Lloyd and Vicki

Sunburst Marathon on Saturday AM in South Bend Indiana. SOOOOOOO hot, SOOOOO humid and quite unbearable! Although we felt like quitting many times, we didn’t.  Lloyd and I ran together until mile 22, at which point we decided our strategies for coping with the heat were quite different. I needed a slow steady slog, and Lloyd needed some sort of jog/walk tango.  We both wanted to finish and we both eventually did. Within a few moments of finding eachother at the finish chute, the marathon was “black-flagged”(course closed) because of the heat index. We felt so sorry for all the runners that hadn’t yet crossed the finish line! All that suffering for “nothing”! It didn’t take us long to resolve never ever again to run a summer marathon.

Two hours after showering, we were in Grand Rapids MI for the rest of the weekend. This experience totally made up for South Bend! Nice!

Eden, Marley, Emma and Claire came to our apartment for several hours on Sunday afternoon for crafts, stories, and snacks (cinnamon rolls, fruit juice boxes and candy bracelets)

Levi and Harper stayed back with their parents while the four little girls spent time with us. In a year or two, the boys will be old enough to enjoy apartment time too.

A typical driveway scene at Kristin and Curt's where we all spent most of our time.

On Monday AM, we watched Reuben&Heidi, Eden&Harper take off on the rest of their bike trip. What a treat to see them in GR!

Great weekend!

This weekend we “practiced” for some bike/camping (4-5 days) we’re hoping to do this July with Reuben and Heidi and family www.pedalpoweredfamily.com  in Colorado.  We’re definitely newbies at this-trying to figure out how much gear our bikes can pull, what  things we absolutely need in order to bike/camp, and what  things  might not be completely necessary to have along. Although we have developed stamina over the years for endurance running, biking is a whole new sport that involves an entirely different set of muscles!

We left yesterday afternoon (after first completing a long 12-15 mile training run) from Redfield, IA, which is located about 1/2 hour west of Des Moines. Our neighbor, Tom, accompanied us. We were able to access the Raccoon River Valley Trail from Redfield  (this trail actually starts in Des Moines and goes all the way to Redfield, and then westward, to Jefferson Iowa). From Redfield to Jefferson is a 35 mile stretch, so we figured we’d be able to bike from Redfield to Jefferson, camp in Jefferson overnight, and then return to Redfield the next day.

Here we are about to take off from Redfield, IA, towards Jefferson, IA

Well, it took us 4 hours to make it from Redfield to Jefferson!  There was a strong headwind to buck the whole way. At times we were only able to travel at the speed of 7 miles per hour! Without such wind, we have been usually able to bike with gear at about 12-13 miles per hour. So we were SLOW yesterday! And by the time we got to Jefferson, we were absolutely beat! We had just enough time to set up camp, cook some supper and hit the sack. There wasn’t really a campground in Jefferson-just an area right off the trail near the fairgrounds, where bikers are allowed to set up overnight camp. It worked great for us!

We found a little graffiti painted blockade near the grassy camping area, where we set up a cooking station. All we brought was freeze dried food, which worked for us this time.

Here I am cooking up some buffalo style chicken to put on tortillas for supper last night. It was delicious. We were SOOOO hungry by then, so anything would have tasted good.

Here's the gear that Lloyd pulled. This just reminded me of "The House that Biff Built" for some reason!

Here's our camp area just off the trail, near the Greene County fairgrounds, in Jefferson, IA

Tom’s wife, Cathy, had to work all day yesterday, so she drove out to meet us at camp, for supper and overnight. By this morning, as we were cooking up breakfast and making delicious COFFEE, Tom and Lloyd and I all decided that we were too sore and too tired to bike back to Des Moines via trail. So instead we hitched a ride with Cathy. Wimps? Maybe. But at least we know our limits. This is the beginning of our biking season, and we need to gradually get used to the saddle and to the distance.

No matter, we all had a very fun weekend!