DIRTY KANZA

Well, I have finally figured out what my big race for 2011 will be.  Andy has talked about the "Dirty Kanza" for a couple of years now and in Jan. I brought it up to him again.  We had one day to decide as registration was opening the following day and it fills up in a matter of hours.  After a brief discussion we figured we would go for it and see if we could get in.
 First off, let me tell you what the Dirty Kanza is.  It's a 200 mile bike race, on gravel roads, in the Flint Hills of  Eastern Kansas on June 4th.  We do not know the route until the night before and that only gets us to the first checkpoint.  We will get the next map once we check in and once again, it only takes us to the next checkpoint.  Each checkpoint is anywhere from 40-60 miles, no aid stations in between and quite brutal from the reports we have read.  Perfect...how could I say no to this challenge!

Well, we are in!  Oh crap was the first thing that went thru our heads when we were accepted, what have we gotten ourselves into.   Well, days later, LOTS of reading of blogs, reports, checking results etc. we realized that this was not going to be easy.  Which bike do we ride, tires, food, we need support-who are we going to get to drive out to Emporia, KS to haul all of our stuff to each check point?  The big question was how long is this going to take us.  I look up results, last year 170 starters, 65 finisher and only 2 were women.  Andy was thinking we could do this in about 12 hours, the look on his face when I told him that the winner of last years race was 13:30 was priceless! Oh Crap was right!!
 Decisions have been made, we will ride the cyclocross bikes with a little tweaking.  Some people ride their mountain bikes and even though mine is very comfortable they can be much slower and heavier.  Andy will put more gears on my bike, we have already raised my handlebars up to positon me better for 15+ hours of riding and from keep my arms/hands from going numb, an issue I have during long rides.  Double handlebar tape, new computer and some bigger tires.  Still trying to decide on those.  Now we have to RIDE. RIDE. RIDE.