Twelve days to teacakes

Okay, okay, so I have the countdown to the Dairyland Dare on my watch, so sue me. It's just that after having some kind of countdown on the Watch of Doom for so long, when it reverted back to Running Man, I couldn't handle it. It was like the world had suddenly tilted on its axis, like gravity had shifted, like there was no fixed point on the horizon, like Slowtwitch had become a kinder, gentler place. In other words - totally wrong and bizarre.

So not only am I thisclose to teacakes from the eponymous Dodgeville bakery, but today we also received an update from the DD man himself, Stu Schilling, who puts on this fine event. To wit:

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Here are a few updates:

• Bruegger's bagels of Madison will be providing this year's Bagels, cookies, brownies and rice crispy bars. Yum!

• Klement's will be providing hot dogs that we'll be grilling up at the Tower Hill rest stop.

• The Pleasant Ridge rest stop is back in my front yard (ala 2006 & 2007). We might have oven fresh pizza. (fingers crossed)

• The post ride meal will be RP's fresh pasta with a choice of tomato marinara or diced romas, fresh basil, shredded parmesan and olive oil. Add sauteed portabellas and/or meatballs to either.

• Five half barrels of Furthermore Proper are on reserve for post ride enjoyment

• Smoothies are back (but we'll have adults making them :)

• We have hundreds of door prizes from Trek, Hammer, Terry, Planet Bike, RoadID and others.

• We've purchased 70 18" road cones to help warn you of poor road conditions.

• Free tent camping at Governor Dodge State Park - Please contact me to reserve your spot.

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My key takeaways from this are as follows:

- Stu - "Okay, dumbasses, please note that we'll have a shitload of BRIGHT ORANGE CONES out there for your morons who can't ride your bikes without crashing!"

- My ride will basically consist of making it to Tower Hill, maybe Pleasant Ridge, and then back to home base. Though I might also make a stop at that cool bar on CR-Z that I discovered last year while doing a group ride with the girls. Well, except that they foolishly decided to do the long route in the 40mph winds, while I astutely took an alternate one that involved a frosty beverage with the locals.

So to sum: start - Tower Hill - Pleasant Ridge - bar - finish. I think that's a total of what, 30 or so miles? That should do it. Not sure what "it" is exactly, but it certainly doesn't involve needless overtraining, no sirree. Besides, in looking at Stu's list, I think to myself - beer? Door prizes? Smoothies?? Where the hell was all this stuff LAST year? Then I remember that oh, I never finished the ride, wound up being carted to the Dodgeville Hospital instead. Therefore, if you all see me puttering along at a slow pace, being a cycling tourist so to speak, just remember - I'm making up for lost time. Teacakes anyone?