Boondoggle Forty 5

The Boondoggle Bike event in itself is an amazing thing for me to see. This is what bike racing needs. Grass roots feel events that don't cost you an arm and a leg and can still pull in some serious talent. For an event that some might thing is not big enough for them, just look at the list of names showing up at the starting line. This field seems just as deep as any NUE race at least as a percentage of racers. Last year was the first year for the Forty 5 race. I really wanted to attend, but that weekend just didn't work out for me. I will say that at the time, it didn't seem like that big of a deal, but after the race was over I could tell that I really did miss out on something good. There was no way I was going to miss out on this years event.

This race was going to be a little change for me. Becky was going with me and we were camping. I felt like I was packing to be gone for a full week. I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed and anything that Becky might need, so the car was pretty full. Living the van life would have been really nice for this one, but we made it work just fine. We headed down Friday afternoon hoping to get settled in and go for a little ride. We got away a little later then I thought we would, but it still was not that late. We rolled in to the Sheltowee Camp and got set up.

April Fools Gravel Camp

April Fools Gravel Camp

Leading up to this weekend I was not really sure what I was going to do. There was a new race in eastern Kentucky called the War Daddy. It sounded really hard and probably more like a gravel race where a mountain bike would be better used. This is the weekend before the Kentucky mtb race that I was planning on attending called The 45. It sounded like a great adventure, but I was hesitant about doing something this hard the weekend before the mtb race, then in conversation it came up about this Gravel Camp race. The name didn't really lead me to thinking it was a race. It sounded more like a weekend of good times and a good gravel ride. This was kind of true since there was a fun ride option and the atmosphere was set up for a full weekend of fun. Since I had someone to share a ride with to this race and also the fact that the drive was 1.5 hours closer each way, it was not that hard to talk me in to checking it out.

We got there on Friday afternoon, checked in to the lodge and went for a ride. I had never been to this part of the area before. The walking/bike paths were really nice and the gravel roads were too. The area is very pretty and there is a lot of different outdoor things to do there. After the ride, we grabbed a bite to eat and tried to get things ready for the next day and relax. The week before this one I ended up getting sick in the middle of the week. I was pretty wore out and out of commission for several days. I was really needing to step up my training and not take a week off of the bike. I was feeling better, but still coughing a lot and not really sure how deep my reserves would be for a 60 mile race.