Friday, September 12, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
WILL SHE TRI IRONMAN WISCONSIN? THE ANSWER: YES! SHE DID!
And I now say this: Ironman Wisconsin will make you very sore, even if you don't finish the bike and run.
*********************************
Seriously, I had a profound, amazing, incredible, magical experience that rose to the level of the spiritual. I am very grateful to everyone who helped me and my body to that line.
Race report in a few days.
Will she try Ironman Wisconsin again? She just might. She just might.
Thanks, everybody!
*********************************
Seriously, I had a profound, amazing, incredible, magical experience that rose to the level of the spiritual. I am very grateful to everyone who helped me and my body to that line.
Race report in a few days.
Will she try Ironman Wisconsin again? She just might. She just might.
Thanks, everybody!
Friday, September 5, 2008
All that's Left: Donate and Pray.
Dear Friends, Family, and Community Members,
Thanks again so much for your contributions to the Plumpy’Nut Ironman Challenge of 2008!
We knew when we started that we could make something amazing happen, and I am writing now, a day away from our final accounting deadline (2 pm CST Saturday September 6), to let you know that is the case.
As of today, by pooling our resources, we have raised more than $10,000 for Doctors Without Borders to use in the purchase of Plumpy’Nut, the medicinal-grade peanut butter food that is saving children from dying from starvation---at an amazing $40 a kid.
That means we’re on the edge of literally saving the lives of 250 children.
I was trying to wrap my head around that this morning, and what I saw was this:
A kindergarten with 25 children in it, captivated by a litter of kittens, playing soccer, learning to write an alphabet, practicing singing on key, preparing to tell their mothers and fathers and siblings what happened in their four-year-old lives that day.
Our fund makes that room full of kindergarteners possible. Plumpy’nut and its delivery by Doctors Without Borders makes the difference between whether those 25 kids are alive and well and learning numbers or not alive at all.
Once I could envision that room of 25 children, thanks to you, I could multiply it to ten rooms full of 25 kindergarteners with hopes and dreams and futures possible, to 250 high school graduations, to 250 weddings. These are the 250 children in whose lives our collective contributions have made all the difference.
It is amazing---and we’ve made this amazing thing happen.
Now, it’s time to multiply again.
The great appeal of the Janus Charity Challenge is that it rewards us for raising as much money as possible by offering the incentive of additional large donations to an athlete’s charity of choice. The awards to the top five funds raised are the largest. As best we can tell, we are currently in the sixth position. This will bring Doctors Without Borders some additional money, but far less than they need to address the needs of the 4.5 million children who are severely malnourished in Ethiopia this year, let alone the 14 million worldwide.
In Ironman training, you learn to dig deep, to push just a little further.
So we’re going to ask you to help us dig deep right now, as we approach the finish of this particular competition---just before 2:00 Central Standard Time Saturday.
If you have intended to pledge, but haven’t yet had the chance, please dig deep today and chip in. If you’ve already donated, “digging deep” may mean asking somebody else to join the Plumpy Nut Ironman Campaign; it may mean digging deep for quarters in the sofa; it may mean passing the hat at work on Friday, or writing to all of your triathlete friends or cycling buddies or feminist listserves and asking them to make a tax deductible contribution to Doctors Without Borders.. Every contribution helps---when $40 saves a life, $10 makes a significant impact, hard as that can be to believe from a North American perspective. If we can move into even the #5 slot in the Janus Charity Challenge, Janus will award Doctors Without Borders an additional $2,000---that’s another 40 infants or children’s lives saved. If we can move higher, the Janus contribution is greater.
Here are the links to our Plumpy’Nut Ironman donation sites.
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=250249&lis=0&kntae250249=078E99DA3F354110A8AFA4764D0321C2
http://www.firstgiving.com/amberault
As many of you know---because many of you have helped support me in changing this the last few years--- I am a non-athlete coming from a very sedentary, unfit background, still struggling to get healthy. Taking on Ironman has given me many rich moments ---- and has also involved some serious challenges. I have been raising money for Doctors Without Borders because it felt close to my heart and a bright spot in the difficult landscape of my training….and because my performance in the race would not affect the fund or the awards Janus gives to charities.
This has been especially true the last few weeks, when my sluggish thyroid has slowed me down considerably, probably impaired from the training, and when I broke a toe a few days ago in a freak swimming accident---- it was funny, in a cosmic way, but made Ironman look rather impossible—if not plain stooopid. These are both small things, in the big picture, but they have had me considering postponing my Ironman debut until ’09. “Thank God the Plumpy Nut fund isn’t affected by whether I race,” I thought as I’ve been limping around this week, because I’m not feeling quite in the place or shape to do it, instead of enjoying that “bring it on” state I’d expected after a year’s worth of training.
Today, however, I read the fine print: to participate in the Janus Charity Challenge, athletes “must register for and race in” the Ironman---broken toes and depleted thyroids not exempted.
Game on, friends. Game on.
Because I will dig deep for Plumpy’Nut, I’ll be at the starting line of Ironman Wisconsin Sunday, one plump social justice nut among a sea of 2,000 amazing athletes. Thanks for everything you have done so far for our campaign, and whatever you can do now to dig deep with me.
Let’s go!
Thanks again so much for your contributions to the Plumpy’Nut Ironman Challenge of 2008!
We knew when we started that we could make something amazing happen, and I am writing now, a day away from our final accounting deadline (2 pm CST Saturday September 6), to let you know that is the case.
As of today, by pooling our resources, we have raised more than $10,000 for Doctors Without Borders to use in the purchase of Plumpy’Nut, the medicinal-grade peanut butter food that is saving children from dying from starvation---at an amazing $40 a kid.
That means we’re on the edge of literally saving the lives of 250 children.
I was trying to wrap my head around that this morning, and what I saw was this:
A kindergarten with 25 children in it, captivated by a litter of kittens, playing soccer, learning to write an alphabet, practicing singing on key, preparing to tell their mothers and fathers and siblings what happened in their four-year-old lives that day.
Our fund makes that room full of kindergarteners possible. Plumpy’nut and its delivery by Doctors Without Borders makes the difference between whether those 25 kids are alive and well and learning numbers or not alive at all.
Once I could envision that room of 25 children, thanks to you, I could multiply it to ten rooms full of 25 kindergarteners with hopes and dreams and futures possible, to 250 high school graduations, to 250 weddings. These are the 250 children in whose lives our collective contributions have made all the difference.
It is amazing---and we’ve made this amazing thing happen.
Now, it’s time to multiply again.
The great appeal of the Janus Charity Challenge is that it rewards us for raising as much money as possible by offering the incentive of additional large donations to an athlete’s charity of choice. The awards to the top five funds raised are the largest. As best we can tell, we are currently in the sixth position. This will bring Doctors Without Borders some additional money, but far less than they need to address the needs of the 4.5 million children who are severely malnourished in Ethiopia this year, let alone the 14 million worldwide.
In Ironman training, you learn to dig deep, to push just a little further.
So we’re going to ask you to help us dig deep right now, as we approach the finish of this particular competition---just before 2:00 Central Standard Time Saturday.
If you have intended to pledge, but haven’t yet had the chance, please dig deep today and chip in. If you’ve already donated, “digging deep” may mean asking somebody else to join the Plumpy Nut Ironman Campaign; it may mean digging deep for quarters in the sofa; it may mean passing the hat at work on Friday, or writing to all of your triathlete friends or cycling buddies or feminist listserves and asking them to make a tax deductible contribution to Doctors Without Borders.. Every contribution helps---when $40 saves a life, $10 makes a significant impact, hard as that can be to believe from a North American perspective. If we can move into even the #5 slot in the Janus Charity Challenge, Janus will award Doctors Without Borders an additional $2,000---that’s another 40 infants or children’s lives saved. If we can move higher, the Janus contribution is greater.
Here are the links to our Plumpy’Nut Ironman donation sites.
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=250249&lis=0&kntae250249=078E99DA3F354110A8AFA4764D0321C2
http://www.firstgiving.com/amberault
As many of you know---because many of you have helped support me in changing this the last few years--- I am a non-athlete coming from a very sedentary, unfit background, still struggling to get healthy. Taking on Ironman has given me many rich moments ---- and has also involved some serious challenges. I have been raising money for Doctors Without Borders because it felt close to my heart and a bright spot in the difficult landscape of my training….and because my performance in the race would not affect the fund or the awards Janus gives to charities.
This has been especially true the last few weeks, when my sluggish thyroid has slowed me down considerably, probably impaired from the training, and when I broke a toe a few days ago in a freak swimming accident---- it was funny, in a cosmic way, but made Ironman look rather impossible—if not plain stooopid. These are both small things, in the big picture, but they have had me considering postponing my Ironman debut until ’09. “Thank God the Plumpy Nut fund isn’t affected by whether I race,” I thought as I’ve been limping around this week, because I’m not feeling quite in the place or shape to do it, instead of enjoying that “bring it on” state I’d expected after a year’s worth of training.
Today, however, I read the fine print: to participate in the Janus Charity Challenge, athletes “must register for and race in” the Ironman---broken toes and depleted thyroids not exempted.
Game on, friends. Game on.
Because I will dig deep for Plumpy’Nut, I’ll be at the starting line of Ironman Wisconsin Sunday, one plump social justice nut among a sea of 2,000 amazing athletes. Thanks for everything you have done so far for our campaign, and whatever you can do now to dig deep with me.
Let’s go!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
10 Days Before Ironman, The ER Doc Says to Me
"Yes, Indeed, You Broke It" and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Is it the universe's sense of humor, or simply mine?
After all of the kvetching and bitching and moaning and procrastinating and fussing and fretting and worrying about both the state of Lake Monona and my ability to swim in open water without giving myself respiratory distress, there comes this day of reckoning. D-Day. The day of deciding. Will she try Ironman Wisconsin? Will she put more than a toe in the water?
My coach sent me to Lake Monona to do a 10-minute swim. My swim teacher met me there with other ideas. I suited up and we went to the end of the pier. He jumped off. I decided to slide in, rather than jump in, and in turning to drop onto the end of the pier, slammed my foot into the metal post at the end of it. That hurt, but I got in and, after a little tenuous warming up, which was really cooling off, since I'd been baking in my wetsuit for 15 minutes, we started to swim. Mark would set a landmark goal for me, and each time, I would swim to it.
At some point he said, "Hey, your 10 minutes has passed." Indeed, more than 30 had.
I love Lake Monona. She was as I remembered her---green. Not creepy green, but zen mist green, alive green, cool green. Being in open water is like being in the womb of the planet, inside the Earth's core, inside the rhythm of the bigger tides that turn all of the water in all of us. I love that. I had a little discomfort here and there, but faced it down, with Mark's help. The swim out was in three or four segments; the swim back was continuous....we swam maybe a mile or a bit more, me taking it easy and Mark swimming with fins and paddles, occasionally swimming dolphin-ish, rising out of the water with a kind of ease and grace that is easy to read as joy when we see other mammals do it. I felt happy to be part of a school of swimmers, though it was just the two of us.
Mark says I am on line for a 1:30 Ironman swim. He says I can actually slow down, though I felt as though I were swimming excruciatingly slowly. How is it that everybody in the pool swims faster than me all the time, if I am able to swim a 1:30 comfortably? Can I believe him?
While we were swimming, I was thinking that it may simply be true that I am physically ready for this and not mentally yet prepared. How long might that take? 10 days? 10 minutes? another year? as long as it takes to get the thyroid dialed in?
So, when Mark and I stopped to chat in front of the windows in front of the Terrace, I said, "Dude, I think I broke that toe." When I got out of the water, I thought again "I think I broke that toe." I came home and in the shower, I tried to raise my right leg ---still sore from resistance running Tuesday---in order to clean the lake water out of the blisters left over from Saturday's marathon walk. So, I'm standing on my left leg, noticing it's hard to balance because of how much that little toe is complaining, and how absurd it is to try to be washing water from the swim out of blisters from the run while standing on a foot broken from clumsiness, and then I think, "Now, this is what I thought Ironman training was supposed to feel like. Finally."
So, after I throw gobs of antibiotic stuff on the blisters, gingerly put my shoes back on, go off to a haircut, and miss my core class, I decided maybe it would be good to know if the toe or more is, indeed, broken. I drive to urgent care, limp to the waiting room, and wonder why, on one of the most important nights in the history of the US, football is on the waiting room TVinstead of the Democratic Convention. But that's a different blog. Eventually the doc examines my foot, pronounces that I have hurt my toe, tells me that there's nothing to be done whether it's broken or not---I have told him my own diagnosis is "broken"--- but that how fast it will heal depends on whether it's broken or not. One scenario is 10 days; the other is four weeks. He asks me if I want an x-ray. Hey, I don't come to this spa for doctoring as good as I can give myself at home, so I say "x-ray." I limp down the hall, have them x-ray my foot, and wait. "Yep, you sure broke it," the good doc says.
"So," he asks, "were you planning on *winning* Ironman? 'Cause this could really get in the way of that. In fact," he says, "you aren't going to do too well. And it's really gonna hurt."
It could just be me, but do any of all y'all find it funny that on the way to facing down my Mononaphobia, on the way to discovering that all of that tethered swimming is transferable, on the way to having a swim that doesn't involve pulmonary edema, a nosebleed, or a vocal cord issue, on the way to discovering I could do a freaking IM swim in 1:30, I break my toe? Maybe I'm still giddy from not dying in the lake, but I've gotta think that whoever runs the show is laughing his/her/its ass off. And I am laughing right along.
And also getting a little p***ed. Which is probably a good thing.
I didn't run tonight, but I rowed instead. And now it's RICE and off to bed.
Is it the universe's sense of humor, or simply mine?
After all of the kvetching and bitching and moaning and procrastinating and fussing and fretting and worrying about both the state of Lake Monona and my ability to swim in open water without giving myself respiratory distress, there comes this day of reckoning. D-Day. The day of deciding. Will she try Ironman Wisconsin? Will she put more than a toe in the water?
My coach sent me to Lake Monona to do a 10-minute swim. My swim teacher met me there with other ideas. I suited up and we went to the end of the pier. He jumped off. I decided to slide in, rather than jump in, and in turning to drop onto the end of the pier, slammed my foot into the metal post at the end of it. That hurt, but I got in and, after a little tenuous warming up, which was really cooling off, since I'd been baking in my wetsuit for 15 minutes, we started to swim. Mark would set a landmark goal for me, and each time, I would swim to it.
At some point he said, "Hey, your 10 minutes has passed." Indeed, more than 30 had.
I love Lake Monona. She was as I remembered her---green. Not creepy green, but zen mist green, alive green, cool green. Being in open water is like being in the womb of the planet, inside the Earth's core, inside the rhythm of the bigger tides that turn all of the water in all of us. I love that. I had a little discomfort here and there, but faced it down, with Mark's help. The swim out was in three or four segments; the swim back was continuous....we swam maybe a mile or a bit more, me taking it easy and Mark swimming with fins and paddles, occasionally swimming dolphin-ish, rising out of the water with a kind of ease and grace that is easy to read as joy when we see other mammals do it. I felt happy to be part of a school of swimmers, though it was just the two of us.
Mark says I am on line for a 1:30 Ironman swim. He says I can actually slow down, though I felt as though I were swimming excruciatingly slowly. How is it that everybody in the pool swims faster than me all the time, if I am able to swim a 1:30 comfortably? Can I believe him?
While we were swimming, I was thinking that it may simply be true that I am physically ready for this and not mentally yet prepared. How long might that take? 10 days? 10 minutes? another year? as long as it takes to get the thyroid dialed in?
So, when Mark and I stopped to chat in front of the windows in front of the Terrace, I said, "Dude, I think I broke that toe." When I got out of the water, I thought again "I think I broke that toe." I came home and in the shower, I tried to raise my right leg ---still sore from resistance running Tuesday---in order to clean the lake water out of the blisters left over from Saturday's marathon walk. So, I'm standing on my left leg, noticing it's hard to balance because of how much that little toe is complaining, and how absurd it is to try to be washing water from the swim out of blisters from the run while standing on a foot broken from clumsiness, and then I think, "Now, this is what I thought Ironman training was supposed to feel like. Finally."
So, after I throw gobs of antibiotic stuff on the blisters, gingerly put my shoes back on, go off to a haircut, and miss my core class, I decided maybe it would be good to know if the toe or more is, indeed, broken. I drive to urgent care, limp to the waiting room, and wonder why, on one of the most important nights in the history of the US, football is on the waiting room TVinstead of the Democratic Convention. But that's a different blog. Eventually the doc examines my foot, pronounces that I have hurt my toe, tells me that there's nothing to be done whether it's broken or not---I have told him my own diagnosis is "broken"--- but that how fast it will heal depends on whether it's broken or not. One scenario is 10 days; the other is four weeks. He asks me if I want an x-ray. Hey, I don't come to this spa for doctoring as good as I can give myself at home, so I say "x-ray." I limp down the hall, have them x-ray my foot, and wait. "Yep, you sure broke it," the good doc says.
"So," he asks, "were you planning on *winning* Ironman? 'Cause this could really get in the way of that. In fact," he says, "you aren't going to do too well. And it's really gonna hurt."
It could just be me, but do any of all y'all find it funny that on the way to facing down my Mononaphobia, on the way to discovering that all of that tethered swimming is transferable, on the way to having a swim that doesn't involve pulmonary edema, a nosebleed, or a vocal cord issue, on the way to discovering I could do a freaking IM swim in 1:30, I break my toe? Maybe I'm still giddy from not dying in the lake, but I've gotta think that whoever runs the show is laughing his/her/its ass off. And I am laughing right along.
And also getting a little p***ed. Which is probably a good thing.
I didn't run tonight, but I rowed instead. And now it's RICE and off to bed.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
My Unconventional Ironman Training Techniques
First, it was the tethering of oneself to the diving blocks and swimming in place.
Then, there was scoring a week's pass to the only gym in town with a resistance pool for water walking and swimming upstream in that, on Friday night, around love birds and water walkers and various other obstacles appearing in the oval shaped pool with an island in the middle of it---kind of like Kona, except the island didn't have any spectators, and the spectators who were there were clearly curious why anyone but a masochistic lunatic would swim in this thing.
Tonight, it was walking 20 miles in the dark, just like I'll be doing in two weeks...if my feet recover by then.
Thyroid still making me tired, but I do what I can. I do what I can.
Then, there was scoring a week's pass to the only gym in town with a resistance pool for water walking and swimming upstream in that, on Friday night, around love birds and water walkers and various other obstacles appearing in the oval shaped pool with an island in the middle of it---kind of like Kona, except the island didn't have any spectators, and the spectators who were there were clearly curious why anyone but a masochistic lunatic would swim in this thing.
Tonight, it was walking 20 miles in the dark, just like I'll be doing in two weeks...if my feet recover by then.
Thyroid still making me tired, but I do what I can. I do what I can.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Seven Miles Before Breakfast
I did not want to run.
An object at rest stays at rest.
Still, an object in motion stays in motion, and I put in an hour and 20 before breakfast, on half a thyroid. Not fast, but finished.
Last night, I bagged the run because there seemed some small hope that I might actually sleep. For the first time in months, I slept deeply enough to have and remember a dream. Here it is:
I was with a group of friends at my aunt and uncle's house, and we were hanging around their pond. The pond had muck in it, so we didn't go in. Time passed and the pond cleared. We were happy and decided the water was clean and safe---only to discover that it was only clean and safe in a very small area, and that two-thirds of the pond was still contaminated with blue-green algae.
Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream? Me thinks insomnia has its advantages.
Have I mentioned Lake Monona is full of sewage? My run gave me time to ponder the question: how does one discern the difference between courage and stupidity? Is it brave to swim in Lake Monona, or just stupid? Pulling someone out of a burning car is brave, in part because of the potential gains and risks. Swimming in Lake Monona, well, begins to not look like pulling someone from a burning building but instead like covering yourself with kerosene and lighting a match. Brave? Stupid.
Of course, it won't be the only stupid thing I have ever done.
An object at rest stays at rest.
Still, an object in motion stays in motion, and I put in an hour and 20 before breakfast, on half a thyroid. Not fast, but finished.
Last night, I bagged the run because there seemed some small hope that I might actually sleep. For the first time in months, I slept deeply enough to have and remember a dream. Here it is:
I was with a group of friends at my aunt and uncle's house, and we were hanging around their pond. The pond had muck in it, so we didn't go in. Time passed and the pond cleared. We were happy and decided the water was clean and safe---only to discover that it was only clean and safe in a very small area, and that two-thirds of the pond was still contaminated with blue-green algae.
Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream? Me thinks insomnia has its advantages.
Have I mentioned Lake Monona is full of sewage? My run gave me time to ponder the question: how does one discern the difference between courage and stupidity? Is it brave to swim in Lake Monona, or just stupid? Pulling someone out of a burning car is brave, in part because of the potential gains and risks. Swimming in Lake Monona, well, begins to not look like pulling someone from a burning building but instead like covering yourself with kerosene and lighting a match. Brave? Stupid.
Of course, it won't be the only stupid thing I have ever done.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
