Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

Well, it’s been an exciting day… and night! We woke up at 2:30 last night to sirens and honking fire engines instructing (no… commanding) that we get our of our tents and make it to a “severe weather shelter.”  It looked like it was going to be a quite, cool and uneventful evening, but guess not.  Anyhow, we spent a half an hour or so in the buildings of the fairgrounds in Harlan and were “allowed” back to our tents.  Needless to say, it was a fairly short night!

That wasn’t what we needed for the longest and most difficult day of Ragbrai this year…  Every year Ragbrai has a “Karras Loop” which adds mileage (and in this year’s case hills) to the regular route.  It also brings the day’s totals up to about 100 miles.  Word on the streets is that, if you take the loop this year you’ll be doing the “day with the most climb in Ragbrai history!”  36 years… and I’m doing the loop.  Actually, I DID the loop. It wasn’t soooo bad, the problem is, I’ve ridden my bike 70 miles already today and have another 30 to go!  If all goes well, it will be a day of firsts for me: first time doing the karras loop, first time biking 100 miles at once, first time biking so many hills.  It’s crazy!

I’ve learned this: What goes down must go back up!  Yep, there’s a sense of equilibrium to bike riding, if you get to coast down a hill, you have to climb up the next. 

In any case, it’s going well.  I’m in Coon Rapids.  If it were yesterday (or tomorrow) I’d be well done, but I’ve got more to do… I’ll write later, theoretically!

Grace and Peace,

   `tim

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