Midsouth: Expect the Unexpected

A quick summary from a very action packed Midsouth weekend.

You’ve probably caught wind (seriously, no pun intended) of the uninvited action over the past few days. Namely wind that made you feel like you were smack in a hurricane, which made nearby wildfires quickly blow out of control. Houses lost, land scorched, it went from a novel day with hectically wild winds to downright heartbreak very very quickly.

Independent of all that those happenings, I hatched the plan months ago to attempt the Mega Midsouth FKT. Part fun, part training in this cockamamy age of ultra rides, part… why the heck not.

I didn’t know it, but at the same time, Chase Wark had the plan to give it a go too. So I set off in my traditional Midsouth gear while Chase got to chase me as his carrot at 7am, resplendent in a head to toe aero dork get-up. And who am I to complain, because I set the record with a time of 17 hours 18 minutes, taking down Nick Bennett’s very respectable time of 22:38. But then only to be undone about 40 minutes later when Chase came in about 1% faster than I was, just shy of 17 hours.

Chase and I both also had the plan to turn our rides into fundraisers for the United Way of Payne County, which eloquently says, “Together we seek out Payne County's toughest challenges, and unite our community to solve them.”

So I was pleased to take home the FKT title for a little while, only to see it undone, but at least I can take the lead in the fundraising category. I’m going to accept donations all week to my Venmo and I’ll make a lump sum donation of ALL the funds I receive there. I’m currently leading Chase by a tally of about $5,500 to $2,500, so let’s keep it up so that I can beat him in at least one important category. Sub, $10k is cool, but I know we can go north of that.