I'm not sure when or why we first started thinking it was a good idea. Probably nearly a year ago, when we were visiting our friend Colin and the ride seemed fun and impossibly far off in time.
I'm talking about RAGBRAI—the [Des Moines] Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Yes, across Iowa. Four hundred seventy-one miles across Iowa, to be exact. In seven days.
█████ and I have been training for this since April, though not quite as successfully as I had hoped. The RAGBRAI training schedule suggests logging 1,500 miles in the run-up to the ride. My personal goal was 1,000 miles. I've made 756.
I've vacilated between euphoria, terror, anxiety, and zen acceptance over the past four months of training. I felt great when █████ and I completed a 70-mile training ride at the end of May. I felt horrible when I bonked last week at mile 66 of a 75-mile training ride. (█████ did fine that day.)
Now I have some trepidation, but mostly I feel a passive acceptance of the fact that we're on a conveyor belt that will take us to the start line in Sioux Center, Iowa, and there's nothing we can do about it. Everything will be fine.
Our teammates from NYC are here, and we're loading up the cars and bikes. From Sunday through Saturday, we'll be riding an average of 67 miles a day, and camping out in tents at night. I'll try to check in once a day.
Wish us luck.
