Here we go again

I'm guessing that if you're reading this there is a fairly high chance that you already know what the Arrowhead 135 is.  In case you don't check out this video.  I think that it does a good enough job of summing the race up although one simply can't sum it all up in a 5:20 video.  Oh, and if you're wondering the final shot is lovebirds Jenny and me.

So after I finished the race in '11 on our way back home I told John (who is Jenny's dad - Jenny is my fiancee) that if he did it I'd do it again wearing viking horns on my helmet not really thinking that he'd take me up on it.  It was one of those wouldn't it be funny if... type things.  Little did I know that prior to that offer he was already pretty pumped about biking in the snow and that me wearing viking horns was just enough to get him pretty serious about being in the race someday.

So John bought himself a Salsa Mukluk, hit the trails, and plans to register as soon as he can.  Having done Arrowhead twice I am fairly confident in my ability to finish it - the thing I am wondering about most is how in hell can I fashion a pair of authentic-looking but light-weight viking horns.  Anyone have any suggestions?  I was thinking fiberglass and that way I could make them hollow and then put a blinky in each one.  Not really thinking that I'd get any hits I just now googled "viking horns on a bike helmet" and was blown away to find that I got hits, including this.

I really don't have a good answer for why someone would do this race.  I can point you back to what I wrote a few years back for my preparations for the 2011 race - but to sum it up it involves a quote from a book written by Jon Krakauer (the book is Eiger Dreams) that says, in part, "it's sort of like fun, only different.”  And that's really the best I can do.  There isn't a whole lot of logic to a race like this.  I mean, you can't eat the race (your efforts during the prep and the race itself yield no fruit - at least no physical fruits [or veggies, if you don't consider the health benefits of riding a bike - actually now that I think of it it seems insane to not consider the health benefits - and so maybe that's a logical reason to do this]), or have sex with it, or buy it, or much of anything else that makes a typical American do what they do.  It makes no sense - and maybe that's why it appeals to me.  Maybe not.  I don't know.  Years ago I used to go 'round and 'round with myself trying to figure out what on earth motivates me to do things like this - but I can never nail anything down and I'm now long past even trying.  It makes me smile, and for something as harmless as riding a bike, that's enough for me.

Anyway, this blog, like the one I kept that described my preparations for the 2011 edition of Arrowhead, will keep you up to date on what I'm up to and how I'm preparing for Arrowhead 2013.