Craig Irving Catches Up

Here's what Craig Irving has been up to in the Cup O' Dirt department. This report officially gets him both the 1/2 Liter O' Dirt and the Cup O' Mississippi Mud! Keep on working towards the full cup, Craig, and props for riding with the injury instead of using the good hand to dial up the ol' lady on yer cell phone.

I've been slacking with the updates, but not with the rides.  This is me catching up.  I have another full century and three more metrics to report.  Here's the breakdown:

October 1st:  101 miles total, but my Garmin died at mile 97.  Had to map out the last few miles when I got home to make sure I had an honest hundy.  Spent the day getting lost and then finding my way back.

October 9th:  Pre-rode the Moonshine Metric course with a friend from work.  He later said it was the hardest ride he's done this year.  That was his first gravel metric...  Ever.  He's got the mind of the gravel racer though.  I offered him multiple bail out opportunities and even though he was really suffering, he refused each time.  Right on, brother!

October 15th:  Moonshine Metric!  Turned out to be a great night for a ride.  Eight of us took the start and five of us finished, including fellow Cup O' Dirt rider Courtney.  Just to shame us all, he rode here from Des Moines and then did the ride.  He ended up with ~240 miles in 40 hours.  Badass!

October 23rd:  Wanted to check out the course for a race I'm doing on the 30th so I rode to Marion, reset the Garmin and hit the course.  I had originally planned on riding a full, but crashed 35 miles into my ride and banged up my hand.  I rode another 10 miles before I decided to bail out, but I was still 35 miles or so from home.  I couldn't grip the handlebars properly so I was more or less one-handing the rough stuff and fast descents...  Seemed like a bad idea for a training ride.  I still managed to get enough gravel in for a metric before stopping for something to eat.  I polished off a meatloaf sandwich and some mozzi sticks and hit pavement for the bulk of the remaining miles.  Ended up with 85 on the day.