Third-best thing about RAGBRAI

The third-most amusing part of RAGBRAI was the scenery. Not the natural landscape, though that was nicer than non-Midwesterners likely would expect, but rather the humans.

If only I'd written this post a few weeks ago, I likely could have filled it with the innuendo-laden team names I saw, but I can say this with certainty: "Beaver" was a very popular word on jerseys.

And if I had better balance and reflexes, I could've snapped some photos of the tricked-out helmets, my favorite being the team that glued tiny outhouses to their helmets.

There were stuffed animals decorating all parts of bikes and bikers; there were colorful wigs; there were Viking helmets ... so much to see beyond spandex! (Like the cross-dressing crowd Friday just past Hedrick.)

Here are some sights I did capture for posterity:

As a cat owner, I approve of and envy this setup. As soon as my cat goes through two tubs of litter like this, the Shrimp will definitely be sporting similar panniers.

This weird cart benefited a charity — can't remember which, if I ever even knew — and it was powered by a hand crank. First the driver was whizzing around the Pella town square by himself; then he picked up a passenger; and then he rose to his team's challenge and added a dumbbell. A great show to accompany our lunch. 

"Tuck a buck," says the brief-clad gentleman's back. My teammates told me to tuck the buck instead of taking the photograph, but I declined.

A member of this team sat next to me at the First Street Grille in Keosauqua, and when I saw him stamping other people, I naturally wanted in on the action.

Fourth-best thing about RAGBRAI

I recently realized it's been almost a month since RAGBRAI ... making my failure to blog about the event all the more shameful. All those posts about preparation, and I couldn't be bothered to share a few safe-for-work details?

Finally I sorted my memories into a few easy-to-digest chunks — it's Restaurant Week; food is on my brain 24/7 right now — and decided against trying to pass the delay off as being timed to coincide with the one-month anniversary.

So here's the first installment of my four favorite "themes" of RAGBRAI: food.

Yes, RAGBRAI has a well-deserved reputation for being full of delicious food. You shouldn't read any disappointment into my putting it at the bottom of my list of favorite things — it's just that there was so much nonedible fun that food got bumped down.

We began Wednesday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, where I had my second breakfast of a Dutch letter ... on a stick, of course.

Coors Light was not a culinary highlight by any means, but this photo is symbolic of the mass quantities of beer I drank. Actually, before this bar stop, the group had split a bottle of local wine ... but I was too busy being thrilled about drinking local wine midday in the sunshine to take a photo. 

These pork chops were out of this world. When one friend offered to split a pork chop as a snack only a few hours after lunch, I jumped right on that. 

"Dunked corn" in Oskaloosa — like cornbread on steroids. YUM. Definitely a once-a-year treat.

My second breakfast on Saturday came at an all-you-can-eat pancake shack in Birmingham. The best part of this was watching one woman manning the griddle that held at least two dozen pancakes. She also would fling the pancake onto your plate from across the shed, if you asked. (I did not.) 

We lingered in Keosauqua on Saturday, to the tune of a couple of hours. Since the First Street Grille landed on the state's top 10 burger list, we decided to sample. At left is the breakfast burger; at right is the Reuben.

A few highlights that weren't pictured:

* Massive amounts of barbecue. I ate more of that than I did pastries.

* The glass of lemonade I had after 10ish miles of hills in the early-afternoon sun. It was the single-most refreshing beverage I had during the entire trip.

* The stop in Bussey, where I split a wood-fire-oven pizza for a midafternoon snack (yep), followed a few miles later by the most massive amount of homemade ice cream I'd ever had (thanks, Beekman's!). My two favorite foods within half an hour? Best vacation ever.

Upcoming race: Boone County Historical Society 5K History Run/Walk

There are a few types of runs at which I do not excel: ones in warm weather and ones in which participants are encouraged to dress up.

To be clear, I'm not opposed to warm weather in general — I just hate running in it — and I wholeheartedly embrace the idea of dressing up ... but I've just never been known for my costume skills. (See every Halloween, ever.)

So naturally I just signed up for the Boone County Historical Society 5K History Run/Walk. That's Aug. 24 (forecast to be 83 right now, but following a half-week of upper 80s), and as the name suggests, costumes are encouraged.

I fail at creativity under pressure, so I think I'll just admire those who put forethought into the event. Hopefully a really strange historical figure will smoke me.

But seriously, though, if you're a runner and near Des Moines/Boone, please consider signing up, or at least joining the afterparty. I went to a nerd college, so I'm excited to be benefiting an educational institution with my registration, and more importantly, a friend who's also dating a good friend is organizing this event.

Help my friends out, and I guess also help out the museum patrons, too — watch Theodore Roosevelt charge past me, even while wearing a suit in Iowa in late August, and indulge in some delicious local pork and local beer.

The second-most-fun kind of math

Normally I'm more of a word person than a numbers person, but once I started biking and (later) running, the stats bug started to bite me.

Mostly, it's the feeling of progress and accomplishment: look how many miles I ran/rode. Shortly before RAGBRAI, though I knew I was prepared, I was curious about just exactly how prepared I was.

When it came out to 933 miles done specifically for RAGBRAI training, I was shocked, then impressed, then more curious to see how much riding I'd done.

See ... from purchasing my road bike in spring 2011 through the end of 2012, I'd only done 667 miles on it.

In two years, 667 miles; in 3.5 months, 993. How much more could I emphasize how little I'd ridden The Shrimp before this year?

Fort Madison welcomes us to the end of RAGBRAI.

Well, during my half marathon training, I'd actually even ridden about 105 miles. And during my four days of RAGBRAI, I went 241 miles.

That means I've already biked 1,279 miles this year. (None of those came after July 27, in case you were wondering.) Which in turn means I've nearly tripled the mileage on my bike in 2013.

I was impressed. I am impressed. (I don't expect more serious bikers to be impressed.) This is more fun with math than anything not related to baking!

Riding the emotional roller coaster again

I found myself having a Lindsay Bluth Funke moment a few days ago, during a run.

"Have I lost it?" I asked myself during the first of five miserable intervals.

"Did I ever even have it?" I thought as nausea rose after the third.

I'll still agree with the thought that the only run you regret is the one you don't go on, but man, I did not award myself any gold stars after that particular effort.

Well, OK, despite how certain friends feel about participation trophies, I did pat myself — gently — on the back for realizing it wasn't my day and adapting my effort/expectations to conditions. (Hot and humid.)

Some of this floated around my head as I prepared for and embarked on my first long run of training — five miles, the longest I've run since April 28's half marathon.

But as it turns out, all of this RAGBRAI preparation had erased my memories of the emotional cycle most of my runs follow.

Today, the first few steps felt awesome. I loved running. I was thrilled to be running. Did I have to stop at five miles?

After the first mile, the sweat and fatigue began to build up. Running was kind of tough, but why? I'd had a good night's sleep, proper nutrition and none of the trigger foods/drinks.

Midway through, I found my rhythm. Running was awesome again. I passed a few groups of social runners. Thanks for the brief snippet of "Runaround" from your iPod, ladies, but some of us are flying at the target 9:30 pace.

And then came the hills, sometimes metaphorical, other times (like today) literal. Negotiations about when to walk ensued. The mind won today; next time, the body likely will. Hopefully the mind wins more often.

Finally, during the last half mile, the hundredths of a mile took their sweet time registering, but I knew they'd tick up even more slowly if I slowed down. Plus, that average pace — which had bloated to 9:44 in the previous stage — was shrinking.

Biking (well, in flat Des Moines at least) didn't feature so many mood swings. All of that happiness and gourmand behavior must've softened me up. Hence the day of doubt.

But hey, the deeper the slide, the higher the rise, and I haven't found much in athletics yet that can beat the runner's high.

Back home, back to running

The silence from this blog might've indicated that I disappeared on RAGBRAI.

I did not, but I did lose a great deal of ambition upon returning to civilized life. The intention is to put up a few posts about it; we'll see how that goes.

However, I have managed to accomplish two running goals, one of them even during this post-RAGBRAI lazyfest.

The Sunday before RAGBRAI was the last day of a lower price tier for the IMT Des Moines Half Marathon.

It seemed wrong/dangerous to sign up for a running event before I'd even completed the bike one that took months of training ... but to save about $10 or $15, I did it anyway.

Judge my frugality if you want, but my running shoes are bursting at the bunion seam, so that earlier-bird discount (a still-cheaper price expired in April) is nothing to sneeze at.

That was goal No. 1. Goal No. 2 was to go on a run this morning, and it did require some self-judgment ("you're not even sore from RAGBRAI; get off the couch, you bum") before I got going.

To my great, pleasant surprise — OK, so I did plan it to be flat and downhill — the run wasn't bad.

Before I'd finished the first mile, I was definitely feeling the rust and the head cold, prompting the standard early-part-of-training-season doubts about why I'd want to do this for 12.1 more miles.

Then I hit the gentle downhill slope and shade, though, and decided that I wouldn't need to do the run-walk combo anyway.

If I hadn't received a startling text at mile 2.5, I would've done all three — mostly in sun, humidity and heat — without stopping. Which is good, because Hal's training plan is designed to be feasible for those who can run 30 minutes nonstop.

Training officially kicks off next week. Here's hoping it goes as well as last half's training, but with a better conclusion.

Thanks to these folks, I'm off and riding

A friend once observed that bikers are among the friendliest folks she's met, and so far I'd agree with her assessment.

To underscore that point, on the day I head off for RAGBRAI, I wanted to thank a few people who have been huge helps while I trained and packed for my culinary tour.

David, a now-former co-worker, surprised me last Thursday with the offer to lend me a few cycling jerseys. They're size small, so they do actually fit me reasonably well. Looks like I might finally defeat my farmers tan!

Jeniece — a friend, bike companion and co-worker at each of my post-college jobs — rustled up a cheap water bottle to put in my extra water-bottle cage (as did Ken, another friend and two-time co-worker).

She also saved my backpack-losing butt by lending me a bag that could hold my goods AND still fit on my back.

Cory, my bike doctor, provided the extra bike pouch and water-bottle cage, a bike tune-up (for the price of baked goods, even), road beers, and past and future sunscreen use.

He also instructed me on how to fix a flat and was among those assuring us bike n00bs that he could fix us up if we have mishaps on the road.

Oh, and he also coordinated a huge email chain to figure out transportation among a group of probably 10 people living in several different cities and doing varying portions of RAGBRAI. Which leads me to ...

Joe, Michelle and Mike became my carpool buddies. In exchange for me getting Joe and Michelle to Perry, Mike is getting me (and the others) from Fort Madison to Des Moines. I'd only previously met Joe, and then it was only once, which makes the help from the group that much more awesome.

Ashlee, my fellow Bulldog, volunteered to drive me to Water Works Park early Wednesday, the day after she herself got up early to kick off the carpool to Perry so she and another friend could do Tuesday's ride.

Bonus points for doing it when she'd taken the morning off work specifically to recover from RAGBRAI. I feel guilty about this, but not so guilty that I will refuse the offer.

Ken's taking care of my cat while I'm gone. That's a short sentence, but if you know me at all, you know that's a HUGE load off my mind. He and a friend also were willing to fetch my car if I drove myself to the start and bring it back to safety.

He's not even a biker, though he does support vacations that offer fine dining and parties.

Emily and Regina, besides being relative n00bs like me (comforting, given the number of veterans I'm going with, are willing to share some of the amenities they're getting for covering RAGBRAI for the Register.

Zach talked so favorably about his 2012 experience and so enthusiastically about this year that I drank the Kool-Aid. He also shared a great deal of his crew from last year, fun and knowledgeable folks like Cory, Derek, Chris and Matt.

Perhaps most importantly, he advised me on what tools/gear to buy, and that advice was: not very much. Sure thing, bike veteran!

And finally, I just want to say that if my family members think this is a very foolish idea, they've done an excellent job of disguising it under excitement for me. God knows I don't need more fodder for worrying.

I'll report back on my sunburns, my favorite foods and potentially my weight gain in a few days!