Dairyland Dare Ride Report 2008

Want to be impressed? Check out the elevation profile at the bottom of this .pdf:

http://www.dairylanddare.com/assets/DLD_CUE_2008.pdf


I'm happy to say that I finished the 100k---and that I loved this ride.

But for the patience and ministrations of riding companion Melissa, it likely would not have been so.

I arrived at Melissa's at 5 a.m, with a bike fresh off the trainer and suffering some weird form of wheel lock. Melissa, being an engineer, quickly diagnosed the problem and cured it. We were soon on our way to Dodgeville, watching the sun slowly emerge over a chilled Wisconsin landscape.

I continue to experiment with bizarre fueling strategies. This time: Bunky's pasta the night before, followed by a lot of Nutter Butter cookies. In the car on the way to Dodgeville, I ate half a bagel and some ham....my variation on Mark's recommended "sweet roll and three strips of bacon."

We arrived at Harris Park, changed clothes, assembled bikes, had the rockin' mechanics further repair mine, collected our great schwag, performed various ablutions, and got ourselves underway at about 7:10...40 minutes later than originally planned, thanks to my inertia. The descent out of Harris Park was delightful, but on the first hill I was wondering how I would knock out 200k. I tried to tell myself that the first half hour is always the hardest. Somewhere around then, a radical thought occurred to me: why the hell am I out here? My thyroid is on empty and I am dragging, dragging, dragging. Maybe I should rest. Funny how this hadn't really seemed a possibility until then. Then I realized that this would really probably be the last long ride before the IM taper. Thinking that gave me a new motivation to just get it done, this one last thing.

After the first few hills, I settled in and began to enjoy the scenery, which was gorgeous. Melissa and I were able to chat as the miles rolled by and had hit upon a topic so compelling by the time we reached Barneveld that I didn't realize we were actually on that hellacious climb into town until it was pretty much finished and we were approaching the first rest stop. The rest stop was well stocked and had a festive atmosphere. We enjoyed bananas and some peanut butter and a cookie or half and got on our way. Stage two was even more beautiful, and included one climb that I needed to walk--or thought I needed to walk. The elevation chart shows Roberts Road as actually becoming a wall, so I don't feel too bad about it. There was a water station at the top, and the folks gathered there were cordial---a bit unlike the HHH riders, who seemed to be in chronically bad moods. Between the Roberts water stop and the second real rest stop at Tower Hill, we began contemplating paring back to the 100k for various reasons, and decided to take it one rest stop at a time. When we arrived at Tower Park, we found another festive rest station. Melissa stretched and I failed to resist another cookie (okay, it became the cookie ride), and we both chatted up fellow riders. We took our time, and decided we were happy enough to go on.

From Tower Park to Pleasant View included some challenging climbs, including on a road with "School" in the title. It also included an incredible descent---Upper Wyoming Road, I believe---through a wooded valley. As we were flying down the hill, I found myself pelted by small objects. Animate? Inanimate? The gooey stuff smeared on my arms was suggestive. When we got to the bottom, I asked Melissa if she'd had a similar experience, but she'd avoided becoming a human windshield. Just as we were celebrating this fine moment, I screeched. STUNG again. Damn! Apparently, I picked up a free rider down that hill, and she was not happy to be caught in my Jersey. While my physical reaction was negligible this time (this is Sting 4 this summer), my emotional reaction was not negligible...as usual. So we were standing out in the middle of some road, me baring my back, Melissa reporting on the entomological features of the offender and the lack of swelling at the sting, and me having images of my demise in the middle of this lovely ride. I wish I could report that I did not act like a lunatic about this for the next hour, but such is not the case. We did, however, ride slowly to the Pleasant View (Pleasant Ridge? Pleasant Pinnacle? rest stop, which we shared nicely with a biker bar. It was amusing to realize that the climb was hard enough that it would have been impossible to tell if I was having a bee-related breathing issue, since I always have a breathing issue on the hills. Melissa was the consummate model of patience, which helped me sort out the difference between the biological impact of the sting and its emotional impact.

We got to the next rest, where, thanks to a ham operator who had come by, a medic person was ready to check me out. She reported that many people had been stung by bees that day, and that most were in the same place on the course, and that most people were doing okay. She hit the bite with an ammonia pen. She told me she does ski patrol at Devil's Head in the winter---admittedly not the site of a lot of bee action--but that her professional assessment was that I would live. Melissa stretched. I ate another cookie and chatted up a CVCer who had arrived. Somebody announced that the 200k course cut-off had come and gone. Oops. Good we'd been leaning toward the 100 already. We decided to peddle the remaining 9 miles back to Harris to put in our 100k. Someone warned us about a horrible climb into Dodgeville.

Between Rest 3 and Dodgeville, there were several climbs, and I kept playing leapfrog with a 50-something Dutch woman visiting her sister in the states and riding a borrowed commuter bike. She was great! We climbed and descended, climbed and descended, and finally climbed a rather challenging hill that made me wonder what was left. I stopped at the top and had a hit of gel, thinking that the killer hill that was coming was going to be damned impressive after this one. Descended into the valley, made a turn, and discovered that we were riding the last little climb up to Harris Park. Who knew? One good gel spent only on the finish photo.

Our average pace: 12.something/mile. Don't believe whatever you see as our official pace---we stop for bee stings. We were both pleased enough about persevering that we bought DD jerseys to commemorate the adventure, then enjoyed the post-ride meal, which was good recovery food.

I did more climbing on this ride than on any other, and liked it more. All I can figure is that the temps were better. And maybe the cookies did their job. Oh, yeah, and that training effect.

This week on the Headhunter list, someone said we should stop running in the morning and do it instead at night, when we are exhausted, because that's how it will be at Ironman. So, that's the plan for tonight...long slow run way past my bedtime.

Oh, the idea about resting the thyroid? No such luck. 14 hours on the plan this week, so I'm going to keep slogging through as much as it will let me.