Nailed my 100 mile ride today.

Today, I did a long ride on my tri bike. I went to Martinsville (25.5 miles) via old 37–>Anderson–>Low Gap–>Mahalasville and back, and then repeated the loop again for a total of 102 miles. The first 16 miles are rolling, and the last 9 are flat. I’ve done this loop many times before, as it’s generally on nice roads with low traffic, but this is the first time I’ve doubled it up.

I started at 6am to avoid the heat of the day. I figured the ride would take me 6 hours. I used my tri bike, but no other aero crap. I also wanted to test out my Ironman nutrition and pacing strategies, as this ride is a very good approximation of the Ironman course.

From the beginning, I felt really strong and was able to put some good power to the pedals. I ended up doing both loops in 5:42–with a negative split between the two loops (2:52/2:50).

I did pretty well on my nutrition. Probably about 1500 calories total, a couple of PowerGels and the rest from my Infinit custom mix, which tastes like Gatorade + the ocean. Had a bunch of caffeine, as well, which helped me to focus and keep a steady tempo throughout the ride.

I was very pleased that most of my non-hill riding was at 20+mph, almost entirely in the big chainring. I ended up averaging almost 18mph for the ride. Cadence was lower than normal (85-90rpm, but this just felt natural, perhaps due to the long distance and high humidity. Normally I TT at 100+rpms, so 85rpm today felt downright lazy.

Anyway, blah blah blah I kicked ass today. I even banged out a 30 minute transition run afterward! Looking forward to (hopefully) breaking 6 hours on the Ironman Wisconsin bike course in September

Quick update.

Not a lot new going on these days. Lana and I are still working at the tutoring center, helping folks out with their Algebra questions. The big news at work is that I found a shower in the Ivy Tech building, so now when I bike to work I don’t smell like ass for the first three hours of my shift. And when that’s the big news at your job, you know your job is pretty sweet.

Training is progressing nicely. I have a bunch of tiny little injuries right now, mostly related to my left knee, but I am able to keep things under control. Muncie Half Ironman is in two weekends, that should be good. If the stars align properly, I just might go under 5 hours, but that’s really a long shot. I’d have to hit 22mph on the bike and then run sub 1:50 on a hot course with no shade cover. We’ll see.

I’ve done a bunch of time trials, one of the flat 40k variety and three of the sorta-kinda-tricky-hilly 10 mile variety. I love doing time trials, because I get to wear my sperm helmet and I don’t have to that crappy swimming or running. The TT courses are such that I end up going about the same speed on each of them (23.6mph) which is silly. I think I can improve upon my 1:03 for 40k, and I’ll have a chance next weekend, but my 25:30 for 10 miles that I got a few weeks ago was a pretty hard ride that will be tough to beat.

Lana and I are putting a bunch of miles on our tandem. It’s going really well, but we’re still trying to resolve some equipment issues. Lana’s having discomfort issues with her saddle, and buying a suspension seatpost didn’t seem to help. I think she needs a new saddle, but we’ll see what she decides to do! Regardless, we keep getting stronger and more confident as a team, and we never get tired of people giving us “the look” as we ride TWOgether!

Gonna ride 100 miles bright and early tomorrow morning, before the heat of the day. It will be a very boring century–2 loops of a boring ride to/from Martinsville–but it will be good training for Ironman, where I’ll need to be patient and keep my focus for the whole six-hour bike ride.

I Rode the Ironman Wisconsin Bike Course Yesterday.

The course is a “lollipop” style course with a 16 mile stick and a 40 mile loop. During the race, the loop is done twice for a total of 112 miles. Yesterday, I rode the loop once for a total of 72 miles. No pictures–I was busy trying not to get lost–but I learned a lot about the course regardless:

The hills of Bloomington are more than adequate prep for the “MOO” bike course. The “stick” is relatively flat, but the loop has some nice challenging rolling hills. The base of the loop (County Route G and Route 92) is possibly the most challenging part of the course pace-wise, with plenty of small rollers and false flats that are tempting to try and power through. There are several more challenging rollers spread throughout the rest of the course, however, some of them come immediately after downhills (so one can use the momentum from the previous downhill to get part of the way up), and none take more than 4 minutes to climb. This is almost exactly like riding around Bloomington.

The roads are not in the best of conditions right now. Many of the county roads haven’t been paved in a while, so they’re quite bumpy. I am concerned about getting flats on race day. I did get one flat during my ride going over railroad tracks (which I fixed without incident) but especially if it’s wet on race day, the likelihood of a flat is much higher due to the bumps.

Tri bike, disc wheel and 50/34 and 11-26 is the correct bike setup for me for the MOO course. When I’m not trying to figure out how to navigate the 87 turns of the bike course, I can spend 95% of the ride in the aero position, which means that full aero setup is the correct choice. Regarding gearing, I rode the course (accidentally) with an 11-23 cassette, and that was fine. However, on the first loop during the race I’ll appreciate the extra low gear to spin up the rollers.

This course has some aspects that suit my strengths and some aspects that don’t. Thanks to my good aero position and descending skills, I’m best on the flats, downhills and uphills of less than 2% grade. There is plenty of that on this course. I’m also decent at forcing my way up rollers, as I’ve had plenty of practice doing that here in Bloomington. However, I’m poor at turns and poor at low-speed climbing. This will probably cost me a few minutes on the MOO course.

I am now familiar with the “big” climbs on the course. There are five significant climbs:

1. Under the overpass approaching Mount Horeb. This is about 1/4 mile at maybe 6%. I should be able to spin up this in my 34×26 no problem, especially since it’s early in the loop. Don’t want to burn any matches here, even though the riding immediately after this is flat or downhill.
2. Old Sauk Pass, about 1/2 mile at 6-7%. This is the most challenging climb on the course. It’s tree-lined and a great spot for spectators.
3. Timber Lane. This short (1/5 mile maybe?), steep (7%?) roller comes just minutes after Old Sauk Pass, which increases its difficulty slightly. 34×26 will be useful here, especially on the second loop when my legs are really starting to burn.
4. Midtown Road. The last major climb on the loop is not too different from Old Sauk and Timber Lane.
5. Heading toward Madison on Whalen Road. Though it’s not particularly difficult on its own (maybe 1/4 mile at 5%), it comes right at the 100 mile mark on the course. It’s all downhill from the crest of the hill back to transition, though, so this will be where the last bike matches are burned.

All in all, it was a very informative ride, and a good workout as well. I rode moderately hard, taking the climbs at “loop 2″ effort, being cautious on the downhills, and hammering the flats. Ended up putting in about 4:20 of riding for the 72 miles. On race day, I’m sure I’ll go faster than that–full aero setup always gives me at least 1-2mph, and I’m hoping I can get another 1-2mph from tapering correctly, race day adrenaline, etc.

Now all I have to do is get through my “build” phase of my training without injuring myself and I’ll be good to go for the race.

Dear Marty’s Body,

Marty’s Brain here. It’s about time we had a little chat about what you’ve been up to recently. I will try to be nice.

I know things have been hard for you lately. I decided to increase your stress by entering the “build” period of triathlon training. I also know that Triple T was a tough thing to put you through, and that riding 200 hard miles in the Jura mountains a week later was probably asking a lot.

However, there’s no excuse for your recent conduct.

First off, you strained our back a mere four days before Triple T, one of my two “A” races of the year. I had to spend countless hours (and a lot of dollars also) frantically trying to undo the damage you did to us before Triple T. In the end, I was able to take care of most of the pain, but we were still not 100% ready for Triple T. A big EFF YOU on that one.

Then, during Triple T, we somehow strained our MCL. Whatever. I knew that we’d probably slightly injure ourself during this race, that’s par for the course for Triple T. I decided not to run for a week, in the hopes that the MCL strain would fix itself. It didn’t.

However, cycling seemed not to bother the MCL, so I made the decision to keep cycling all during our trip to Switzerland. I put you through some hard rides in the Juras that maybe I shouldn’t have put you through. But you know what? The oweness was on YOU to give me some indicator that I was doing damage to you.

What did you tell me? Nothing. We rode almost every day with no signs of trouble from you. Our MCL was staying the same, and everything else in our body felt fine. How was I supposed to know that there were problems when you didn’t give me any signals that maybe we shouldn’t have been riding so hard?

That makes me irritated.

Anyway, that brings me to today’s events. Today was one of the 10 mile time trials up in the State forest, and I was feeling confident (thanks to our rides through the Juras, probably). Conditions were ideal for a PR, and so I decided that we were gonna go for it. We rode hard for the first 5 miles, and then pressed even harder on the return trip.

During the sprint finish to break my PR, I felt a sudden onset of pain in the area of our left LCL (the collateral ligament on the *other* side of the knee which was giving us pain). We got the PR (25:30, a 15 second improvement), but the pain in the leg was so great that doing even a cool-down spin was out of the question.

What the fuck, Marty’s Body? Where did this come from? Strained LCL and MCL in the SAME KNEE? That doesn’t even make sense!!!

You have jeapordized my Half Ironman in a month with this crap. The burden I chose to place on you was pushing the limits of what you could do, but was by no means excessive.

So, Marty’s Body, next time try to give me some warning signs that I’m pushing us too hard. A 10 mile TT shouldn’t have been that unreasonable a request of you, especially with the strength gained from riding in the Juras, and ESPECIALLY with the lack of warning signs you gave during those rides. Now I have to sit around trying to heal you for a while, losing fitness and becoming slightly irritable.

Also, quit hurting yourself. Ironman training is hard enough without you failing to operate correctly in key places at key times during training.

Don’t make me have another conversation with you again. Next time, I won’t be so pleasant.

Sincerely,
Marty’s Brain