2011 Speed concept is here!!

Got my Speed Concept last week. I will post pics soon

The run or a.k.a. death march shuffle - This is where I lacked some training this past year. I was using the run/walk strategy. Worked great for the first 10k. This is where it got tough. Around mile 8 there was a lady who I was leap frogging fro a while and we started to run together. We were both hurting with a long way to go. From here it was about survival to the end. There was more than enough time to finish but we wanted a little better. Before 11pm was a goal. 30 seconds run/walk was the plan. She helped me quite a bit, and I hope I helped her at least half of what she did for me. I met my Mike and Joanne many times during the run and it was great. It helped take the focus off of what pain I was feeling in the feet. Thank you so much! The absolute worst part was turning around 500 feet before the finish to do the second lap. Made it to the special needs and got food and another pair of socks. That was one hell of an improvement. It felt like I was walking on knives the entire second half. Kept up with the run/walk thing as much as possible. Aid stations were awesome. there was so much energy there it made you want to go faster. Cola and pretzels were my friend at every station. Well we finally made it to the last half mile. My friend Becky showed up right there to give a bit of encouragement to the end. She gave me the extra kick to the finish. Without all of her help throughout the past year answering so many of my stupid questions I would have been a complete bundle of nerves.In the distance I could hear Mike Riley announcing newest batch of winners. The two people that I was shuffling with have already finished IM's so they were all in favor and suggested that I run up ahead of them and get the good finish photo all on my own. Well, now it really was my turn. I saw the finish line and just kept speeding up. I didn't feel the pain of my feet anymore. I was going to live out one of my life's dreams. At 11:24pm September 7, 2008 I was officially an IRONMAN.

Pictures to follow this week along with closing thoughts.

IM-Wisconsin 2008 RR part 2

T1- 14:07 took my time and changed clothes completely. I figured it was going to be a long day, so make it comfortable. So I put on the lucky 2XU shorts and 2001 IM IW jersey and had a sandwich. Yes, I ate 1 un-crustable. Boy did that hit the spot! The jersey I wore I bought in the first IM-WI 2001 knowing someday I would wear it when i did it. One problem in T1. NO BIKING SOCKS! I figured it wasn't that bad since I do ride without socks quite a bit but never 112 miles. Big mistake that I would find out later.

Bike- This was my leg of the race i was way ready for. I felt really good on the way out HR came down really quick and the power numbers I set were right on target. I was going out at a 160 watt average which for most of the leg out I was up around 20-22mph. First loop gave me a glimpse of what was going to happen but I ignored it. I dropped my chain twice but I put it up to over shifting. I pulled in to Verona and witnessed the TDF like moment. I was absolutely flying somewhere in the 30mph range. Going down the people lined street my speeds were fed off of the crowd. Time to special needs from the Monona Terrace, 3:15. This was over halfway. I was on pace for a solid 6:30 bike split. This is where it went to hell. On hwy 92 drive train locked up. I locked up and discovered my deraileur in the spokes. My chain was completely wedged between the crank and the frame. I got it unjammed but realized I was one spoke short. Wheel was way out of true but I wasn't about to call the crumb wagon to take me back. I figured I was forced out. My worst nightmare. I listened to the constant ticking of the broken spoke. I lost an hour and a half stopping to find tech support to get a new wheel. No luck! I made it to Cross Plains and finally saw a tech support tent. The guy wasn't going to let me continue. He showed me where the frame was broken and told me sorry :( There was no way I was stopping. I told him I have already went 30 miles like it was and I will walk the rest of the way. While we were arguing the assistant discovered the rear pulley wheel. It was sliced in half with most of the teeth missing. this would explain why I had no freewheel available. Got going again and limped the bike back to the Terrace. Total time on the bike was 7:40. I was able to eat and drink on the bike, I felt fresh and the 112 miles that flew by other than the mechanical failure.

T2- since I was behind schedule, I skipped changing clothes. I just switched out shirts and finally put on some socks! The bloody toes thanked me! 10:40 total time. I should have stepped up the pace a bit more but Ironman is what is is. Do not get upset with things you cannot control. Go with the flow and enjoy the day.

IM-Wisconsin 2008 RR

Well lets just say I owe my wife a big thank you. She has put up with a year of me being away training, traveling and working way too much. What a trooper and now I hope I have made her proud.

The year leading up the race was injury free till one week before. My littlest one jumped on my foot while I was lying on the floor and we thought it was broken. Short story, it wasn't. I went to the doc, they took x-rays and told me it would just hurt. I bruised some tendon. I visited the Chiro who is a multiple marathoner and he checked it out. He popped it back into place and all was good.

Pre race - Got out of bed at 4am after a night of almost no sleep. Nerves were getting the best of me. I kept having dreams and visions of not making the swim cutoff of 9:20 am. I kept wondering if I did enough training to make it. I had one hell of a time knocking out the self doubt going into the swim. After a diet coke things calmed a bit :) Well I grabbed a bit to eat and headed up to the Terrace to get the party started. Walking down to the Terrace, I could hardly believe I was going to do THIS! I have spectated since it started in 2001 and I was hooked. I always wanted to do but never thought it would actually happen. This day was my one and only shot so I was going to make it happen. I saw a few friends and family on the way down to the swim and this made it all better. I was in a calm state ready to have fun.

Swim - I started really wide, standing waist deep in the water. I did not want to deal with getting pummeled in the water or treading water for half an hour. I knew I would have to swim farther but oh well. The cannon went off and I let the mass of crazy fast swimmers go. There was about a 20 second delay and then I was off. I got in a groove and got to the inside of the buoys three quarters of the way down on the first straight away. I circled the 2 red buoys and hit the clear water on the inside of the rectangle. My friend Becky who does this every year let in on a little secret. As long as you go around the outside of the red buoys you are in the course. I had clear water in front of me with only a handful of people here and there. I never got kicked, punched or swam over. Pretty uneventful for the rest of the way. I hit the beach in 1:44. Saw friends and family and that gave me that extra boost that everything is OK. I do remember asking the people at the swim exit if I made the cut off and they laughed. I made it by well over 35 minutes! I felt spent coming out of the water but not completely shot. I got to the wetsuit strippers. Boy that is something I have never experienced before. It is probably the weirdest part of the day. As I was going towards the area, one lady unzipped the back, 3 people were waiting for me, told me to drop. They had that wetsuit off of me in a matter of 3 seconds. I trotted up the Helix slapping five with people and seeing more friends and family and I knew it was going to be a great day!

I am an Ironman

At 11:24 September 7th Mike Riley announced that I was an ironman at Ironman Wisconsin. More to follow after a nap.....

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!