Horribly Hilly Hundreds report 200k...ish

The long and short of this ride.....HILLS, HILLS and more HILLS!!!

I never knew WIsconsin had this many hills. The ride was planned as one of the toughest 200k rides in the midwest. It sure was! There were a few points in the ride where downhill speeds hit 50mph! On the flip side everyhting that goes down must come up. Those same momentum builders contained a momentum killer. Two climbs I just flat out got off the bike and was walking faster than some people still in the saddle. I looked down on the speedometer and saw a climb going uphill riding clicking 2.5 mph. Walking I was over 3. What does that tell you?

Later in the ride I was starting to bonk. This hit me around 90 miles. At 99.5 I was cooked. Luckily storms passed through and the race officials wouldn't let us continue. We were forced to seek shelter in a nice farmers barn. There were roughly 30 of us held up in the barn. There were hail stones coming down the size of nickels. About 30 minutes of waiting they shut down the ride completely. Sag wagons were coming to pick everybody left out there up and take them back to the park. I was not ok with that! I told the official I was going to ride a quarter mile don the road and back. I was not going to miss my first century ride. I got the mileage in. 100.25 miles!! A first for me. I have never gone more than 80 miles in one trip. While 100.25 was great in those conditions and that terrain, I am a bit disappointed. I really wanted the entire 124 miles in on this ride for confidence going into Moo, but 100 miles out there was sure something!

A day in the saddle on the IM MOO course

Well Keith and I did a bit of recon on the course today. I had the TTX all ready in it's race set up. I will be sporting the Aeolus 5.0 front and the Aeolus 6.5 Powertap in the rear. These wheels climb like a dream and they are sharp looking too. We took off from the Monona Terrace at 6am. Well Keith had a head start on me riding from his home so he was warmed up already so we took it easy for the first 10 miles into Verona to get warm. Now i understand why people hammer it all the way to Verona. It was so tempting to do the same! We held back on purpose and it paid off towards the end. the hill going into Mt. Horeb that always puts me to my knees was a breeze with the correct set up. I never went over 250 watts up it. I do not think that has ever happened before (well at least to me). Leaving Mt. Horeb on Witte road speeds hit 49mph! I definitely had more than enough speed to make it up the rollers. The first rather large hill was not that bad either. With the exception of not being able to go into my largest rear cassette cog it was great. Wattage was limited as much as possible to ensure not blowing up. Upon getting into Verona I had come up with a few things that were going to be in the special needs bag. List is as follows:

Nutter Butters!!
PB&J Uncrustables
Bodyglide
Salted Nut Roll
2 extra tubes
2 CO2's

Just a few things that I thought of on the way. I really didn't want any more gels or anything sweet. That stuff gets gross after a while. The trip going back to Verona was a bit boring. A slight uphill the entire way but manageable. This will be time to zone out and get ready for the next step. Oh yea, one more thing the Helix sucks. I was going up it myself and I was getting a bit dizzy. I can only imagine what it will be like with lots of people half out of it going up and up and up. It never seemed to stop......

Mad City Marathon (half) report

Mad City Marathonwas the activity for the weekend. I have done this 3 time prior to today with results being consistent at 2:22 and some change. First year being not prepared enough and 70F temps the next being over prepared running in 90+F temps when the race was shut down putting up the same times all the way to today for 70F again. Coming into today this is kicking off running season for Ironman Wisconsin roughly on the same course. I was putting no pressure on myself what so ever. I was treating this as a supported early season long run. I was going to experiment with nutrition and Gatorade and water per station no matter what.

Started with the night before, I ate like normal and got good sleep. Woke up close to two and a half hours before race tim and actually ate! I ended up taking the shuttle to the race start and ran into Joanne and her friend. Imagine spotting them in a crowd of a reported 3500 half marathon runners. I ran with them for the first 2 miles since they were planning on running a 10:30 pace. I figured I would run this pace to get warmed up instead of going out too fast like usual and blowing up by mile 3. Well I got into the groove with splits and HR going like this:

3 mi- 30.09 AVG 161hr
6 mi- 30.36 AVG 167hr
9 mi 31.28 AVG 165hr
12mi 30.03 AVG 168hr
final 1.1 mi 11.40 AVG 172hr

Miles 6-9 included a trip to the port a potty after being hydrated enough. My strategy going in was to walk the hills to control the HR from going to high and make up the time in the flats. The race organizers changed the route this year from previous years and added an extremely sharp downhill that just killed the quads. I finished at 2:13:20 instead of the reported 2:08 on my watch. This was good for 1929 out of 2866 overall. I was 13 minutes off of my goal of 2 hours flat but still good considering this was going to be the IM pace/strategy for september.

The day after calfs and quads a bit sore. I noticed 2 small blisters from not wearing the correct shoes but this is easily fixed for next time. BRING THE RIGHT SHOES!!!

A few updates...

Well the big ride is tomorrow (Friday the 16th of May). I will embark on my first century ride in my life. I have never done one hundred miles on a bike in a row ever. This is a work sponsored activity so I am not supposed to feel guilty, my boss man said so! Our quest begins in Madison and ends in Dubuque Iowa! Hills, hills and more hills is the menu for the day. Myself and a few co-workers will turn around in Darlington after lunch and back to Madison for a total of just over 100 miles.

I have started a little project for wifey dearest. She mentioned to me she wanted to try out a road bike. Well look what i have built out of spare parts so far.



Picture the remainder with a white saddle, carbon post, white grip tape, red cabling and Ultegra components. She should have a pretty sweet carbon fiber Madone for her first road bike. I only hope she like it....

I think (and hope) I saved somebody's life today

I was traveling through town with my 2 kids, it was a misty rain coming down. I was northbound on main st and the vehicle ahead of me was traveling at a low rate of speed maybe 15-20 mph. Coming to the light at Madison Avenue the light turned yellow and the vehicle ahead of me stopped almost a car length into the intersection. i was stopped at the white line and was wondering what this dude was doing. Vehicle proceeds to take a left on Madison Ave traveling in the parking lane of all places. stays in this lane for a few block and then veers over into oncoming lane. Good thing there wasn't any traffic coming at him. Speeds went from 8mph to 35mph . He turned into the Health Club lot and turned around. I have since called the police and reported this guy. After his turn around at the Health Club he absolutely flew back into town. I kept an eye on as he got caught at the light and I caught him then. While traveling down Robert street south, I noticed an officer that started to come out to monitor him. I slowed down at the light in the left lane to turn off. While turning off to the left and having the officer behind the guy the vehicle in question came into my lane and almost hit me. I sure hope the police saw that!! I have no tolerance for drunk drivers. If this guy was drinking and driving and would have hit somebody and I didn't call him in could I have lived with that?

Commute to work on the TTX aka Earth Day

Today this morning's commute to work was:

16 miles a little over 50 minutes. 487 k/j averaging 169 watts. It looks as I need to up the watts. The next ride I am going to maintain an average 190 watts for the ride. This will force me to ride at a quicker pace and train the body to clear the lactic acid. Wish me luck!

I am happy to have this streak of building on the bike over for a few days. Tomorrow is a run and a day off from the bike. I want to come back fresh for another week of build. The HHH 100 is coming and I have to hit the hills!

First test on the course

Today my co-worker Keith and I hit the IM-MOO bike course starting in verona for one loop. I took the road bike with the new test saddle and Bontrager Aeolus front wheel. Figuring this would be a light set up for optimal performance out there I forgot one thing. I am on my road bike and not the TTX. What's the big deal you ask? Well on the TTX I have a 50x34 crank chained to a 11x23 cassette. Perfect combo. I forgot that the road bike was a DA 54x42 chained to the same 11x23 cassette. Wow talk about aggressive. It was doable for training but not for racing. I was going up some of the hills at a whopping 6 mph with no more gears left for climbing. I will do it again with a more reasonable 12x27.

The entire ride was set at a pretty easy pace not going to aggressive. Including a stop in each town for refueling we came into Verona after 42.19 miles in 3hr 3 min. total consumption was one package of Sport Beans, one bottle of Gatorade, 2 bottles of water and one gel. This is the first time ever that I actually had to pee on the bike (I did stop for that). I had my hydration down for that ride with a lot still to learn. Total power was just under 1900 k/j which was a pretty good workout. I averaged a low 160 watts. I have to ask around if that was good or not... Until next time :)

30mph headwinds

Today in Wisco there were 30mph headwinds on the lunch ride today. A 20 mile loop turned out to over an hour and 15 minutes! Going into the wind the watts were going through the roof. At the 10 mile turn around point, I had registered 653 k/J. There were points in the ride going out that we hit a downhill and we were not gaining any speed. It kept the same 12 mph. Talk about demoralizing! The return trip was great. At the turn around it was like somebody just turned off the hurricane fan. We didn't feel any wind at our backs but the speed were were going it sure helped. Imagine siting up in the hoods (road bike) and going close to 30 mph on a flat with no pedaling. That's what happened! The ride ended rather quickly after the turn around. Were were back to work in what seemed like minutes. I finished the ride at 778 k/j so you can see how much the wind helped.

Tomorrow, if the wind is right i will ride that hurricane winds to work. I will get some free commuting miles before the Bike to Work Week.

Checking in

A lot has happened since my last posting. I have been concentrating on swimming mostly. I found out that I am swimming with my hands going into the water upside down which slows me down. I am concentrating on putting my thumb in the water first. Just with that improvement I gained a few seconds in my 100 yard time.

My brother who is a former collegiate swimmer has been consulting me on some swim training. I am now in the middle of intervals. These are the 100 yard sets that make you want to puke if done correctly. It took me a few session till I got it right but I finally did it. I found out I can consistently hold a 1:50 per 100 yard. Over the next few sessions I will be aiming to improve that so I can claim myself a 1:45 swimmer.

Biking is starting outdoors with lunch rides really stepping up this week. It is supposed to be in the mid to upper 60's!!! After a long winter here in Wisconsin it will feel down right balmy!

Running I fell has been improving with the exception of one treadmill run. I have realized why I hate the treadmill. I ran on tuesday on the dreadmill at work and hurt for 3 days afterwards. I only ran a 5k on it. Well today I did a 5 mile run and it felt fine. I ran it faster and harder than the dreadmill run and when I was done felt like I could do it again. I didn't as I am going to go for a ride tomorrow at work. While I was out running today I was listening to a type of music that is completely foreign to me. After reading a post on ST I was directed to a website that had some free downloads of so called running music. They are called Podrunners from Dj Steve boy. I went with the 150 square one track. Holy shit! It was awesome! I am not really a techno fan but running to 150 beats per minute was great. IT really pushed me. goto the site and try one out. I downloaded all of them for the upcoming running training. Hopefully I can work up to the 180 V-tach workout.

Over the past month

I have had a fairly decent base building go. I have just under 16K of swimming, 43 miles on the bike, and only 8.5 running. The swimming has progressed the best. Every three weeks I have been doing an endurance set. That consisted of multiple sets of 100 yards on 1:30. While 1:30 is incredibly fast, I was using jet propulsion aka flippers. But adding it up I needed the flippers to make the 1:30 pace on lap number fifty. My goal is to make the set of 100x100 on 1:30 with 30 seconds rest between by the beginning of May.

The biking is picking up after a few disastrous snow days. I was going to a cycling class on Wednesdays for a while now but over the past 4 weeks I have only made one. There has been so much snow that I cannot even get there to participate. I just pray for outdoor riding to comer soon!

Running is not a priority for me right now. I did a few runs at a slightly higher pace than a tempo run. It felt good even on all the ice I was running on. the path today was completely covered in ice that was over 6 inches thick! Boy will it be a mess when it all starts to melt! I will continue to do maintenance runs for another couple weeks. The next target run day is the Crazylegs Classic. It is a simple 8K in Madison that over 20000 people participate in. That is the official kick off of run training for me. I will be running at work at that point.