Randy Ericksen; The Creative Pro
By anyone’s standards, Randy is a professional. He has been involved in professional bicycle racing since 1980 and has completed 50-60 triathlons, won the 24-hour World’s Mountain Trail Biking competition in his age division in 2002 at Silver Mountain, British Columbia. There were competitors from throughout the world. He finished the longest distance in his division in a 24-hour period, 260 miles. He figures he did 27,000 feet of climbing during that “longest day.” Randy self-effacingly calls himself “just a leatherman or just a carpenter.” Anyone who has visited Randy and Paulette’s beautiful home in the pines of the Black Hills immediately knows that Randy is also a very professional carpenter and interior designer.
He has no formal training beyond a two-hour course in how to construct stairs. However, he stated that his mom grew up in the construction industry and when he graduated from high school, it was time for him to “go to work.” He has been a master carpenter ever since, though he would probably never use that term. He currently works for Clark and Sons, who specialize in remodeling and customizing homes. “I’ll do anything,” he said. “Yesterday, I was taping and texturing early in the day and going through crawl spaces later.” He took much of 2000 off to build their beautiful home. He routinely put in 12-14 hour days, and they moved in July, 2000.
Randy and Paulette have long been members of the Black Hills Mountain Bike Association. He indicated this includes 50-70 bikers in the Black Hills region, who do both road races and mountain trails. I asked him if it was similar to BHRC. He responded, “No, it’s much more organized, complete with officers.” Captain “Sugarlips,” maybe you need to check them out. Quite frankly, Captain, I get the impression that both Randy and Paulette appreciate our much more laid-back “loose as a goose” BHRC operation.
Because he was involved in triathlons, Randy has always run. As that sport also requires swimming, he has always biked, run and swam. However, since he and Paulette have joined BHRC, he has been doing much more running than he previously had. For example, this past year, he estimates he probably did 5,000 miles of biking but now also has his running up to over 1,000. With the exception of the year he built their house and the immediate following year when he broke his knee, he has always run on the roads and, especially, the trails. Even as the knee was healing, he had a brace on it and would hike as much as he could. Last year he ran the Big Horns 50K in 5 hours, 58 minutes, or 11 minutes, 45 seconds per mile average over some of the most rugged running terrain in the U.S. He blitzed the last five miles in 38 minutes, or at an average 7:40 per mile clip. This past summer, he won the rugged Galena Trail Run, 7.5 miles in 54 minutes for an average of 7:12 per mile. However, his favorite run was the very grueling Breckenridge Marathon over Labor Day. The temperature was 22 degrees in a blizzard with 40 mph wind. The race was terminated for all but the lead runners. Randy was the only one of the BHRC group who finished. Later that month, he ran the Leadville Marathon at 13,200 feet and the next day did a 50-mile bike race at Breckenridge.
Like Paulette, he really enjoys the irreverent hashing. At last year’s BHHHH Valentine run, Randy, demonstrating that irreverent spirit, had a red heart attached to a rather important appendage. His hash name is “Stevie Gay Gone.”
Randy stated, “You have to be prepared for the ‘highs and
lows’ of outdoor competition. The year after I won my division
in the mountain trail competition, I had my worst ever and was bawling
like a kid at the end because I was so totally exhausted.”
When I quizzed him about Paulette’s perceptive of the difference
between their “noisy” and “quiet” lifestyles,
he heartily agreed. “My grandpa came from Denmark,” he replied.
His family apparently demonstrates the typical Scandinavian-American
stoicsm and limited verbalization. “By comparison, I found Paulette’s
family exhausting.” They are a very volatile group, love to tell
stories, argue and party all night long. “It soon got to the point
where I would have to excuse myself at 10:00 p.m. and go to bed as they
were just winding up.”
As a child, Randy worked in his folks’ boat company. They specialized in sailboats, and he remarked, “I like sailing, but I’m not much for water sports these days. I support Paulette’s kayaking, but it’s not for me. I like sports you can do out of your garage; i.e. either running or biking. I especially prefer the trail versions of both.”
He concluded the interview stating, “Paulette and I really like to just ‘go for it.’ This sometimes turns off especially our biking friends. We’ll tell them we’re going out for a two-hour ride and before we know it, it’s ended up four hours. People worry too much. People really need to push themselves and move on.”