Miles to go before she sleeps

Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! 
You fucked up ... you trusted us!
—Otter, "Animal House" 

With 100 miles behind her, Heather finishes a climb outside Seward.

About a year and a half ago, my friend Heather fucked up. After drinking a lot of wine, she trusted me. When she woke up the next morning, I'm pretty sure she was filled with self-loathing.

Because the previous night, she had agreed to ride the Fireweed 200 with me this year. 

Heather realizes what she has done.

In her entire life, she had never ridden 100 miles in a day. And I had spent years saying there is never a valid reason to ride more than 100 miles at a time. But in the dark recesses of my twisted mind, something wanted to ride 200.

Correction: Something wanted to have ridden 200 miles in a day.

Now we're three weeks out from this year's Fireweed. Heather has been following a structured training program since January. I've been following my usual "ride my ass off and see what happens" training program. Her husband, Ken, has surely been muttering unpleasant things about both of us under his breath, and regretting the fact he didn't step in and stop me as I talked her into this shit while he was stretched out on the floor six feet away. 

On Friday, Heather and I both took the day off and rode 122 miles to Seward. Now she tells me that we have to spend next Saturday riding 160 miles from Anchorage to Hope and back.

Last night, after the wine was poured, a laptop was opened and we both became official entrants in the 200.

And the weird part is, I think we're actually ready to do this thing.

Or at least I sure as shit hope we are.