Week 7 Wrap-Up (aka Screamer hits the road)

Week 7 was met with a fair amount of apprehension by me—I was nervous about undertaking my first RAGBRAI and didn’t really know what to expect. The riding didn’t scare me—it was more the social aspects of the ride that had me sweating bullets. But, before we started the ride, I took Vardo’s lead and we went for an early morning swim at the Peterson Pits (one of her open-water swim areas) Monday. My mom had graciously offered to drive Vardo and me to western Iowa to meet up with the rest of Team Satisfied (my new RAGBRAI team with Vardo (aka Sugar), Sparkle, Sunshine, and Sid), so we took off mid-morning and trekked west to Arcadia. Monday was pretty windy and the route was really hilly (trust me, forget what you’ve heard—Iowa is NOT flat), so Sparkle ended up ending her ride in Arcadia, and both Sugar and Sunshine opted not to ride at all. I, however, was excited to be on RAGBRAI, so I took off on my own (well, with about 10,000 other riders, actually) and headed to Audobon via a number of small towns. Sparkle wasn’t lying—it was crazy windy and very hilly—a brutal combination—but I had a great time riding and taking everything in. It was weird being on my Giant road bike instead of Tack—it took a while to get used to not having aerobars and to the gearing, but by the time I rolled into Audobon, I had it figured out. The highlight of the day, though, was getting my team name—the original Satisfied members started the tradition of assigning “s” names to the gang—but you can imagine my horror when I discovered that I was to known as Screamer for the week…

In Audobon, I met up with the rest of the team at our host’s house and learned how to set up my tent (well, Vardo’s, but it was mine for the week)—quite the adventure considering I hadn’t even been in a tent for probably 20 years. We showered, grabbed some food, and headed to the local bar/beer garden for the evening. I called it a night fairly early and managed to drag Sparkle along with me—I was wiped and starting to relax a little, so I was very much looking forward to sleep. Sugar and Sunshine, however, had quite the experience on their way back later in the evening…can’t remember if Vardo blogged about it or not, but you’ll have to ask her for the details. Tuesday morning, we started with an awesome breakfast courtesy of our host family, then we headed out for the 71-mile ride to Waukee. We took a slight detour after stopping for lunch and ended up in a bar in Panora for a few hours—after which we wisely stayed off the open roads and took the bike path to Adel, where we again joined the official route after grabbing some much-needed food (and the best-tasting iceberg lettuce salad I’ve ever had—at least that’s how it seemed at the time). It was a little rough finding our host house in Waukee, but we rolled into the driveway about 30 seconds before a killer downpour unleashed. The sons of our hosts had already met up with Sid and had our tents set up—very cool of them—but, as it turns out, we ended up sleeping in the family room due to some killer thunderstorms that night.

Wednesday involved more of the same—more riding, more beverage stops, and more time with Team Emerson (a bunch of rugby guys from Atlanta). Vardo and I took off together in the morning and met up with the rest of the team about mid-way through the ride, at which point we also met up with the Emerson guys. We ended up riding with them for a while—they had a pretty good dual paceline going, and I even pulled for about 7-8 miles of the way. After closing down the beer garden in Colfax, we started the trek to the overnight town of Newton, only to find what seemed like the world’s largest hill coming out of Colfax. It was a pretty cruel trick to have that hill AFTER the beer garden, but we managed to make it up. It was also at this point that I discovered my front derailleur was a piece of crap—I could shift down into the little rings (I have a triple on my Giant), but then couldn’t get back into my big ring without much prayer and, in some instances, actually stopping and manually putting the chain on the big ring myself. But, I made it to Newton along with the rest of the crew, showered, watched Lance Armstrong’s speech to the crowd on TV, and then headed into town with the Satisfied crew. I knew it would be my last night of the adventure as I was headed back to Illinois on Thursday, but we still called it a night fairly early and headed back to get some sleep (after stops at the food stands and Dairy Queen).

Thursday morning we rolled out for my last 22 miles of RAGBRAI 2006. My front derailleur on my Giant completely crapped out, so I rode the whole hilly stretch in my big ring…definitely have to get that @#$%! bike fixed at some point before next year. After a brief breakfast stop in Reasnor, we headed to Sully where I was slated to meet up with my mom and pick up my car. While we were there, Lance rode through—pretty cool to see his entourage ride through, even though it was a very brief glimpse of them. Apparently he stopped for pie (a RAGBRAI tradition) at the local coffee shop, which was pretty cool. I had the unfortunate discovery about that time, though, that I left my keys in my gear bag, which was safely on the Team Satisfied trailer in Lynnville, a town about 4 miles away. Thankfully, my mom was a trooper and drove Sparkle and I over to Lynnville to pick up my keys and all of my gear, then back to Sully to get my car, load bikes, etc. Sparkle was done riding at that point—it was crazy humid and starting to rain, so she called it a day—and I dropped Sparkle back off at the trailer when I met up with Sid again. The drive home was very uneventful, save for a much-needed Starbucks stop in Iowa City…turns out I am an addict after all…

With a RAGBRAI experience under my belt, I turned my attention back to IM training. Friday morning, after a week of crappy sleep, too much beer, and no running at all, I took off in the blazing heat and humidity for an 18-mile run. I think my desire to cram a week’s worth of vegetables into a single meal Thursday night backfired on me, though—about 4 miles into the run I started experiencing the worst GI distress of my training career. Sadly, my running path offers very few outlets for such distress, so I ended up doing a weird combo of running/walking back to my house to take care of things before heading out again. Luckily, due to the heat and my crazy need for water, I had planned my route to involve two 6-mile loops and two 3-mile loops, so at least I didn’t have too long to wait. Eventually, I got the run done—it wasn’t pretty, but it was great training for inclement weather (like last year’s IM WI).

To treat myself, I met up with Theresa for a pedicure and dinner Friday afternoon, which started a two-day period of relative normalcy with minimal training (I figured the RAGBRAI miles counted for my long ride Saturday, at least). I ran a bunch of random errands Saturday, including picking up my race packet for Steelhead in the city, then headed to Wauconda to pick up my packet for the sprint tri I was doing Sunday. I ended up with a brief swim in a VERY warm Diamond Lake—not unlike swimming in bath water—then headed to Theresa’s to crash with her family and avoid having to get up even earlier for the race on Sunday.

At the crack of dawn on Sunday, I headed out (with my fan club—consisting of Theresa—in tow) for Wauconda and the sprint tri. As I rolled my bike into transition, I realized that the head USAT official was none other than Rosalyn, the coordinator for IM Mondays. She gave me some grief about doing a sprint tri instead of doing a long ride, etc., but backed off when I told her I’d done RAGBRAI and already had my long ride in for the week. The race went pretty well—it was tough to sight on the swim and I got a little turned around, but once I hit the bike, I was flying. I had a GREAT bike leg (and it was fun) and the run went reasonably well given the heat. As it turned out, I won the Athena class and would’ve even won my age group (by about 10 minutes), and I had a fantastic time doing so. After the race, Theresa and I headed to Starbucks for a celebratory latte and ended up meeting up with Sue and Michele—after a while Theresa’s husband, Doug, and her kids joined us as well—it was a random little gathering, but a fun way to wind down. With only a sprint tri on my plan for the day, it was very cool to have a day to just chill—not think about training, not worrying about work, not really caring about anything…in short, it was awesome, and I was sorry to see the weekend come to a close. But, life continues as always…

Here’s the roll-up for the week (times are rough as I didn’t have a bike computer for RAGBRAI)…

Swim: 1:15:23 / 4000 meters
Bike: 12:12:43 / 215.05 miles
Run: 3:26:56 / 21.10 miles
Total: 16:55:02 / 238.65 miles