I Found Boo Boo the Fool, It’s me!

Y’all… what the heck did I sign myself up for? Like, truly, have I fully lost my entire mind? I MUST be Boo Boo the Fool! I’m not on any drugs that I know about, so how have I put myself in the position of doing a legitimate ultra race? In about 88 days, I will be the subject of one of those record scratch situations where “you’re probably trying to figure out how I ended up in this situation”. What situation? The Lost Dot 101.

According to their website, The Lost Dot 101 is a ~1200 km, free-route format across Spain, starting in Santiago de Compostela and finishing in southern Spain in May 2026. Riders will navigate between mandatory control points and parcours under the same Rules and Spirit of the Race that define Lost Dot’s events, while benefiting from relaxed time allowances to enable more riders to finish and compete for the general classification.

That tilde is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting, cuz your girl finally started planning the route and I don’t know what the hell we finna do now! I mean… obviously the answer here is train and plan and prepare and pray. But yes, I have absolutely lost my mind, because even after finally coming to terms with what I’ve signed myself up for, I don’t plan on quitting. I will absolutely be at the start line at 8pm in Santiago de Compostella and beginning an ultra race AT NIGHT? lol. What?

I’m no stranger to jumping into shenanigans because I didn’t ask enough questions, but this is definitely the second most ridiculous thing I’ve gotten myself into. The first, obviously was trying to become a World Tour road cyclist at 27 years old. There’s also that time I signed up for the 200 mile unbound even though I’d never ridden gravel before, and then when I rode the buffalo soldiers route that covers part of the tour divide on a cyclocross bike, and last year when I did the 100km Traka in the pouring rain.. I really do need to start asking more questions before I sign up for stuff. But maybe I don’t, because then I’d probably never sign up for anything, because in reality, I am a ‘fraidy cat and the only reason I usually end up doing these things is because I said I would. And also because I am in fact, Boo Boo the fool.

It’s honestly a wonder I don’t get scammed on a regular basis. So here I am, with this big scary goal in front of me. What I do know, is that I’m all out of excuses for slacking off. That well has run dry, because in 88 days, I’m doing this, hell or high water (I really hope i didn’t speak a rainy start into existence…).

So what’s the plan? What are next steps? Well… yesterday morning I finally started back strength training. I made it halfway through the workout and my hamstring said, “Girl, you better sit down immediately”. So I stopped. Today… I tried again, and made it all the way through. I honestly have not put myself in the best position here, but at the same time, Maybe I have? Nobody can cram for a test like me, and it’s good to be having this revelation with about 3 months to train instead of far less time. With my background, this is actually doable, and I’m going to do it.

That being said, please, please, please hold me accountable. It takes a village to raise a child, and I’m a child of God who needs a village right now. I am VERY much driven by guilt, praise, and accountability. Follow me on Strava , give kudos, DM me on instagram about how good my mid ride coffee looks, tell me I’m looking strong, or praise my consistency. Tell me I can do it (I know I can, but I still like to hear it), and if absolutely necessary, LIE TO ME.

Not sure if everyone has been following the Lindsey Vonn saga, long story short, she’s a 41 year old legend in alpine skiing (gold medal olympian, multiple world cup overall champ, etc) with a history of injuries, retired, finally go the care she needed for her injuries and decided to comeback to the sport. She was CRUSHING IT! Podiums, excellent results, made the olympic team. A week before her event, she demolished her ACL. She and her medical team decided she was still going to go for it. The internet was very divided, everyone had an opinion or why she should or should not compete. Unfortunately, it went VERY poorly. She crashed during her event and had to be airlifted off the slopes. Broken leg. Same leg as the demolished ACL.

What did Lindsey say about it all? Homegirl has no regrets. And honestly, I get it. I have no dog in the fight of if she should or shouldn’t have competed, but I LOVE that she. has zero regrets even after failing so spectacularly. So that’s the energy I’m taking into this challenge.

It’s not the Olympics, but this will likely be the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted, and up until now, I didn’t respect that enough. I’ve been skating through shenanigans for so long that I didn’t imagine I’d actually get myself into something that was above my head. But here we are, and if I’m going to do this, I need to take it seriously.

Here we go!

Bike racing things? I’m still side eyeing that NSN team, but I’m happy for Bini for winning last week. I still hope they’re paying him more money than he could ever count. The women’s world tour has a bit of a break now. UAE tour had a pretty expected outcome, but it was nice to see it really coming together for some folks that I’ve had my eye on. The spring classics start February 28th with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium. If you’ve never followed the classics, they are absolutely thrill to witness. One day races, usually in awful weather, that are flat-ish and very fast. It’s usually super aggressive racing, and a lot of fun.

And last but certainly not least, if you missed them two really fun projects were released last week.

The first one with SRAM. Blank Canvas is currently up on the SRAM homepage.

I really had a lot of fun shooting this with my pal Alicia (Ah-Lee-See-Uh). We met through an ex-boyfriend of mine will I was in college in Boston. She’s an exceptional artist, and I think she did an excellent job capturing my essence in her style. Super cool.

The climate in America is a very strange one right now, so I appreciate SRAM still allowing me these opportunities to speak freely about my desire to see a more diverse bike community. To be honest, the video isn’t getting a lot of views, but I think it’s a lovely and well done film, and I do hope more people watch it. It’s ten minutes long, so maybe give it a look with your morning coffee one day?

The other project is one I did last year with Liv about their e-road bike the Avail E+. I am a huge fan of e-bikes, and really think more folks should try them. I also agree there needs to be adequate and appropriate regulations for them, but there’s so much misinformation that it’s been really hard for that to happen in a way that makes sense. Recently New Jersey passed legislation requiring that all e-bike users be 17 and have a driver’s license, registration, and insurance. On the surface, this might sound fine, but there is more nuance there, and a big part of it that also annoys me is that the motivation for this was very likely cracking down on immigrant delivery drivers. Anywho, there are too many different types of e-bikes, and uses for such blanket litigation, and I hope they revisit it. You can read more about it here.

Oh yes, the film. It’s a little over two minutes long and you can watch that here:

Okie. I guess I should go get on my bike now! Until next time!