Kansas is freaking beautiful. The people in Emporia (and surrounding towns) are freaking awesome. We rode our bikes for 207 miles in unforgiving gravel. We were on pace to finish in 16 hours but got waylaid due to a medical emergency, a storm, and a girl with a broken derailleur. We got rained on (a lot), we smiled (a lot), I rode everything except two very short sections (both due to deep churned up mud), my equipment was on point, our group of four stayed together the whole race, we met loads of awesome people, and we crossed the finish line together. BIG GRIN. If you want more detail, feel free to read the six part novel below!
Race Report!
Or... again, more like me rambling about this incredible experience. My apologies that events will probably be in the wrong order, but I will break it up to try and keep it as chronological as possible.
4:00 am:
After a somewhat restful night in an Emporia State University dorm room, my alarm blazes and I immediately am incredibly excited and terribly anxious. After six months of training, preparing, reading, talking, and looking forward to it, Dirty Kanza is here.
I was really glad that I got my bike prepared the night before so that all I needed to do was lube the chain and ride off into the sunrise. I got kitted up, put on a flannel shirt over my jersey, grabbed my phone, and headed towards the dining hall for breakfast.
The dining hall was fairly quiet as racers were trying to eat at 4:30 in the morning before a 200 mile race. I managed to eat a small amount of scrambled tofu and a bite of a biscuit before my nervous stomach said no more. I was really hoping I would be able to eat a bit more than that, but between the early hour and the pre-race nerves, I was happy with that.
I headed back towards the dorm to use the bathroom one last time and grab my hydration pack and bike. I was meeting the rest of the group at 5:30 near the start.
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| Team Bikenetic Paula Caro, Matt Holmes, myself |
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| The crew. Zach, Paula, Matt, myself, Maureen, and Laura |
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| We are at about the halfway point. SO many racers! And if you look closely, standing right smack in the center of the photo, is a Foxy Moxy racer! Hello whomever you are, hope you had a great race! |
I could hear the race director counting down the start. "3-2-1-GO!"
Sector One:
And just like that, everything that I had done over the past six months fell into place and I was racing the 2017 Dirty Kanza 200! The course finished loading by the time we crossed the train tracks headed out of town, so I immediately calmed down and was able to enjoy the amazing experience that is the start of the DK200.
I really wish I had gotten more photos of the start, but I was a bit focused on not dying right off the bat. The entire community came out for the start. People lined the street five deep for the first mile. It was absolutely amazing. I really can not describe how incredible the entire race experience was due to the community's support. I really hope that at some point everyone can go and see it for themselves. It truly is an awesome display of community, love, and support.
Laura, Maureen, Paula, and I had made the decision to stick together throughout the race to improve everyone's changes of finishing. We knew that it would be slower going together, but we trained together, prepared together, and wanted to experience it together.
But, that decision complicated our start a bit. We got a little spread out at the front, I suppose starting with 1,200 other racers will do that. Luckily, we were able to regroup pretty quickly and stare in awe at the string of cyclists making the first turn onto gravel. I am absolutely serious when I say that words can not describe the feeling that you get seeing a mile of cyclists strung out over a glorious, green landscape. I REALLY wish I had better picture taking skills while on the bike!
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| Here, use your imagination to envision all the cyclists! |
And we did spread out pretty quickly. Then the wide smooth gravel road turned into a more rugged double track type road with chunkier gravel. The whole time, I kept marveling at how amazingly beautiful this area of the country was. Even though it was cloudy, there was just SO much sky. The rolling hills in the distance looked straight out of a painting. There was ZERO pavement anywhere.
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| So much gravel, so much green, so much sky! |
While waiting for her to catch up, I took the time to snap a picture (see above photo). Again, I really wish I had taken more photos. We soft pedaled until Paula caught up, then pedaled on, keeping our promise to stick together. A couple of miles later, and my hydration pack started to bounce a little more than I expected it too. That is when I realized that I had apparently lost a little weight since my last training ride two weeks before. I hammered up a hill so that I could have a moment to stop and fix it without having to make the rest of the girls wait for me. In hindsight, I probably should have told them what I was doing, because Laura thought I was dropping them. (Sorry!) That fix solved the bounce problem and the pack became pretty much invisible after that, other than quenching my thirst, that is.
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| Just miles and miles of gravel bliss. |
On one of the rockier descents, Paula's bottle cages got knocked out of place. We stopped to have Laura fix it. Maureen took the opportunity to have the day's first nature break, and I took the opportunity to snap a photo. One thing that I think the other three ladies learned on this adventure is how to pee in the open. All three were a bit nervous about it. I have done endurance mountain bike rides and races before, so I have no problem peeing in the open. I know that especially during a race, no one is paying attention to you.
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| Nature/bolt tightening break. |
I got notifications that everyone else had made it to CP1 before we rolled in. Paula and I had opted to go with the support for hire option since neither of us had anyone willing to come down with us to run support. Laura and Maureen had Maureen's boyfriend Nathaniel to run support. Since I was worried about the logistics if something horrible happened and one of them had to abandon the race, Paula and I left our drop bags with the support for hire and just grabbed them at each check point before heading over to find Nathaniel.
At the check point, we all took a civilized nature break, got our chains lubed, refilled water, grabbed some salty snacks, told Nathaniel he was a rock star, and rolled out feeling pretty freaking amazing. Since my Garmin's screen was on the map, I had no idea what time it was or what our pace happened to be. I asked Laura what time it was and she advised it was 9:54. We had ridden to the check point, spent time there, and were rolling out before four hours of race time had passed. With all of the stopping that we did, that was amazing. If we could keep that up, we would finish before 16 hours!
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| Cows watching us go by. |
A few minutes after leaving the first check point, we came up on our first really sketchy section. There was a HUGE "mud" bog in the middle of this farm road. It was really soft and quite trampled by cows. We all slowed down and looked at it. I made a quick decision to commit to NOT riding it. So I got off, shouldered my bike, and walked through the muck. It was a pretty short section, but it was muddy enough for me to be incredibly glad that I was not running SPD pedals. Paula and Laura had some trouble clipping back in. Maureen and I were smart and running TIME pedals and were able to get back into our pedals quickly with no fuss.
A bit later we came upon another water crossing. I swear I saw the guy in front of us ride it, so I dumped my gears and barreled through it. It was smooth sailing until about halfway through when it suddenly dropped. Whoops! I pedaled through it, soaking both of my feet and my bottom bracket in the process. I was REALLY glad that the rest of the group slowed down to see what would happen when I rode through it. They all got off and walked. They are probably smarter than me.
Most of the sector was pretty rolling with a few steep kickers here and there. I was really happy with my gear choices and was able to ride everything. In fact, there were only two spots during the whole day that I had to get off my bike and walk something (see above and see Sector Three). A huge thank you must be said to Jan and Stearman at Bikenetic for getting my cassette replaced on the bike with a wider range one the day the bike shipped and for making sure it shifted butter smooth. That 11-36 in the rear made those Kansas kickers seem like nothing. That and all the training we did out in Loudoun County made the "long" climbs easy.
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| I think the cows got bored after seeing the 800 cyclists ahead of us. |
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| Those smiles never left our faces. |
As soon as we got to the bottom of the hill, we noticed a woman standing by her bike holding her arm. As soon as I saw her face, I knew she was not okay. She was by herself and put on an incredibly stoic face considering the amount of pain she had to be in. I stopped and assessed her mental condition since I was worried she had hit her head. Luckily, her head was fine and her name was Kate. She told me she thought she broke her humerus. I did a quick assessment and concluded that if it was broken it was at least not a compound fracture. There was little cell phone service where we were due to the terrain, so it took a few minutes to get a call in to the check point to ensure that someone was on their way to help get her to a hospital. I fashioned a sling for her out of a spare tube (back country training for the win!), gave her some sugary food to keep her blood sugar up, and made her drink water.
She was super grateful and kept telling us we could ride on. Obviously that was not an option since she was alone and it would be a bit before the Jeeps could get down to us to get her out. We started to chat and she asked us where we were from. Once we said Virginia, a light went off for her. Turns out, we met a friend of hers on our last training ride (see "Final Countdown")! Her friend and friend's boyfriend were at the Philomont General Store finishing up their first Loundoun gravel ride when we arrived two weeks before DK200. When we told them what we were training for, the woman said she had a friend doing it and to be on the look out for a girl named Kate from New Zealand. I had completely forgotten about the encounter until Kate said something. Super small world, eh?!
I wish I had gotten a photo with her, but another rider who had crashed there and was abandoning the race had gotten his support crew to come fetch him. He was on the next hill, since that was where the cell reception was. Apparently the riders that were coming through that had seen me working on Kate had told him that she was waiting on a Jeep to come get her. He and his crew were nice enough to get her bike to the Arts Center and give her a ride to the hospital. I was eternally grateful that she was able to get out quicker than I ever thought. In fact, we never even saw a Jeep coming down to get her, although they may have taken a different route.
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| Hey look! Trees! |
After we got Kate loaded up and on her way, we headed on towards CP2, which was about 14 miles away. It was pretty uneventful, but we did stop for some cooler water than what was in our bottles when some locals offered us some out of their cooler on the side of the road. There were a surprising amount of folks out on the course offering water and ice. Have I mentioned lately how amazingly awesome the folks in Kansas are?!
We were stopped with Kate for about 45 minutes or so, so I was surprised when we passed several people that had passed by when we were stopped with her. I guess we were still feeling pretty darn good for how hot and humid it was. I am not sure what time it was when we rolled into CP2, but we spent a little extra time there. I washed my face and refilled my hydration pack and bottles. Nathaniel was a rock star and lubed up my chain while I was shoving food in my face. Can I just say, never under estimate the power of cheese.
Sector Three:
As we rolled out of CP2, I knew 16 hours was no longer in the cards for us, which was fine. Stopping to help Kate was absolutely the right thing to do, and I am really glad I met her, it just kind of sucks that it was under those particular circumstances. But, at that point, we could still meet our 18 hour goal. In fact, if we hustled, we could probably be just over 17 hours.
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| These white flowers were everywhere and just gorgeous! |
Well, Mother Nature obliged in the worst possible way. The two storms on either side of us merged. There was lightning, thunder, and pouring rain. Unfortunately, there was almost ZERO wind. So the storm stayed on top of us for quite a while. It steadily rained for a good two hours. During those two hours, our pace slowed pretty dramatically. After one of the low water crossings, there was a hill that was relatively steep covered in churned up mud and chunky rocks. It was NOT rideable, at least not by me nor anyone I saw in the next twenty minutes.
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| Imagine those clouds becoming darker, more angry, and dumping several inches of rain on you. But it was still SO beautiful! |
After that, it was still raining pretty steadily, but we left the sticky mud behind. In front of us were roads that had pretty much turned into creeks. There were places that we were riding in 3-4 inches of muddy water. Because of the rain, I had opted to not take my phone out to take photos, so use your imagination. I had to take my glasses off because the mud splatter made seeing out of them quite difficult. But then I had mud getting flung into my eyes. It was a lose-lose situation. But we were still smiling!
Because of the heavy rain, the low water crossings had water in them. Most of them were fine, with only a couple of inches of water flowing across. But one of them had a few inches of water that was flowing fast across the concrete from left to right. The right side of the crossing was shallower, so I started riding on the right side. But the water was swifter than I was anticipating and I was concerned that it would push me off the bridge (there were no side rails since it was just a low water crossing). I shifted to the left and realized almost immediately that the entire bridge sloped downward to the left. I was immediately in over a foot of water. Luckily riding the ford on Jeb Stuart in Loudoun prepared me for this. I kept pedaling, kept upright, and even rode the hill after the crossing. Thanks Pete!
My poor bike.
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| Imagine this ranch gate was my bike, covered in mud, with a soggy bottom bracket. |
The detour only added 0.8 mile to the course, but due to the rain, we were a bit behind the schedule I had in my head. I was expecting to make it to CP3 around 7:00 in order to finish by midnight. We were still close to that goal, but I knew that having to pick up and install lights at CP3 was going to add a little extra time. The rain had let up and it was just sprinkling fairly lightly at this point and the creek-like roads had started to drain, so it was faster going.
At about mile 150, we caught up to another woman on a Warbird (the fancy-schmancy red one, with high end Shimano components - this is important in a minute). We leap frogged with her a couple of times up a hill that was not insignificant, especially with the muddy conditions. I was up front, Laura and the other girl were side by side behind me, and Maureen and Paula were in the rear. All of a sudden we hear a snap followed by a terrible crunching sound. The girl on the red Warbird's chain was wrapped in her wheel. At first, I thought she had broken her chain. Because we are awesomely nice people (this also is important in a minute), we stopped to see if we could help her out.
I saw that her derailleur was hanging and immediately thought she had broken her hanger. Since I am uber prepared for anything and had an extra hanger for a Warbird, I get off my bike and go over to assess the damage. Well, turns out, her fancy-schmancy high-end Shimano derailleur could not handle a bit of Kansas mud. The hanger is not going to fix that. But, since we are nice people and would have hated for any of us to have to DNF due to a mechanical, we stayed stopped and attempted to help her turn the bike into a single speed to get her to the next check point.
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| Because this next part makes me want to do something not nice, here is a pretty view. |
Paula, bless her heart of gold, spent an ungodly amount of time working on this girl's bike. While that is kind of maddening in itself, the next part is the worst. The girl barely lifted a hand to try and help Paula. She never once told us to leave her be and ride on. And she NEVER said thank you. (Cue ALL of the angry faces.) Paula got the chain shortened, but because the girl had pedaled after the derailleur snapped, the chain was pretty gnarled. Paula tried to straighten out the bent links with her pliers, but it was pretty pointless. After about an hour, Maureen and I were starting to shiver and it was starting to get dark (we were 12 miles from CP3 and I only had an emergency light, which was 300 lumens). I eventually told Paula that if the chain was not working by now, it was probably a lost cause.
It turns out, all four of us were thinking the same thing the whole time: If this girl was unprepared, we should not have offered to help her do anything other than call her support. We were all just too nice to say it out loud. Laura and I did use the down time to lube all of our chains (huge thanks to the guy that stopped by with a full bottle of chain lube since all we had were two small bottles). But being stopped for that long to help someone who started a 200 mile gravel race in one of the most remote places in the country with NO TOOLS, who on top of that was ungrateful, was maddening.
As we pulled away from her, I told the other's that we should make a pact to not stop for anyone else who is not injured or in dire straights. We all agreed (enter bike karma...).
A couple of miles later, Laura calls out that she has a flat, right as we pass the Maxxis rep, who was on the course taking photos. At this point, we are about 10 miles from the next check point and daylight is fading fast. But we are adept women, we can quickly change a flat, right? Fatigue and frustration was causing all of us to fumble a bit as we worked to get out levers, pumps, tubes, etc. At this point, I knew 18 hours was off the table, so our only goal was to finish. And while a bit disappointed (mostly because of WHY we were not going to meet our goal), I was just glad that we were all still together, still in one piece, and still feeling relatively good for 152 miles into a 207 mile bike race (did I forget to mention the bonus miles?).
After Laura had broken the first tire lever (why oh why does anyone carry anything other than Pedro's!?), some random local man pulls up in a UTV with two adorable dogs. Well, he was asking us questions, trying to be helpful, and generally distracting us from getting the flat fixed. He was REALLY nice, but in the failing light and remote area, it was a bit unsettling that he was hanging out there. Luckily the Maxxis rep was nearby (Seriously, thank you so much dude!) and even offered us some tools and things to make it easier (which we immediately declined because accepting outside help is an immediate disqualification, and dammit, we were finishing this race!).
After flatting the first tube, it turned out that Laura had ridden over a gigantic nail! After we found the culprit and got it out of the tube (the first feel around the tube did not find it, mostly because we were all tired and frustrated), we fixed the flat and were on our way. By this point the light had failed almost entirely and I was riding with 300 lumens lighting my way on some pretty chunky gravel.
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| Imagine it being almost dark... I was still not taking photos since it was still raining a bit. |
Sector Four:
A fresh set of gloves, some Aleve, more cheese, and real lights renewed my spirits as we made our way out of Madison and back out onto the gravel roads. This whole sector is a bit of a blur because it was dark. We did ride out of the check point with a man that we had seen several times throughout the day. He was super nice and I ended up hanging back with him a bit to chat before leaving him to catch up with the rest of my group. This was his fifth time doing DK200 and hopefully his third finish. He did mention that the last 25 miles or so was mostly downhill.
We made our way through more wide open gravel, more narrow gnarly gravel, more dirt farm roads, and probably some grassy double track. Even though it was dark, we were keeping up a steady pace. There were a lot of sections where there was bedrock on the road and it dropped off suddenly. A couple of times, I almost ate it due to a downed water bottle, but was able to always keep the rubber side down.
At this point, I was actually feeling not too terribly bad. My right knee had been starting to ache, but it was bearable. The K-Tape's adhesive on my wrist had completely disintegrated by the time we reached CP3 and it did not feel worth it to re-tape it. But surprisingly, my wrist only had a dull ache. I was having almost no saddle discomfort. My left triceps were aching a bit since I am still compensating for my wrist, but it was not too bad.
I did learn that trying to grab food and eat in the dark was pretty much impossible for me. Between the nature breaks, stopping to eat, and changing out light batteries, this section was a little slower than I was expecting it to be. But it was really cool to be completely surrounded by darkness other than our little bubble of light. During this sector, we actually rode with several other people. It turns out, no one likes to ride alone during the night.
When we got to about the 25-miles-to-go mark, I realised that it must be pretty late, after midnight most likely. But I honestly did not want to know. And while there was never a dark place during the race, at this point it felt like the start of the race was a lifetime ago and that I was a completely different person than I was when I started. "This is my life now. This is what I do now. I will just ride my bike for the rest of my life on this glorious gravel roads."
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| Since I failed to take a picture, this is pretty much what the last sector looked like. |
By the time we got to mile 187, I was getting tired. Not physically tired, but mentally tired. It was becoming a chore to keep my eyes open. I was not expecting this nor was I prepared for it. Luckily, we made a turn into a headwind that was a bit chilly and that perked me right up.
For the folks that kept saying the last 25 miles are downhill, they are all liars. Sure, the trend might be downward, but they totally failed to mention the several kickers (or F-U climbs as we east coast mountain bikers like to call them) along the way. We would be riding along when all of a sudden, our lights would hit a freaking gravel wall! At 190-ish miles into the race, my legs were not happy about that. There was even one that I was afraid I would have to get off and walk, but I made it up... barely. At this point, all the sugar I had eaten throughout the day was catching up and I was getting a bit nauseated. I did well with continuing to drink though, but my nutrition dropped off because everything I tried to eat made the nausea worse.
When we got to the point where we had 14 miles to go, we could see lights in the sky being project from the ground. The guy we had rode out of CP3 with caught up to us and told us that was the finish. WE COULD SEE THE FINISH! That was pretty motivating, so we kept moving. At first it looked like we would just go straight to the finish and be done. However, the course designers were apparently masochists. It literally seemed like we were doing boxes around Emporia. We would turn towards the lights, then turn away from them, rinse and repeat. ARGH!
We crossed over a cool old wooden bridge with Jeeps lighting the way across (apparently it is kind of sketchy, but I was so elated to be almost done, I did not notice). After a couple of more miles of outskirting Emporia, we were almost back in town. Laura was a bit in front of us, but I asked Paula and Maureen if they wanted to cross the finish line together. They agreed. Laura yelled back something about a sprint finish. I laughed and told her if she wanted to sprint she was on her own! She dropped back and said no way, she was just glad that we were not going to do a sprint finish. Haha, screw that. We rode the whole thing together, the only way to finish is to cross together!
FINISH!
We climbed up the last hill next to the college (ugh, WHY?!) and made our way down the finishing stretch. Nathaniel and Matt were running to meet us, but they had no idea it was us until we were right on them! And we crossed the finish line together, way later than we had planned, but we finished and we finished together. It was pretty amazing. There may have been tears.
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| The dream team after 207 miles of grueling gravel. |
Nathaniel went above and beyond and got us pizza to eat after the finish. I think it was the most glorious thing I had ever tasted, even though it had olives on it! Yes, I ate the whole thing, olives and all. Nathaniel is a super hero.
Matt had waited almost four hours after his finish for us to come in. That is the best kind of teammate to have. Thanks, Matt!
After about 45 minutes of eating, trading stories with Matt, and just congratulating each other, we decided it was about time to get as much sleep as possible before heading out on our respective journeys home. Maureen and I rode back to the dorms together and I am not sure I have ever had SO much pain from sitting on a bike before. OUCH! Luckily it was less than a mile to the dorm.
LESSONS LEARNED:
So, you really can not be on a bike for 207 miles and almost 20 hours and not learn something. So this is what I have taken away from this amazing and epic adventure.
Be prepared for everything. The more prepared you are, the less likely something is to go wrong. I was prepared for almost anything except a broken frame. I felt a little silly carrying so much gear, but I was confident and that means a lot in a race like this.
Only stop to help those who are injured or having a medical emergency. We stopped a lot during this race. Most of the stops were short and for those of us in our little group, but we had a couple of longer stops to give food to those who were bonking and to help the girl with the broken derailleur. That cost us a lot of time and caused a bit of frustration (mostly the girl with the broken derailleur).
Definitely do not help those who are unprepared. Dude, this is a 200+ mile race in a very remote and unforgiving area. If you sign up for it, be prepared to help yourself.
When it is dark out, you can pee in the middle of the road. There are bugs in the grass.
Get your gear dialed in before the race. My tire pressure was on point (28f/30r). This was pretty important. I only bottomed out my rear tire once (and it was because I took the wrong line and hit a pretty big drop at full speed). My gearing was perfect, even though I did not get a chance to ride it before the race, I trusted my mechanics to dial it in perfectly and they did. I never lost a water bottle, I knew where all my food, tools, and supplies were in my bags. This was key to fixing anything that could have happened quickly and efficiently.
I was really REALLY surprised at how not hard that was. That is not to say that it was easy, because it definitely was NOT easy. But I really expected to have those dark moments of never wanting to ride my bike again or those moments when I just needed to not be on my bike any more. There were no tears shed during the race. The only moment where I got frustrated was due to the girl with the broken derailleur. I know I trained hard for this race and was more prepared than most people, but I was truly surprised at how great I felt all day.
Now that I know that I can do it, I am going to go back and actually race it. Please come with me. If I can do it, anyone can. All it takes is a little dedication, a lot of time, and an amazingly supportive group of friends and teammates.
Cyclists are generally amazing people. I love every one of you.
Take more pictures.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
Training for and completing Dirty Kanza is probably by far my biggest cycling accomplishment to date. To be completely and utterly honest, there are several key people that without, there is no way I could have raced this, much less finish it.
Pete Beers - You are an absolute inspiration. Thank you for having faith in me, supporting me, and otherwise just being an amazing human. Your advice, training routes, and encouragement got me to the start and to the finish.
Bikenetic Full Service Bicycle Shop - Jan, Helen, Pete, Stearman, Jacob, Ken, Brian, and anyone else that I am forgetting. Without your expertise, mechanical ability, and willingness to go above and beyond, I would not have been able to accomplish this. I know I say it often, but I will say it again... Best. Bike. Shop. EVER. My bike got there safely and got me through the race with no issues at all because of you.
Women & Bicylocross Group - Well, it was Shauna's idea to embark on this crazy adventure and the support and encouragement of the rest of the ladies that got me to even sign up. I expect to see more of us toe the line next year!
My training buddies - Laura, Paula, Maureen, Jenny, Steve, Amy, Bill, Jan, Pete, Cyndi, Laurie, Crandle, Nathaniel, the Chris's, and anyone else that came on a big training ride with me over the past six months... I could not have gotten through those rides without you! Bigger thanks to those of you who did the really long rides in really crappy weather. Had you not been there, I totally would have stopped at the first available winery or brewery and called it a day. Thanks!
BAFS, LGS, & Gears & Beers- Thanks for coming out on some of my training rides (and keeping me from stopping for booze every five minutes)! Thanks for helping with routes and for all the encouragement and support! Our bike community is straight up the BEST.
D.P. - Thanks for dog sitting during my training rides! They appreciate it more than you will ever know (and so do I!). Also, thanks for putting up with my sore legs, my grumpiness, me not mountain biking, and for eating all of the food. Oh yeah, and thanks for getting me to the airport and fetching me when I got back home. You rock. (Oh, and I heart you!)
My Wonderful Mother - Obviously, if it were not for her, I would not be here. But she has always given me the strength to overcome huge obstacles. And she made the ultimate sacrifice and spent an entire week with my dogs while I was in Kansas. And by sacrifice, I mean that she spoiled the crap out of my dogs.
