Pie & Cornfields....Mission Accomplished

Another RAGBRAI is in the books!  Thanks for waiting for the final day installment, but we were dead tired yesterday!

We forgot to tell you Friday night that we did a triathlon on Friday.  We biked (obviously), we swam at the pool, and we ran to catch the shuttle!  Never stop training! Friday night was the warmest night of sleeping we had...Stacey didn't even need the Jesus robe!  We were up early again to get ready to embark on the last day of the journey this year and the sunrise over camp was beautiful! It was a little bitter sweet because we felt like we just got started!  We were packed and on the road riding by 6:37....and we made it on truck B!  VICTORY!!

As we left Coralville, we winded through Iowa City and took a cycling tour of the University of Iowa campus.  We could have had a much more direct route, but they wanted us to see all the sights...and of course one big hill by the old capital building.  It was up this hill that two guys with "Don't Mess with Texas" jerseys decided that they would draft off Dorice as she climbed up the hill....well these boys couldn't hang and she dropped them like a hot potato!  A little while later they went flying by her, and so on the next hill she just flew by them again to prove a point!  Maybe they should have been wearing "don't mess with Dorice" jerseys!  Since we had only been on the road about 4 miles we decided to skip breakfast in Iowa City and wait til the next town....this would soon prove to be a not great decision.

As we rolled into West Liberty we asked the volunteer where a good spot would be to grab breakfast, he told us that the local church was serving eggs & stuff so we decided to give it a whirl. We made our way to the church, paid for our breakfast and as we were about 4-5 deep in the line to get served a gentleman announced that they may run out of food before they could serve all of us who were in there...well sure enough they did, so we got on money back and headed back towards to vendors to find some food which we needed bad since we were about 27 miles into our ride at this point. We went in line to grab a breakfast burrito only to come to the realization that they weren't breakfast burritos but just regular burritos. At this point we were so hungry that we just went with it and had a beef burrito and beef gordita and rolled out of town. Now we had some great tailwinds and a mainly flat ride so we hooked on the back of a pace line and were flying. We were going a consistent 20-22 mph and feeling effortless. The trick here is that we sneak in behind some tall person, Stacey tucks right in and then Dorice behind her so most of the time all the cyclist in front sees is Dorice and it doesn't look much like drafting at all. We planned to keep on this draft line but as we rolled into town our lead drafters were making a beer stop and we had decided to keep rolling through.  

 

We continued to use the draft and tailwinds to our advantage and decided that in the next town we would stop and search for some pie. We saw some members of team cow on a tandem fat wheel bike and they were moving....it was impressive!  They play great music so we tried to stay with them for as long as we could, but they stopped at the craft beer tent, so we lost our tunes.  We were starting to see a pattern here...we lose tunes and draft lines for beer!  It had been pretty overcast and cool up to this point, but the sun was starting to come out and we could tell it was going to get toasty. As we approached Wilton, we started seeing signs for the petting zoo sponsored by the FFA.  I challenged Stacey to pet a cow since she chickened out last year.  I mean it's just a cow...they are harmless!  Especially some little FFA members cow!  We got to the petting zoo and they had sheep, goats, dairy cows, chickens, and piglets.  Stacey petted a sheep right away...and seemed to be shocked at how soft it was.

Then I saw it...they were letting people milk the cow....this is awesome....I'm going to make Stacey milk a real cow! The cow she milked earlier in the week was a fake cow...she was practiced and ready for the real deal.  As we approached the cow, another rider was milking it and some other riders were hugging the other cow and taking selfies.  Stacey looks at me and says, "I'm not ready we need to come back." So we looked at the goats and I petted the baby calf and then back we went.  Her time had come...she was going to milk a cow!  She got in there and milked it just a few times, but the girl did proclaim her a pro cow milker...due to her practice earlier in the week for sure! We have video so we'll try to add it here!  Stacey would not hold the piglet because he started squealing like piglets do, so we left.  For the record....Stacey still hasn't actually pet a cow!  Next year it's on!

We rounded the corner into Wilton and bam pie stand right there. We parked our bikes grabbed some pie (#6 for Dorice....homemade peach...the first time I had to have the same kind).

Shortly after we finished our pie the stand had sold out. We asked the woman how many pies she baked and she told us 100 pies and they sold out in about 2.5 hours and we were some of the earlier people to arrive in town! So for those of you who think I'm crazy about this pie thing....several others are as well!  Wilton is the first town I've ever encountered on RAGBRAI that had volunteers outside the porta potties making sure the seats were clean and that they had adequate toilet paper...what was this...the Hilton?  Luxury service for sure! On our way out of town as we filled our water bottles we noticed that they were giving out cooling neck towels that we could ride on with...awesome! 

We had some more tailwinds and great riding as we approached Walcott...the final town before the end in Davenport.  As we rolled into town all of the festivities were going on at the town park and in the middle was a little league all-star game.  These girls probably no older than 5-6 had never played for crowds like this before.  All the riders were cheering them on and enjoying the game.  The game was a high scoring affair with a final score 26-25!  As one rider form DC said, "If George Washington were here, he'd be proud...this is America!"  Now at this point it was HOT! It was at this point that Stacey had wished she had packed some salt tabs but to substitute for that she got a pickle on a stick and a bag of chips...no one wants to cramp on RAGBRAI!

 Dorice also got a pickle on a stick and yes folks pie piece #7 (blueberry pie and it was this place's last pie of blueberry....winning!).

We also decided that a cold Gatorade was in order...did we mention it was HOT out?!?! As we rolled out of Walcott Dorice noticed a person wearing a Central Jersey and yelled "Go Dutch" and rode up the road a bit chatting with Matt and Anne Oliver, people she went to college with....before this happened we were trying to decide if we needed to fill our bottles for the last stretch so I still had my cleat covers on so I had to catch up to Dorice...the good thing is that you really can't get lost on RAGBRAI. 

We have figured out that we are really good at making our last miles of the day take longer since we find many fun things to stop and do along the way. While Dorice managed to accomplish eating 7 pieces of pie, about 5 miles outside of our ending town I accomplished the task of peeing in a cornfield.  This is a RAGBRAI thing and in general I'm beginning to think maybe it's a Midwest thing overall. It is freaking hot in a cornfield!

As we were making our way to the dip site taking in our final miles of the ride we spot a slip and slide and had to stop...we were waiting to find a good one of these...we took a slide (not our best performances), had a few laughs, and went on our way. These people were awesome. They had a full spread of food out and a mini beer truck in their driveway to share with the riders....just super nice. We got to enjoy some nice up hills to finish out our ride. When we got to the dip site we were unsure if we were going to dip there or the 7 miles down the road where we would retrieve our bags and get picked up. We decided to dip there and continue on our way...this is where the bonus miles started as they made us ride around the entire island-which felt like it took forever! We took our ceremonial dipping pictures (Stacey was photographed by a local paper and was told she'd be on the front page) and continued on to our final destination. We were told to hop on the bike path and it would take us to Isle of Capri to get our bags. Well minor detail was that they weren't letting the cyclist on the bike path. So we told the volunteers who stopped us that we would need some help then finding our way there....I would say that they gave us general directions but not great ones. Luckily we were able to pick up the bike path further down and get to our final spot. It was another RAGBRAI ride in the books!  We completed a hot 78 miles today and 220 miles for the three days we rode!

Three days of RAGBRAI was better then no days of RAGBRAI. It was great to see some of our buddies from last year we even got to see Larry and Roger at the bag pick up one last time for RAGBRAI 2015. We changed out of our sweaty cycling clothes, packed up our stuff and headed back to the farm. 

So how did we do on our burning RAGBRAI questions:

-Dorice reached her goal of eating 7 pieces of pie only having one flavor (peach) twice

-We saw Mr Porkchop later in the day and he was as awesome as we remember also note it was another rainy Friday that Mr Porkchop made us feel better about life

-We saw 6 of our RAGBRAI friends from last year

-We did not run into the Noblesville creeper

-We only ate dinner at one church and had breakfast at another church so our best church meal award goes to the Church in Hudson....$3 pancakes and sausage breakfast..well done!

-On the hilly day our legs weren't super happy but I think that would've been true on any day even if these weren't our "recovery rides"

-It took Stacey until 5 miles outside the ending town to pee in a cornfield

-Dorice rode a rubber duck in a pool and Stacey milked a cow.....we also did a ton of other really fun things that you have read about.

We also promised a farm camp update for Gabby.  She really loves farm camp!  Everyday she goes with Marv and Bria to the big pasture to check the cows, and they run in the pasture.  Gabby isn't real afraid of the cows, so she'll run right up to them.  Some cows aren't fond of this tactic, so they start to charge her....well then she retreats to hiding under the truck!  I think she's learning who she can come up to and who not to bother.  Gabby hates being hot and hates being in the sun, but mom said that she will sit in the sun to watch the cows if they are up close to the fence by the garden...she loves cows!  This is the first trip to the farm where Gabby has been able to actually help with chores.  Marv is trusting her more around the cows and Gabby just loves it.  She helps moves the cows from the pasture to the feed lot every night.  She has improved on her herding abilities in just the few days she's been here.  Because it was so hot yesterday Gabby and Bria got to go swimming.  Now Bria loves splashing and laying in her pool, but Gabby just likes standing in it to cool her paws.  She isn't one for splashing, but still enjoys the refreshing days at camp.  She's going to be really sad when farm camp is over.  She loves the farm so much.

Thanks for following our 2015 RAGBRAI adventure....we hope that some of you will join us on the ride in 2016! We have videos to add to the blog...but they take forever to load.  We'll just post those to facebook! 

Boob Deep

So you are probably wondering about the name of the blog...we'll get to that later. So before we talk about the ride today let's talk about all of our snoring neighbors (multiple tents trying to serenade us with their snoring) last night...we made note not to set up camp by them ever again! It was an early wake up this morning as the tent behind me was up at 4:22AM getting ready to roll out...it's a dad & he had his 2 sons with him (ages 7&8) so you can imagine their energy as they were running around the campsite at that time... I for sure wasn't functioning but was up at that point. They rolled out of camp around 5:45 AM just in time for me to get ready to become functional. We actually rolled out of camp at 6:45 this morning & still were on truck C...oh well we're cool with it! 

So that one big hill that we told you about last night well we made it up many hills but never found this long flat stretch that we were told of...really just a preview of the hills that we would face ALL DAY LONG! Ride started off well with some cloud cover & nice temps, we stopped in the first town for a morning snack we had kolaches (a Norwegian pastry) they were a solid choice & super fresh & only a buck! We then peddled onto Springville where we had breakfast again a RAGBRAI favorite PANCAKES & sausage at the American Legion...these men know their way around a griddle! We then headed down the street to the church to get Dorice pie slice #4....homemade cherry...not pie filling out of a can cherry!

We hung around here for awhile as Dorice's parents were going to meet us in the next town & since we were cruising along today (as true beasts do) the only way to slow us down was to keep us from moving. 

When we got into Mt. Vernon is was PACKED!  The town itself is super hilly so it's hard to navigate 15,000 cyclists through the narrow streets. Today was college jersey day, so I was wearing my Central College jersey with pride. I had a guy stop me because he was taking pictures of all the jerseys and he didn't have a Central one!  You're welcome random guy!!  My parents met us here and we found them relatively quickly despite the chaos!  We talked to them for awhile and then headed into the chaos a bit more. I had arranged to meet up at a family friends house about a mile south of town off the route so Stacey and I rode there and my parents met us there. We got to Bill & Donna's right as it started sprinkling....perfect timing!!  They have a large community share garden so they showed us around and we escaped the rain for a bit. It wasn't raining real hard so that was good. After talking with them and getting some zip loc bags to reinforce our cell phones we decided to head out since it didn't look like the rain was stopping any time soon. Yes folks...we had another Friday on RAGBRAI in the rain. It wasn't as cold as last year and it wasn't torrential downpour like last year...yay!  However, we did not have our rain gear like last year because there was no chance of rain when we left in the morning....BOOOOOO....our rain jackets were in the truck...bummer!  

Now the rain wasn't horrible, but the wind was straight up headwind and it was pelting the rain into our faces. At one point we wondered if it was hail because it hurt so bad. We had committed to eating Mr. Porkchop today so we knew we just had to make it to him which should only be about 5 miles or so. We had some decent inclines into this wind and then there is was a glorious steep downhill. This is a hill where I should have been going about 30 mph, but with the glorious headwind I was pedaling and struggling. I looked at my speedometer and saw 21...then 20...then 19 mph while pedaling downhill....this wind was no joke. And it was keeping us from Mr. Porkchop!  And then we saw it....the smoke rolling from the next hill...he was in sight!!!  Hallelujah!  Of course then we also saw a huge lighting bolt in the distance...perfect timing!!!

Mr. Porkchop did not disappoint, we enjoyed our porkchop in one of the sheds on the property that Mr. Porkchop was located at.

Well since the wind was brutal & the hills were not playing nice we decided to have a Thelma ice cream sandwich now these things are awesome..fresh baked cookies with great ice cream so many fantastic flavor combinations it's a struggle to choose. After we had ice cream sandwiches we decided to hit the road again. It was not really raining anymore at this point but man that freaking headwind was killer. We continued pushing along. We didn't have many great photo ops today or fun activities to do besides ride our bikes of course but we did take a picture with the hawkeye dogs (we'll post that picture at a later time) after this town it was just about 20 miles out from camp but we had a lot of fun in those last 20 miles! 

Did I mention that we had a lot of hills today?!? The last 20 miles had a few hills that I think there were more people walking their bikes up then riding. For our triathlon training buddies...these hills were cousins to the Madison three sisters....not kidding!  They were tough!!! Our first stop on the final 20 mile "tour" was the craft beer tent where we ran into our buddies Roger & Larry, there was a band playing & it was just a great spot to enjoy. At this point the sun was out and it was a great view on top of the hill. There was a band playing and the female singer was awesome!  All the guys Around us were thinking she was about 35+ years old, but we knew she was in mid to late twenties. The guys wanted to bet, so we all get a dollar on her age. Roger being the gentleman that he's is marched right up to her and asked her how old she was...and she wasn't too pleased but we did finally find out she was 28. Winner winner Dorice won the bet in guessing 28!!!  Sorry boys!  We all decided that we needed to head for camp, so we took off and decided that the girls would try to beat the boys to camp.  Well that's all fine and good but Stacey had a little issue. I took off and heard her say she was on the road, but about a half mile down I can't find her. She finally comes and says..." I cant clip in to my pedals...either one". Now Stacey bought cleat covers for when we had to walk around, so I said do you still have the covers on?  Well yes folks...she did...HILLARIOUS!  We busted out laughing because only Stacey would try to keep clipping in with her covers on!!! We stopped at the perfect point though as they were handing out free ice pops...we took our ice pops and rode on. 

Our next stop on the 20 miles of fun tour lead us to meet Dan Gable & take a picture we him..he was super nice & you can tell that he is just a badass...if you don't know who he is you need to learn about him #respect!

We then continued to get hammered by hills to only then come upon the dam it was at this point that we supposedly had about 5 miles to the end town...5 never equals 5 in RAGBRAI miles. We stopped took a few pictures & then peddled on to put another day of riding into the books. 

As we rolled into town we were greeted by a red carpet the bad thing about this is that we were still some miles away from our campsite. We back tracked a little bit to find the signs to our campsite which seemed like it took forever to find today. We rolled into camp after completing 70 miles at our latest time ever not because we rode slow (it was actually some of our hardest and fastest riding ever on RAGBRAI) but because we had many fun stops especially towards the end. 

So our shower tonight consisted of swimming in a pool, going down a water slide(with a lot of speed), and doing a cannon ball off of the diving board. We washed our face & threw some conditioner in our hair post "shower swim" in the outside shower but that was about the extent of that & we are perfectly fine with it. The showers in the pool had super long lines and it was about a billion degrees inside...not worth it! So it's at the pool where the blog title comes from...as we were moving from the shallow end to the deep end I asked Dorice how deep the water was..her response "boob deep" my next question " how tall are your boobs?" We had a good laugh on that one....for the record Stacey can stand in "boob deep" water!!

We then headed downtown to grab some dinner but before getting on the shuttle Dorice had to grab pie #5. Apple pie from the Masons. 

Dinner was nothing special we grabbed a burger at the Backpocket Brewery then came back to camp. We got off the shuttle and grabbed another one of the awesome Thelma cookie ice cream sandwiches before calling it a night! 

One more day of riding to go...bittersweet for sure but today kick our tails a little bit! Until tomorrow...over and out! 

If You're Going to be Jesus, Be Jesus!

Last night after dinner we sat around our campsite & met some new people along with getting to see our friend Ralph from last year.  Lauren is a first timer on RAGBRAI who is here on this journey solo. Lauren is currently looking for a job but also interested in triathlons. Ken & Kathy are a hysterical couple, Ken rides his pace & Kathy  goes at her own pace & sends Ken photo updates of where she is although her selfie skills are lacking as her one only included her forehead. They are not a couple you would expect to be together but it works for them!!

As it was time to head to our tents I was debating whether or not I was going zip and button my blanket as I debated this Dorice says "If you're going to be Jesus, be Jesus"...as we dubbed that blanket in Grad school as my Jesus robe. The Jesus robe is significantly warmer than the snuggie I used last year!  We were able to hear the concert from our tents which was a bonus. 

We decided to hit the road at 7 this morning like we did last year but learned that we were the late kids getting out of our camping site so maybe we'll shoot for an earlier departure tomorrow. We had to use Van C for our stuff and last year we were almost always in A...true slacker status this year. We also realized that our departure time got us riding with some of the slower people...it was a bit of a struggle to change our racing mindset to a RAGBRAI mindset!

We rolled up to the first town and were a little skeptical because we heard that our favorite pancake vendor from last year wasn't in the ride. We rolled into Hudson to find that all the churches banded together to serve a pancake breakfast!  WINNING!  We got three pancakes and 2 sausages for $3.....it was like we were stealing. They also served pie so I had piece #2..berry pie...all before 8 am! We were off to a great start for sure!  

We did a few fun other photo ops throughout the day...they may have involved milking a cow, riding an inflatable duck, being in the movie Up, and Stacey getting a pirate tattoo. We also played Human foosball!  All in all it was a great day!  

As we rode into Vinton I saw some of the members of Team Pie Hunter....they are easy to spot as they wear big slices of pie on their helmets!  I knew a guy from my hometown was on their team, and low and behold it was him. We talked for several miles and then parted ways!  Eric Schulz it was great talking to you!!!  We were set on having a steak from the Cattlemans tent in Vinton but they ran out right as we got there...bummer. We settled for a pulled pork sandwich and Philly cheesesteak....not bad second choices at all!

We continued on our ride & it was starting to get hot...so at the last town stop before our final town we went in the splash park...you knew it had to be hot if Stacey was willing to take off her socks & put the same pair back on to finish the ride. After the splash park we only had about 7 miles of riding to our overnight town as we rolled into Hiawatha they were handing out freeze pops...AWESOME! We tooled around until we found our signs leading us to our  campsite. We got in set up our tents & then checked out the shower scoop. We decided on the shower option at the assisted living center across from our campsite as it sounded better then just using a hose. Having caramel popcorn helps the wait in the shower line as well as some of the entertaining people who are waiting with us. Some of the men in the line were lamenting at how cold the showers have been in past towns...and one of the women said "really I've had all warm showers!"  Us women never have to wait!  She then went on to tell the guys that she highly recommends that they do RAGBRAI next year as a woman!  That got a few laughs!!

A few of our favorite signs from today:

-Pedal faster....like you're in a hurry...everyone in spandex...looks better blurry

-When you find your hottie...we won't tell that you met them on RAGBRAI...while waiting for a porta pottie

We covered 72 miles today, and overall we're feeling good. Riding my road bike is way different than my Tri bike....I'm longing for my aero bars!  I'm also realizing I should have done a bike fit with Travis for my road bike too!  Hahaha  Today's ride had some more hills in it than everyone was expecting but they weren't too bad. I'd say we spent most of the up hills passing people...true beast mode!!  The weather was nice today...but got hot after awhile. Temp was upper 80s with a light breeze most of the time!

So for dinner we veered from our usual church hunt & had dinner at the assisted living place we had beef & noodles, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, a dinner roll & pie (for those that are keeping track Dorice is at 3 pieces of pie) & ice cream....getting vegetables with your RAGBRAI dinner is always a bonus! We ate with our friend Ken from last night....unfortunately Kathy his wife didn't make it into town so she was going to catch a ride with some group!  They are quite the pair!

After dinner we headed to the expo downtown. My friend Laura Bakewell's brother is a fire chief here in Hiawatha so we went to try to find him. We had a nice chat with him and he informed us that early in tomorrow's ride we will have one huge hill....really looking forward to that! We took a picture together to prove to Laura that we saw each other and then we were on our way!  We listened to some of the music downtown and watched kids and adults play in the splash pad!  We then headed back to camp to fill our bottles, charge our phones, and talk with our friends. Larry and Roger are always entertaining for us!

Winner Winner Spaghetti Dinner

The day has finally arrived that we are in camp with our group QCBC. As we set up camp we eagerly awaited the arrival of some of our friends from last year...not knowing which ones we may see.  We found a familiar face or two show up & as we ventured out from camp we met some folks from Indiana. Jon had on a Toughman Indiana shirt on so we had to stop & talk with him. We found out that him & his wife Rochelle live in Pendleton IN & this is their 1st RAGBRAI. Rochelle works at CIO in Anderson so we know a lot of similar people from my days in Anderson. Such a small world!  They are with a group of people that are from Indiana and many of them volunteer/work for 'Back on My Feet' in Indianapolis. They all are first timers so it was fun to talk to them about their experiences so far. 

After we met our new friends we ventured over to check out things out at the main stage and vendor area. Everything was set up on the other side of the UNI dome and Wellness Center on UNI's campus. I'm pretty sure that if we would have ridden today we would have used the opportunity to shower and use the indoor pool/water slide there. Instead we just like around at the facilities and ended up running into the Troy Garrett the athletic trainer at UNI...he was manning the shower queue so he couldn't show us the AT facilities. We headed out to the vendors to check out the tshirts, and we were able to find clear covers for Stacey so she didn't have to walk around in and ruin her cleats!  BONUS!!

After checking out the vendors we headed back to camp. Dorice took our water bottles back over to the wellness center to fill them up while I enjoyed a quick nap. We then decided it was time to head out for dinner. Only 2 church choices tonight one that was serving pony & the other serving all you can eat spaghetti...clearly we went with the spaghetti..really who serves pony?!? Now we took our chances as this was a Lutheran church and if you remember from last year they set us up for disappointment a lot. Well folks they pulled through...not only did we have spaghetti but Dorice quickly spotted that they had pie for dessert & they gave all RAGBRAI riders a bag of trail mix...bonus! 

Not only did they have pie but as Dorice would say they had the elusive strawberry rhubarb pie that she always tries to find..clearly this place won her stomach. So thumbs up all around for this dinner & Dorice's pie count is officially at 1...hopefully finding the elusive strawberry rhubarb on night one is a good sign for the week's pie consumption. 

After dinner we headed back to camp and walked through the college bar area. Two guys in their mid 50s were playing Rock Paper Scissors to determine who had to finish the laundry and who had to get more beer....but they never decided which of those tasks was the "winning" task. These are the dilemmas people face on RAGBRAI. We saw just a single cot set up in our camp site and we can only assume that our friend Bob from last year is again sleeping under the stars. While Bob may have slimmed down a bit from last year he still has not applied any sunscreen as he is pretty crispy already!  As we got back to our tents we spotted it....what we think is Roger and Larry's tent!! Roger and Larry provided us endless entertainment last year, so we were excited that it could be them!  We walked by their tent...read that as "stalked" their tent...to see if we could determine it was them. Now we're not sure but the was a pillow with a flower pillow case on it so we're 90% confident that is Larry's....I mean the guy talked about his PJs all the time last year!!  We may camp outside their tent until they return!!

We are exhausted...it's 6pm and we didn't even ride today. I'm not sure we're going to make it to the Hairball concert tonight....what a shame!  With any luck we'll be able to hear it from our tent!  And if we can't hear the concert we do have the guys in the tent next to us who are singing...yet another bonus!

One of the burning questions Stacey left off last night was:

How long will it take for Stacey to finally take the plunge and pee in a cornfield?

The tent we "stalked" was that of Roger & Larry.  It was mutual happiness when we saw each other...they told us they were nervous that we didn't come back or that maybe we joined another club...they excused us for missing the first few days. We caught up a little bit & then the boys headed off for dinner but not before Larry gave us his food report for the day & a piece of candy from Canada. 

Just Get Me There Already!!!!!

It's the eve before we leave for RAGBRAI & the excitement is building! We've read different stories from the first few days of RAGBRAI & it has gotten us pumped & ready to go! After some strategic investigation we have found that our buddy Roger from last year is doing RAGBRAI again & we hope that Larry is along for the ride too! We have some of must have foods for RAGBRAI on our radar & I'm sure we will have some awesome new finds. After going BEASTMODE on our 70.3 races we are looking forward to these fun miles...I mean what better way to recover from a half ironman then ride your bike for about 70 miles a day (at least we don't have to swim before or run after our daily ride) so bonus there. 

So a few things that we wait to see on this RAGBRAI adventure....

Will Dorice manage to eat her 7 pieces of pie in just 3 days? 

How many of our RAGBRAI friends will we see again?

Will we run into the Noblesville creeper? 

Will we run into Mr Porkchop at 8 in the morning or a little later on day 1 of riding?

What church will get our vote for the best dinner? 

How often & how bad will our legs curse at us for doing this? 

What new & awesome adventures will we encounter this year? 

Return to RAGBRAI

Dear Faithful Adventures on RAGBRAI Readers,

It's the eve of the start of RAGBRAI and it seems a bit weird to not already be in Souix City getting ready to start the ride for the week.  As many of you know Stacey and I have been training for a half ironman all summer.  I completed my 70.3 miles last week and Stacey is set to complete hers tomorrow in Racine, WI.  Since we need to check 70.3 off the list first, we will be missing the start of RAGBRAI this year.  Fear not though...we couldn't miss the whole RAGBRAI, so we'll be joining up with the QCBC again this year in Cedar Falls on Wednesday and riding the last three days.  We couldn't miss the whole ride.  Now Stacey may be a little more sore for the ride, but I was feeling pretty good after my 70.3, so she should be fine!  We just had way too much fun last year to miss out.  We've told several people that we were riding RAGBRAI again, and almost always the next follow up question has been...."are you going to blog again, I loved reading your blog!"  So here it is....the blog is back!

We have put in far lass miles on our bikes this year than we did last year, but are in way better physical condition.  It's funny what your body can tolerate and withstand.  We both know we are fully capable of riding and doing the distance of RAGBRAI...what we may not be ready for is the day after day of time in the saddle.  In other words...is my butt ready for back to back to back days of long rides?  Guess we'll find out!  Now our triathlon coach does not think that doing RAGBRAI is a good idea so close to completing our half IMs, but we're stubborn and probably stupid, so we're doing it anyway. We will never admit to him if he was right...nor will we post it in this blog!  I guess next Saturday we'll know!

Even though our 70.3s have consumed our summer we also have a lot of anticipation for RAGBRAI.  We wonder how many of our friends from last year will be on the ride again, what the weather will be like, etc.  We've dreamed about Mr. Pork Chop, and pancakes for breakfast, about eating watermelon while riding, and pie...I plan on eating my weeks worth of pie in just the three days of riding!

After Stacey dominates tomorrow's race, we will head to Miles, IA on Monday.  We'll have a rest day on Tuesday and then head out to meet up with the ride on Wednesday.  Gabby (my dog) has already started at farm camp and is loving life.  We'll try to post some of her adventures as well! Get excited faithful readers...our blog is back.  But for now we need to take care of business tomorrow!  Welcome back former blog readers and to any new readers we've picked up, go back and read some of our posts from last year...they are pretty funny!

Over and out for now...DORICE

P.S.....those of you that read our updates last year....remember Stacy's tooth issue?  She still hasn't gotten it fixed....a YEAR later!

A pic from our first triathlon of the year!