Horribly Hilly (Part 1)

I am registered for the Horribly Hilly Hundreds. Tomorrow. O.My. Gawd.

An article in the paper yesterday said that 25% of people who start it don't finish. What are the stats at an Ironman?

I drove out to Blue Mounds again today to study the climb up Blue Mound and to buy some salty nut rolls from the corner grocery before heading to Mt. Horeb to pick up my number and my Biking Like a Viking jersey. As I approached packet pick-up, I heard someone call out to me. It was Angie, who passed me on a hill at Quadrupedal last year. On a tandem. With a seven-year-old in tow. "You riding tomorrow?" she asked. "Yep--and you going to drop me on a tandem again?" We laughed. "This will be fun," she said, and I think she is right...even though it's been called a "sufferfest."

I too easily allow myself to be intimidated by the macho bravado surrounding these things. For example, we could think of the Ironman bike course as the centerpiece of what has been called "the world's most gureling one-day athletic event" or we could think of it as a scenic Wisconsin ride from Verona to Mt. Horeb to Cross Plains. I may suffer from a Competitive Spirit Disorder....I would much rather think of Ironman as a nice long group swim in my hometown lake with 2000 other fine club members, followed by a nice scenic Wisconsin bike trip, followed by a nice long walk around my lovely town, during which I'll have a chance to catch up with some people I haven't seen in awhile (like since IM training began), than think about Ironman as the world's most grueling athletic event. Of course, my CSD may be just some compensation for my not actually being competitive (as in, what the heck am I doing out here with these fit people?), but still, it calms me down to reframe things...Horribly Hilly: "sufferfest" or a nice hilly training ride witha lot of other crazy happy cyclists trying to figure out the perfect food to fuel their ascent up Pinnacle, Barlow, and Blue Mound? Guess we'll know tomorrow.

And for someone non-competitive, I gotta say I am relieved the damn thing isn't chip timed. That will happen soon enough: as in High Cliff Half Iron race is next week, and I have yet to swim an open water mile.