“And when I got to another ocean, I figured since I’d gone this far, I might as well just turn back and keep right on going. When I got tired, I slept. When I got hungry, I ate. When I had to go…you know… I went.” – Forrest Gump 

I had planned to do a long ride this morning, 75 miles out to Andice and back, just to see how I was feeling before heading up to Iowa on Thursday. Next week I’ll be riding 500-ish miles in the 40th annual RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) ride. That ride is a week long, with daily distances ranging from 40 miles to 80 miles, going across Iowa from the Missouri river in the west to the Mississippi river in the east. I’m riding with a group of riders who’ve been doing this ride together for several years. They’re all super-excited about it and I’m looking forward to seeing what it is all about. We’ll be riding all day, partying all evening, then camping at night for the whole week. 

The distances we’ll be covering are ones that I’m comfortable riding, and since we can take as long as we want, and stop whenever we need to, the riding part won’t be too much of an endurance challenge. That will come from the “partying” and “camping” parts of the trip. I did the best I could to simulate the RAGBRAI experience by staying up really late last night and then waking up at 5 to be out the door as soon as it was light enough to see the road. If I had planned better I would also have been hungover, but as it turns out that level of simulation would have been extremely problematic as the day progressed. 

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