After a great send off dinner with family I had trouble sleeping Friday night. My brain did not want to settle down. The thoughts about the pending journey set to being played through my head. The excitement, anxousness, uncertainity, the gravity of distance I need to cover in a short period of time, the Mosquitoes and the Bears!!! I started to doubt myself and think had I planned enough. I initially started planning the trip in November of 2022, I remember telling my brother about it, putting it out there like that made it real, something I wouldn’t want to back away from. So deep down I knew I planned as well as I could.

I’d slept less than 3 hours Friday night when the alarm went off way too early at 4:15am. My plan was to be at the first gas station by 5:30am so I can get my official gas receipt to start the Iron Butt Saddle Sore 1000 and Butt Burner 1500. Everyone that knows me knows I’m perpetually late, so I felt good about leaving my house at 5:35am. I drove a few miles down the road and filled up by 5:40am, only 10 min later than planned.

My girlfriend came up from Miami a couple of days prior so we could ride together to Key West, I’d drop her off at her house and continue the journey solo. We had not anticipated the 100deg temps when initially planning that.

After trying to sleep for a couple of hours when I arrived back in St. Augustine from Key West, I only managed to sleep for about an hour. Even with how tired I was, the excitement of the journey ahead had me too amped up to fall asleep.

After dropping my girlfriend off in Miami I made it back to my house at 1:15am Sunday, July 23 to try and sleep for a few hours before continuing towards St. Louis.

When I woke up I had a sudden panic attack that maybe I didn’t have a full 1,000 miles ridden within 24 hours (The Iron Butt Association recommends you ride over the milage to account for calibration issues between your speedometer and actual miles ridden), so I left home and road an additional 18 miles to ensure I had at least 1,000+ miles within 24 hours. This was my first time attemping an Iron Butt ride and I didn’t want to risk not having it accepted.

Day 1 ended up being very long but I did successfully complete my first Iron Butt.

Ending mileage for Day 1 was 1034 miles.