Well, got my official confirmation to participate in a new bike tour in South Dakota next month called the Tour de Kota. I'd read about it awhile ago and decided that if everything fell into place with our impending move I'd love to ride it. I had done RAGBRAI (the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) a few times growing up, but it's been 16 years since my last tour. The possibility of getting in on the ground floor of this new ride made me really want to be a part of it. Amy will be driving support and the kids will be visiting grandparents, so it should be a nice chance for us to get away and decompress a bit.
The ride will start right outside Amy's mom's house in Yankton and will follow the Missouri River along where Lewis & Clark traveled (back in the day), all the way to Pierre (pronounced "peer" not like it should be, for all of my non-South Dakotan readers). It should be a fair amount of hills as we climb in and out of the river valley and covers around 440 miles in six days. Info about the ride is at http://www.argusleaderbiketour.com/.
I've ridden 460 miles so far this year, but hope to log another 400 or 500 before the Tour starts on June 12. After May 31, I'll have more time on my hands than I'll know what to do with, so my preparation should be pretty solid. I've noticed a significant improvement in performance this last week with my first 50+ mile ride of the year and first average speeds over 18 mph (18.7 this morning over 26ish miles) which is giving me a lot of confidence for next month.
I'm hoping that this ride will help me feel a little more like the first phase of moving is a vacation so that I don't get as stressed about moving our whole family without a job or a home. I know everything will fall into place as it's supposed to, but we're beginning to feel a little more pressure now. Having something else to occupy my mind for the first few weeks after we finish at Hanfield will be very beneficial.
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