’s always cheerful acknowledgement of your presence in the midst of the hard ride; Jon Muellner’s friendship and care at Mazama control and his personal sharing of his PBP hors delai experience; Amy Pieper and Lesli Larson’s kind and encouraging e-mails when they found out I didn’t finish the ride within time limit; Kristie Salinger, who comforted me at the finishline and took care of my bodily needs, once again this year; Don Boothby, who showed up proudly with flowers at the finishline, telling me that I’m a finisher still; and Steve, who was sad on my behalf, that I couldn’t finish the ride within the official time limit, though he didn’t care at all if he finished his own permanent on time. And the encouraging e-mails and voicemails from friends and family, who were rooting for me on this journey and love me no matter what.
In doing rides like Cascade 1200, I’ve always said that I wanted to honor the mountains that rise high, right in my backyard. These mountains signal a home for me, a transplant, who never set her root down, until moving to live under their shadows. They were never meant to be conquered. Having the opportunity to ride through every inch of the route and experiencing the undulating terrain, its fearsome beauty, and its quiet peace has been an honor. I am coming away somewhat broken, with a limp, and a souvenir of the unbucklable, left cycling shoe, which Steve helped wrench out of my foot the morning of Finisher’s Breakfast. That is my unofficial finisher’s medal, symbolic of my journey on Cascade 1200 and the memories of places I’ve seen and the stories of riders and volunteers I’ve connected with.
Is there a rando way, in the midst of randonneuring rides that stretches you to your limits, thus resembling life that also stretches us to our limits? Absolutely, but it’s a gem that must be striven for, like the ideals of zen in the midst of urban life, or the ideals of liberty and justice for all in our governments. And I’d say, I’ve been the recipient of more than my share of it, amongst this group.
