Summer Plans…

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What are your plans for summer? This is a good question to ask middle schoolers. You can’t ask too early or they might not stop thinking about summer. But honestly, after spring break many people at a school can’t help but think about it! And we spend a lot of time planning for next school year too.

This summer I am working part time at summer school with Community Education. I will be teaching a bike class which hopefully means a fun summer on the bike! We will do some basic bike maintenance,  riding skills, visit a bike shop or two, weekly rides, a service project, and maybe some type of advocacy project. It’d be great to pair up with Open Streets but none of them work for our timing.

We are sneaking away for at lesst one camping trip up North and maybe one at a near by park that I can slip unto town for work and back out.

I don’t have any races on the calendar except for the Minnesota Half on August 2 and the Powderhorn 24 on August 15-16.

Backpacking Superior #1

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Over Memorial Day weekend I went on a 2 night backpacking adventure along the Superior Hiking Trail.  I was going solo which meant that I could hike at my own pace, take lots of pictures if I wanted to, stop and linger or push through.  I had a lot of fun. I talked with a dude from the Superior Hiking Trail Association at the Outdoor Adventure Expo to get some ideas and he suggested that I hike from Castle Danger to Beaver Bay – 30 miles.  That seemed reasonable enough.

I was planning to do a bike shuttle – drop my car or bike at one end and drive/ride to the other and hike through.  I compared elevation, etc and chose to drop my bike off at the Castle Danger trail-head and drive to the Beaver Bay trailhead.  The elevation change looked pretty equal, but the first several miles from the trail-head were on the road until it connected to the Gitchi-Gammi Bike Trail.  So it seemed like a good idea to ride that fresh!  As I was planning I had this nagging feeling that 30 miles might seem too short for 2 nights…

Saturday morning I got up early, finished packing, loaded the bike and hit the road.  I stopped at Tobies for an excellent cinnamon roll and drove the Castle Danger trail-head.  There was no place to lock my bike in the parking lot, but I found a road sign across the street that would work.  I decided to take my front tire off and used my u-lock through both tires and the frame onto the street sign.  I left the water bottle full on the rack and headed out.  I made it to the Beaver Bay trail-head loaded up and hit the trail by 10am.

I was hiking from North to South and the trail guide is written in the opposite direction.  This didn’t really create any trouble, but it was important to remember as I stopped to look at it and read the descriptions.  I also needed to remember to stop and look in 360 degrees throughout so I didn’t miss any epic views!  I accidentally left my hiking pole in the car and didn’t realize it until 1/2 mile or so in.  I probably should have gone back for it, but oh well!

I hiked for quite a while before I saw anyone and then saw several people before lunch at the Beaver Bay campsite.  This was also the first chance I had to try out my new UV water filter.  It seemed to work well as I didn’t get sick!!  It was a lot faster than either a hand pump or iodine tablets and didn’t taste nasty like iodine does!!  Throughout the hike I did reflect on how relatively easy it was for me to use this $70 device to drink water any time I wanted and how hard it is for some people around the world to access safe water.  It made me very grateful for all those who have supported my fundraising efforts for clean water in the Congo and served as a great reminder that I need to keep up the work of raising $50 to provide clean water access for life.  You can do that here.

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May into June 2014 30 Days

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The month switched over with some thunderstorms!!  May was a busy month as I spent the first few days in Spain, did a 100 mile bike ride, and backpacked on the Superior Hiking Trail.  I also did some work and hung out with my family!!

The May 30 Day Challenge was to read a poem a day. I’m not 100% sure that I actually read one poem a day, but I did read at least 30 poems.  I downloaded the  Poetry app from the Poetry Foundation which “turns your device into a mobile poetry library.”  It has a spinning feature that lets you pick a poem based on a random theme.  I did fairly good reading from it almost daily –  I wish it had a reminder system.  But upon the death of Maya Angelou I decided to purchase a collection of her poems for my Kindle and read 10-15 of them.  This easily put me over 30 for the month.

I didn’t do a really good job of recording all of my mileage and it was a little challenging to always remember which way I did my commute.  But my May stats are:

Running – 20 miles

Biking – 273 miles

Both of these are quite a bit lower than April.   The running one is particularly embarrassing! I want to keep my biking mileage up while also getting into the training plan for my August 2 half marathon.   Training officially started last week, oops!

June’s 30 Day Challenge is to blog every day.  This is going to be  a hard challenge as I’ve struggled to blog once a week!  There are a bunch of blogging prompts out there in the 30 day format, but no one seems perfect for me.  I think I’ll just pull a few from them and maybe I’ll answer a few of the Question of the Day’s that I use for kids at school.

Additionally, I need to buckle down and do some core work.  I noticed it while backpacking.  I really need to hit it or I’m going to get hurt again.  So I’ll blog every day, try core every other day, and start following the training plan!

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Photo Journey Through Almanzo 100

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I recently published my thoughts about the Almanzo 100 experience. Below are some pictures from throughout the day!

Of course we should start with the data from Strava:

Loading the car:

Final gear decisions – temps were in 40’s when we left the house:

My race number:

Spring Valley as the start nears:

First couple of stops in the first 40 miles:

Mile 50 aka Halfway!

Resting at Historic Forestville (about 65miles):

Banjo Brothers Rest Stop:

Water Crossing (81 miles)

One of a few guys who attempted to ride. We didn’t see anyone complete it successfully.

Not sure where this was:

Climbing Mt. Oriole (91) A few did successfully ride up:

Finished!!

Thanks Todd for the couple of non-selfies of me!!

Don’t forget that you can support my efforts to provide clean water in the Congo by visiting my Team World Vision fundraising page.

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First Century Ride Completed

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I am a Gravel Grinding, Century Riding, Crazy Biker!! On Saturday evening May 17, 2014 at about 7pm I completed what was probably the hardest event/day of my life.  Completing a century ride (100  miles) is a pretty good accomplishment in its own right.  But doing so on a 100 miles of gravel in the rolling hills of Southeastern Minnesota is a huge deal!

The Almanzo 100 is a free bike race/ride that starts and ends in tiny little Spring Valley about 2.5 hours South-East of the Twin Cities. Traversing 100 miles of mostly gravel roads with a total elevation gain of over 5,000 feet I finished with an elapsed time of 10:06 (that’s 10 hours).  My actual riding or saddle time was significantly less at just under 8:30 – but the overall time is what counts.

Todd’s computer said we were burning 1,000 calories an hour, which is hard to replace.  My Strava said total we burned 3,600 calories.  Todd’s number sounds more epic – but either way it is hard to replace that many calories on the bike.  I had several ups and downs related to fueling – not the never ending hills.  Two significant ones were around mile 55 and mile 95.

Around mile 55, we were over the halfway point and about 10 miles to the next significant stopping place and where a friend had left me a drop bag.  We were riding straight into a headwind and I was going about 8 miles an hour. Despite having had a large lunch in Preston at mile 40 I was feeling in the dumps.  I was plotting my plans to quit at 67 and have my friend take me back to Spring Valley or Preston.  I ate some food and drank some more and shortly after we turned out of the wind I got my spring back and felt a lot better and was hitting some 18 miles an hour.  I was glad that was over and didn’t even think about quitting again after that!

My hydration/nutrition plan was to drink some water every 5 miles no matter what and to eat something every 10 miles.  I drank a lot in between the 5 mile increments but I knew it wouldn’t hurt to drink more.  I had 2 water bottles and a 2L CamelBak so I wasn’t really afraid of running out of fluid.  I also had dropped Nuun Tablets into all 3 containers so that I was getting some electrolytes back into my body and not just water.  My food really ranged – I had a variety of Gu packets, shot bloks, cereal bars, jerky, and more.  We stopped at Mile 40 in Preston and had an amazing lunch, many thanks to Eric’s brother-in-law and family, Steve & Amy’s!  That was a nice boost of calories and deliciousness! The only other place we knew that’d we’d be able to refill water was at the Forestville/Mystery Caves State Park.  The Historic Forestville Site was super nice to let everyone refill water bottles, use the bathroom, and take a break.  Many people met their families with food there.  Carrie had left a dropbag for me at a picnic table off the road in the park and left some Ibuprofen for my back.   It was greatly appreciated and probably helped get me to the finish! Banjo Brothers had a booth setup near mile 75 I think that included Oreos, chips, and other salty goodies and free Hams beer.  I took a few sips of Todd’s and couldn’t imagine drinking any more!

Southern Minnesota is actually quite pretty with some great views while on top of the hills! Very pastoral and rolling hills kind of beauty.  We stayed mostly in farmland but took a few trips into the woods, one of which was turning onto an “unimproved road” and at mile 81 included a creek crossing that only the most skilled mountain bikers were able to ride across.  At mile 91 we climbed Mt. Oriole which again only the best riders were able to successfully climb while still riding their bikes!

The finish was pretty lonely and unexciting.  I was pretty exhausted and was lagging as I noted above.  A group of riders came by and I decided to try and latch on to the back of them.  Unfortunately, for me the back rider was slowing down to mess with his water bottle and I didn’t realize it in time to jump around him.  By the time I did, I couldn’t close the gap.  After they dropped me I began to hope I wouldn’t get lost!! I hadn’t looked at my cue sheet all day and seriously thought I might need to do so to avoid getting lost. But I could see a rider or two in the distance as we left gravel roads and began the final – paved stretch to the finish and into the wind!! Fortunately, there was signage as we turned off the main road and hit a bike path into town.  Knowing that we were close I picked up the pace and at least felt like I zoomed through the turns into the finish area!! Immediately after dismounting this dude came running up to me, kind of startling me and shook my hand!  I was a little caught off guard but I do remember that race director Chris Skogen likes to shake every rider’s hand and says “Welcome Back!” It is a nice way to finish.  I found my team, we enjoyed a celebratory beer and then some amazing steak at Steve and Amy’s!

This was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.   I’m sure a flat and paved 100 miler would be tough, but the hills were just never ending and brutal.  Plus I may have been a little under trained!!

A few things got me through… Obviously, having teammates to catch up to and ride with off and on throughout the day made it hard to quit and knowing that my family was expecting me to finish.  But most importantly, looking down at the sticker on my bike that said “I ride for Clean Water” reminded me often of the kids who suffer daily to get clean water.  That reminder helped me reflect on my choice to suffer and the hope that I could help end their suffering.  As I consumed liters of clean water throughout the day they yearn for an ounce of clean water.

Will you help me help them? $50 is all it takes to provide clean water to a kid for the rest of their life.  In honor of my 100 mile bike ride would you make a $100 donation and change 2 lives forever?  It is super easy just click here.

PS I’ll do a separate post with pictures!!