I rode Chucky’s Challenge, a 100km gravel grinder put on by the guru himself, Doug Long. I hurt a lot now. We started off with a photoshoot by the local newspaper and a bunch of kids, then took off out of town with the wind at our backs (this is Important Ride Start Info, because riding with the wind makes you feel stronger and take off harder than you should). Hit the gravel and the groups start to split up. I catch up to the front group, just in time for them to rip my legs off on the first set of hills and beat me with them (my own legs, that is). The group slows up ahead so Doug can retape one of the turns (by the by, the course was marked really well, with a lime green tape on signposts near a left turn, and red tape for right turns – really smart and worked really well!). So I ride on ahead, and the group catches back up and proceeds to rip my legs off again. My average HR for that section was roughly 205, so I was dying. The scenery was great, so I didn’t really mind riding alone. Once I made it up one big hill, a dog starts running after me – and kept it up for 2 more miles! I think it wanted me to stop, because it was barking at me towards the end. Not mean, just a ‘hey, wait up!’ sort of deal.

So I rode the next 20 miles alone. I didn’t see anyone in front or behind me, and I even stopped at a few places to take a picture or two. Finally I stopped for a bathroom break and to get some Gu and a Clif bar (and took a sequence of pics for a panorama, to follow soon). Got back on the bike, and not another mile ahead, there’s the group at the cooler that Doug stashed at mile 40! I managed to hang with the group as we rode on down the road to an odd ‘town’, where another Doug had a flat and ran through 3 tubes before everything worked again. Finally, we started rolling again and got out of the bottoms, where the group split apart into the fast 3 guys, and Doug, Jim, and myself. I pulled once, on pavement, and that was that. There was even a pair of hills as bad as Dothage, all mushy and nasty, that we had to walk up. Two Dothages is as bad as it sounds…

I lost the two I was riding with on one of the last headwind sections, and didn’t catch up until the last mile where they had to wait for traffic. My legs are shot, but I want to go to Hermann for that ride tomorrow. Dunno if I’m going to actually make it, but I’ll try.

Oh yeah, and I got a yippee card from Leadville, so now my training plans are set. Ouachita, Syllamo, Dirty Kanza, Leadville, and SSWC09.