Cycling • Fishing • Adventure

Photo © Shawn Honea After participating in the 2017 edition of the Land Run 100 in Stillwater, Oklahoma this weekend, I feel the need to share some thoughts. Where to begin? If you do not know what Land Run is, it is a 100ish mile bike ride starting and ending in Stillwater, Oklahoma. There is also a 50k run and a 50-mile ride. It is ran by Bobby and Chrystal Wintle, who also run District Bicycles. These two are two of the most genuine, giving, positive, motivated, people that I have the honor of calling friends. Stillwater Community: This was my third Land Run, and it is amazing to see how the community of Stillwater has embraced this event. Each year it seems to get behind the event more and more. To all of the volunteers who make this happen, a huge thank you! This is proof that good people with good ideas and a lot of work can transform a community. District Bicycles: What can I say, beautiful shop full of great people. When I finished, they brought me inside...

A couple of people have suggested that I write down my experiences from the 2014 Dirty Kanza. Most people who might read this know that the DK is a 200 mile race through the Flint Hills of Kansas on a bicycle. Keep in mind, I am not a writer, so bear with my rambling. You may ask, why am I writing this? I am not sure myself, however this task, the DK, is such a tremendous challenge for someone like me and it has yet again had a huge impact on me mentally, emotionally, and physically that I feel the need to preserve the moment. My original intent was to document my time from sign-up day in January until the end through photos and video. However, other things got in the way and I was torn between training and documenting the training. I felt that if I spent the time documenting the training like I wanted to, I was losing site of my main goal, finishing this bastard again, and proving to myself that the first time was not a fluke. So, no photos, no video, just a lot of rambling. ...

I have decided once again to write up a post-race report of my Dirty Kanza 200 experience from 2017. Now those of you who have taken the time to read my past reports will probably be expecting the same doom and gloom of a tortuous day in the saddle that makes for a pretty good story. I must warn you, my 2017 experience was unlike any that I have had before. So if you are expecting high drama or severe pain, you might as well stop reading now. What I have to say will probably be very boring, compared to my past experiences. Those of you who are still with me, here is how my day went: I had two goals for this year. First, just finish, which is always a huge challenge for me. You may think that because I have already completed this event 3 times before, that would not be much of a problem. But for me, it is always highly questionable. Second, I wanted to beat my previous best time of 19 hours and 20 minutes, from back in 2012. I was shooting for 19 hours, but that was going t...