A Tale of Many Rides

In the past 3 days I've ridden 148 miles. It was really only two rides - the Ironman Bike Ride and a training ride on most of the TCBC Tinman route yesterday, but it seemed like it was many rides.

Ironman Bike Ride



The Ironman Bike Ride has been held for 43 years in the south metro. It has no association with the Ironman triathlon but is able to continue to use the Ironman name due to prior usage (sorry, the recovering attorney comes out every now and then). The ride has 30, 67 and 100 mile routes. Officially it's a 65 mile route but when I mapped it out and when I rode it, I got 67.

It's called Ironman because it's late April in Minnesota and it goes in whatever weather. Their motto is "there's no bad weather, only poor clothing choices."

This year the Ironman really broke down into three seperate rides, the dry ride with the wind to the first rest stop (22 miles), the wet 45 degrees F ride into/cross the wind in the pouring rain with occassional flashes of lightning to the second rest stop (mile 45), and for some, the bus ride from the rest stop to the start. Half of our merry band of 6 dropped out at the 2nd rest stop. No shame there - it was damn cold. They haven't published the official totals, but I bet the 67 and 100 had around 50% SAG rates.

I debated dropping out since I'm getting over this cold, but felt good - actually felt stronger as the ride went on. Dave and I dropped NS Rob right out of the gate. Felt a little bad about that but we needed to keep rolling to stay warm. Fortunately NS didn't mind.

It may be a symptom of my particular dementia, but I actually had a blast. It seemed like when it started raining everyone on the road slowed down. I couldn't figure it out. It doesn't suck any less when you're going slow, it just sucks longer.

Tinman Route

Yesterday NS and I rode the TCBC Tinman route, starting from NS's house. I had never ridden in the Afton area and loved it. It was a bluebird spring day. A little wind, but that just added to the challenge. I did 78 miles in 4:40. Still rolling pretty slow - generally kept my heart rate about 20 beats below LT - went above LT on 2 of the climbs. I had hoped to ride for 5 hours, but shortened the route a bit on the north end a little too much. 3,600 feet of climbing. I want to go back and ride the up the hill on the south side of Afton. It was a sweet descent - smooth road, clean shoulder, winding curves, but will be a great workout going the other direction.

Worked on my nutrition plan for CDA. Sports drink every 10 min and solid food on the 1/2 hour. It's still a little loose, as we get closer I'll have to actually calculate calories and make sure I'm getting enough.

TMI Warning
I really wish they didn't use so much die in Powerade and Gatorade - the blue ones really make for some interesting colors after they've been processed by your body.