Matthew Lefthand has come a long way since starting his cycling journey three years ago. The marriage and family therapist set a record-breaking time when he crossed the finish line at Santa Rita Park in Durango on June 12 to finish Race Across the West.
Lefthand finished the 862-mile race, which started in Oceanside, California, in 1 day, 21 hours and 39 minutes. He averaged 18.9 miles per hour and finished at 11:48 a.m. on June 12.
“I feel great,” Lefthand said. “It was in the plans to go for the record, if the weather was good. If you wake up and feel good, it's a lot of variables to get everything together. Then, of course, there are lots of things out of your control, weather, for sure, if all the equipment is going to work right and everything. But I knew that on the right day and in the right conditions that it would be on the table for me.”
The previous Race Across the West record time was 1 day, 22 hours and 19 minutes, set in 2012 by Switzerland’s Dani Wyss. Not bad for Lefthand, considering he weighed 100 pounds more about five years ago.
Lefthand and his wife, Bailey, wanted to get into better shape after the birth of their first child in 2021. Lefthand got into running and eventually started running marathons. He qualified for the Boston Marathon before he got injured and took up cycling instead.
In 2022, Lefthand began cycling and realized it was his calling. He could go long distances and he trained really hard. Lefthand wanted to see how far he could take it and considered it a hobby.
Then, in August of 2024, Lefthand did his first Ultra cycling race and didn’t exactly nail it with his sleeping and nutrition. Regardless, Lefthand broke the course record by 6 hours.
“So then I thought, ‘Woah, I think that I'm really good at this,”’ Lefthand said. “So I really trained hard over the winter, and I've set a couple of other records, including some world records this year. Race Across the West was my big coming out into what's considered really an Ultra race. This is some of the cream of the crop racing around the whole world. I wanted to see if I could go against the big stuff and set a really cool record.”
Lefthand decided to do an early-year race after training went so well in the winter and he went to Sebring, Florida, in February to compete in the Bike Sebring 24-hour event. Lefthand completed the 3.6-mile loop 156 times for 576 miles in 24 hours, a feat only a few others in the world can say they’ve accomplished.
After that, he knew he was ready for Race Across the West.
The 32-year-old started the 862-mile race on June 10 and started well, despite the torrid conditions in the Anza-Borrego Desert in California. Lefthand was riding in the 115-degree heat. He had ice in his sleeves and was drinking as many cold drinks as he could. Once the sun set, Lefthand knew he had to push hard for 12 hours to get through that section of heat.
Once Lefthand made it through the desert and started climbing through Arizona, he knew the record was possible after getting a nice crosswind out of Flagstaff, Arizona, and then a nice headwind as he turned toward Tuba City, Arizona. He had 260 miles to go but Lefthand knew he could finish at the pace he wanted to.
Lefthand is half Navajo, so he loved riding the 100 miles of the course inside the reservation. Lefthand then finally made it into Colorado and could sense the finish closing in.
“I live here in Utah so, I'm used to the mountains,” Lefthand said. “So when we got through Sedona and hit Flagstaff, and it was pine trees again and mountains, I was super happy. Then, when we hit Cortez and started climbing out of Cortez, that it's the last climb and … that climb from Cortez to Durango isn't necessarily straightforward; you go up and down several times.”
Despite feeling like it was a brutal finish to be going up and down like that for 40 miles, Lefthand wanted to get it done. He pushed himself through the climbs and then realized he was home free to the finish.
“I just felt this overwhelming, ‘Wow, we did it,”’ Lefthand said. “Immediately, I started thinking of the people that made it possible … I was just like thinking about how thankful I was for them and how deep they had gone for me. So I rolled into Durango and made a short little video as I rolled up toward the finish line. I was kind of in shock and disbelief. It felt like living a dream, for sure.”
Lefthand’s accomplishment couldn’t have been possible without his support team. He had a support crew with a van who drove with him, handed him nutrition and took care of him. His wife stayed up with him, making sure he was fed and had plenty of sunscreen for those incredible temperatures.
While Lefthand’s accomplishment is incredible, it’s even more stunning that he did it on 50 minutes of sleep; he only spent 95 minutes not peddling. There was a section of about 20 miles in Arizona where riders had to get off their bikes and get into a vehicle because it wasn’t safe for them to be riding with how congested the traffic was. That 20-mile stretch was the only time Lefthand slept.
Lefthand dedicated all of his performances this season to his mother, ArLene Mitchell Johnson, who was in Durango to see Lefthand finish. Mitchell Johnson is battling Stage 3 breast cancer. Lefthand has set up a GoFundMe to help support her treatment.
Behind Lefthand, Marko Baloh finished second as a solo rider in 2 days, seven hours and six minutes. Michael Spadaccia finished as the third-best solo rider in 2 days, 22 hours and 40 minutes.
“Everything went very smoothly,” Race Across the West Race Director Jeff Magnuson said. “You always have a handful of people who don't finish for one reason or another. The heat was pretty brutal out in the Southern California desert and in Arizona and that usually contributes to that.”
Going forward, Maguson would love to see more riders from Durango participating in the race.
“There's something interesting and kind of unique about going out to California and riding your bike home,” Magnuson said.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
