Spooky Cross!

This event was significantly smaller than expected. I guess I had previously decided in my head what it should be like based on Survivor-Cross (same location). As you can see below, I was (apparently) already tired at staging since I'm having a good yawn.

The course was easy from a technicality point of view but really became a killer over time because a majority of it involved riding in long grass on top of soft ground. Leg-burning city.

(Starting in the back like an idiot....)

IMT Half!

Corrine had the ambitious task of running a half-marathon this morning. We've watched the IMT marathon before when Cody ran it last year. I don't remember it being this cold last time, running looked nice (not 13miles for me though).

Nice views from the top of the parking garage we used.

Off to Rock Bottom Brewing to celebrate and re-fuel.

Steak will work!

Night Cap!

Tonight was the night! I'd been looking forward to this one for quite a while. It's tough to beat the energy found here when a couple hundred spectators are crowding around. Then the lighted course and live band made it awesome. 

A blinding sunset rapidly gave way to darkness and the sound of gen-sets. The course was absolutely brutal, combined with the longest CX race time I've done yet this year, meaning I was very done when I was done. This is the third year for Night-Cap and it was the best yet. The course and crowds keep getting bigger and people keep coming in from bordering states to do it. Looking forward to next year!

I've got some videos to post later.

Variety!

It's a good thing after-all. The local HyVee liquor store has always been really good about carrying all kinds of craft beers from just about every region. They recently picked up Stone Brewing from CA. I've only tried one so far and it was fantastic - need to go back and pick up a Ruination IPA yet. 

Fat Tire Finale!

This was a most unexpected finale. I really did think it would be raining at some point during this whole thing but we actually had solid weather for the duration. 

The destination today was Confluence Brewery which is near Gray's Lake just outside downtown Des Moines. We got a private (as a group) look and tasting session before the public grand opening. This place isn't joking around - large capacity and way bigger than any other brewer in the nearby area.

Multiple kettles.

Heading back to El Baitshop to wait for the bike raffle.

...I don't know what this is.

After the raffle (didn't win), we went looking for some offroad trails to ride. We had 2x CX bikes and one road bike?

Not many pictures of the trails (as I was working to keep my road-bike upright on wet dirt) but this one dead-ended in some construction.

Found some ultra-fine/dense sand that my bike easily stood up in.

Mullet Fall Classic!

Placeholder for Mullet Classic.

Wooden Shoe!

I've got a couple videos of the 2012 Dirty Wooden Shoe. It had a fun course which was much more complicated (and better for it) than last year at the same location. I placed 14th in Cat-4 which was the exact same result from my previous race (Capital City Cross). 

Having never tried a multiple race weekend before, I was unsure how the following day would go. I was already too tired (or so I thought) today. Some fun stuff happened - the Cat-1/2/3 elite race was flat-out dominated by a guy on a single-speed mountain bike.