final push...

see ya in kansas...

tk

wknd...

saturday: headed out at 6, ran into the saturday gravel group & joined them down to cortland. they stopped & i pushed on circumnavigating clatonia & wilber before hotfooting it back to lincoln. i had chores to do.  below: sw 86 & bennet rd. my best guess is this used to be a mmr then they closed it down?  in iowa they would probably call it a c rd. i rode it once from the other direction, very wooly.  i had multiple goat heads in my tires that day, rather than pull them out i hammered it back to lincoln before my tires went flat.  somehow i made it...

sunday: we got a good rainstorm saturday night & i think they got even more up by BO.  area 7 was way to greasy to ride in the morn so we headed out on some dub-g.  never noticed this sign before.  this has g-dub potential...

 soft, damp gravel into a stiff nw on 29er's with low tire pressure is a lot of work, need more air...

 rack repair...

sunday eve:  back at BO7, this time with the family.  solar eclipse time.  below: shilo hears the call of the wild, actually it was coyotes but she was definitely tuned in...

eclipse was sweet.  we stayed from first contact at 7:23 until just past maximum at 8:26.  my homemade solar filter got a b-, need a few mods before the venus transit in a couple of weeks...

tk

dk prep...

listen to the engine hum...

tk

preesh...

the texts, emails, cards, & comments were/are much appreciated. thank you all:)

tk

5-11-12...

tragedy has befallen our household.  shortly after midnight friday morning our youngest dog passed away. he died of complications from internal injuries suffered from a freak accident in our back yard.  he had run into a piece of fencing & punctured a lung.  thursday evening we rushed him to the vet, but a short 6 hours later he was gone.

i have gone back & forth a thousand times wondering if i should post this sad news. i try to keep this blog away from the truly personal side of our lives.  somehow i hope writing about it and letting people know how important he was to us will help with the healing.

his name was hudson, but had many nicknames that we affectionately directed in his direction. he came to us in january 2008 as a sub-three pound puppy. we had not planned on getting a 2nd dog but the situation arose & we took it.  the best decision we ever made.  we were told he was a dachsund & yorkie mix, but i guess we never really knew for sure.

both hudson & his older sister (our yellow lab shilo) were the center of our universe, together the four us made up our family.  nearly everything we do revolves around the dogs.  every day we discuss our schedules to ensure that they overlap and that they are always taken care of. they are there when you wake up in the morning, jumping out of their skin for breakfast, and there at night when the lights go out to end our day.

hudson was the loud one.  he was the one with the never ending storehouse of energy. he was always running, rarely walking.  he had a happy bark that he couldn't control.  he had the small dog syndrome for sure, thought he was bigger than he really was. shilo had amazing patience & tolerance for his energy, calmly putting up with his antics & endless torments.  

the silence at our house now is deafening, the energy he brought is noticeably gone.  everything i do has a dull pallor to it.  i know time has a way of healing sadness & i know somehow it will get easier to deal with but for now it really hurts. trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense.  he left us way too soon. the three us will carry on.

i can't believe he's gone & i so wish we could have him back.  we were so lucky to have had him in our lives. 

  

damn he was so small when we got him

he loved his sister & she loved him

tk

standby...

tnmc/bo7...

 

tk

winding it back up...

with the exception of my daily commute I hadn't "ridden" in a week.  planned on a ride sunday to get back in a routine but was thwarted by wet weather up north.  finally got out last night & it felt absolutely awesome to be out enjoying the countryside...

hey now...

tk

trans iowa final...

reset the computer last night, TI is officially behind me. my computer must have been off a tic, we backtracked a couple times but unsure how I clocked an extra 10ish?

like to see someone's garmin file (or whatever file) to view a course map. one of my favorite things about TI is the mystery of not having any clue where I am in Iowa until after it's all over...

and one more time...mark, thank you for everything you do to make this beast happen.

tk

trans iowa, plus 2...

ramble...

start at the beginning or the end?

what's one of the hardest parts of TI that people might not think about? here ya go...maybe you get a good night's sleep the eve before you leave for the race, maybe. then if your lucky you get to sleep by 9-9:30 the night before the race, maybe. then you get maybe 4-5 hours sleep before you get up at 2:00 am for the 4:00 am start.  you're already sleep deprived even before the horn honks. how do you train for that?

3 finger tips on my left hand & 2 toes are numb on my left foot.  last year I had numb fingertips for months.  just got used to it & eventually it must have just gone away.  my sit bone region...raw.  funny, the most nagging pre-race malady didn't bother me at all.

i don't like to list thank you's cuz someone always gets left out. mark, i will thank you for a beautiful course. all that volunteered their time, thank you. i saw some beautiful sights in the iowa countryside.  lush green landscapes. serene & curious bovine. dozens of canine greetings, none overtly intimidating.

this year was different than the previous in many ways.  i had just about talked myself out of going earlier in the week. the forecast had me spooked.  i'm getting too old to suffer that much, but i also knew if i didn't go & try i would never be able to live with myself.

as usual i carried way too much.  i have this fear of being cold & wet. why? because when i get cold & wet i shut down.  i wore one rain coat to the start line, only to switch to a lighter one right before the start & proceed to carry the first coat the whole trip.  i had rain pants, never wore 'em. i did have 2 pair of gloves which i actually switched between, one pair heavier than the other.

i ate a bagel with peanut butter & honey (brought it with me), a bag of swedish fish, 1 fruit smoothie power bar, 2 power bar triple threat's, 1/2 a hammer flask of montana huckleberry, a couple gu roctane's, probably 6-8 packets of gu chomps, a bag of chips & a dr. pepper in hedrick(sp), 2 (maybe 3 packs) of clif blocks (hard to open while riding by the way), 2 raspberry chocolate clif shots, a donut & coke & banana at cp 3 (thanks mg & jeremy).  when i unpacked when i got home i probably had nearly everything i just listed & more still in my bags uneaten.  eventually i just couldn't eat any more fruit or citrus flavored anything.  I didn't eat anything for probably the last 2-3 hours.  probably forgetting something, but you get the idea.

john gorilla asked me why SS this year? why not is the easy answer, but it came down to i had the eno hub gathering dust in the garage & had retired my legend ti's this year.  the simplicity of the SS was appealing.  hell, maybe the weight i shaved without gears justifies the unnecessary cargo i toted around.  well...maybe not. 42x18 was perfect. hard as hell many times but if you stayed on top it was a mountain goat.  the reward was being able to roll 21/22 on the flats when the situation presented itself.

unsure what happened to matt & travis to end their journey but that pair can grind.  enjoyed my moments with them.

rafal - don't let me watch 13 assassins again, that movie was effed up.

i thought melbourne was southeast of grinnell, i truly had no idea where i was nearly the whole ride.  i did know where i was in pella (sort of) & montezuma, but that was it.  everything else was just lefts & rights.  it got really ugly, condition-wise, from melbourne to the finish. i did drink a code-red from a street vending machine in melbourne, tasted great at 4 something in the morning.  not even sure if that was when it was.

i was thinking a 6 am finish was possible but had to modify that projection as the end just never seemed to come. wind, white rock, hills, & fatigue...lethal.

more later, maybe not...

tk