Wednesday, August 24th I move to Birmingham, Alabama. Right now I'm doing things for the last time. In reality though, I've been doing my "last" of things for a while.
I realized while I was riding in Madison this past weekend that this would be my last time training in Madison for a long time. For the past two years I've spent my summers training for Ironman. Much of that was done in Madison or the surrounding Madison areas. I realized that after the race I will not be returning to Mad TOWN for a really long time since it will be 14 hours away from my house instead of 2.5 hours.
Wow, that's actually somewhat scary for me. I have done a significant amount of personal growth on that course. I've thought about tough decisions in my work life, and also sang out loud because I was engaged to the man I love. I also have been so frustrated with myself that I have thrown my bike in a ditch, and then had to pick it back up because it hit me that I won't give up. The madison bike course had been a place where i realized that I am not the kind of person that gives up, that no challenge is to hard and that life is about having good times and bad.
Tonight was my last Smelts workout. The smelts are my masters swim team. The smelts have made me faster. They have also brought back my love for swimming. I've had a ton of accomplishments in those workouts. There workouts are relentless. No one bats an eye when the coach throws a 4500 yard workout on the board and tell everyone to get off the wall. It's rather phenomenal. I will miss the monday night workouts the most. If you are a chicago triathlete and you are reading it, I encourage you to go. Don't think about it, just go to these workouts.
Tomorrow will be my last compu trainer class with my coach Liz. This will be weird. I have seen her every two years (i worked with her in the off season) during this class. One time I threw up in front of her another time I did a five hour training ride in front of her, many times she told me to put my phone away and focus on the workout. Beyond this, through her coaching I have learned what it means to be an athlete. How to challenge myself physically and mentally. It will be weird to say goodbye to her tomorrow. I know she coaches athletes via phone/internet all the time, but I will miss her tuesday night bike/run classes.
Wednesday morning I will run on the lake front path one more time. This is my favorite part of the City of Chicago. I think no matter where I was moving it would be hard to find a training ground that compares to the Chicago lakefront path. It is 20 miles of a flat, fast, beautiful running path that is fun no matter what time of year. Every time I train out there I see someone I know. In fact last week I ran into three friends while doing my long run at 6 in the morning. It's just a cool place.
After I run I will do one more open water swim at Ohio Street Beach. This past season I have swam pretty regularly with my friend Diana after work. I will miss screaming at her when I saw a a fish, or accidentally flashing her in the parking lot when i was changing into my regular clothes. Mostly though, I will miss the swimming. It's pretty beautiful to swim and look up and see sky scrapers. Just saying, Birmingham won't have ohio street beach.
It's going to be hard leaving on Wednesday. I'm sad to have my "last" of a lot of my triathlon training places. I know know I will find a bunch of new favorite places to train in Birmingham. It will just take time to find them. I'm excited about running on trails and having hills to bike up. I will certainly miss the places in this area that have been so instrumental in my success in endurance sports.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
A Week of Workouts of Epic Iron Proportions
This is the last BIG HARD workout week before Ironman. Our coach organizes a day called Epic Saturday. We do a long open water swim (OWS), followed by a century ride and then a 45 minute run. In total, I will workout for 9 hours this Saturday I think that this workout day is more about the mental part of ironman training than anything else. Getting yourself mentally prepared to do the transitions, to focus on swimming and then move onto the bike, and then the run. At this point we have done the work, it's time to do a dress rehearsal. It's important for me to look at this like a race, I need to bring my own race nutrition, I can't rely on stopping at a gas station if I get hungry or am sick of GUs, practicing not pushing to hard on the first loop, I think I might even run up the helix (is that taking it to far?). This year Epic Saturday is in Madison. We're pretty lucky because the Madison Open Water Swim race is on Saturday and we can use that for the swim portion. In fact, the course for this weekends race is the exact same as the Ironman swim course.
As I started planning for Epic Saturday I looked at my trainingpeaks schedule (an wesite where my coach loads my workout plans for me) and I realized that this isn't just Epic Saturday, it's Epic WEEK! Every workout it really long.
Monday started out with a planned 2.4 mile OWS. Since I've done a TON of OWS this season and a cut is just healing up I did my swimming in the pool and just went to Smelts practice (my Masters swim team). I haven't been to a Monday night in forever because it is usually a rest day and the Monday night coach is notoriously hard and well planned out to kick you A$# into shape. I figured it would be a good time to go so I did. In hindsight I think I regret not just doing a 4000 in the pool by myself. The workout is below:
Warm up: (1000 total)
400 swim
200 pull
200 IM
200 kick
Set 1: (600 total)
3 X:
4 X 50s: easy, medium, fast, easy
set 1: Free on the 100
set 2: Kick on the 1:05
Set 3: Free on the :55
Set 2: (1000 total)
Pulling: (allowing 1:05 per 50)
50, 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 50
200 Free (medium)
Set 3: (I completed 1350 total)
20 minute continuous clock swim
Set 4: (300 total)
6 X 50's, IM order w/ no free
200 cool down
In total I did a 4450. I was spent after this. It was a hard workout. One thing I am proud of. My average, per 100 time for my 20 minute continuous swim was 1:27. Why is this a big deal you might be asking. It's a big deal because I was swimming at Ironman pace. Ironman pace is supposed to be your swim test time + 20 seconds. My last swim test time (done in May) was a 1:18/per 100. So theoretically I should have been around a 1:38. I was a whole 11 seconds faster than this. The other thing that's cool is that my first swim test per 100 time was a 1:28. That test was done in March, 2010 while I was training for my first Ironman. When I did that I almost threw up and my arms were ready to fall off. Now, a whole 17 months later, I'm able to hold that pace for a 20 minute swim. To me, that's flippin AWESOME. I think a lot of that gain is from just from simply swimming continuously. I didn't stop swimming in the off season. I also think that swimming with a masters team has helped make my workouts more intense.
ok, back to the topic of this blog: Epic WEEK!!!
Last night I had a 2:30 bike/run workout with the team. It was good to see everyone. It was also good to hear that i'm not the only one who's had some training "funk" days where they just wanted it to be over. In fact i'm pretty sure I herad some profanity when Liz (coach) yelled at us to get our running shoes on because we had to go for a 25 minute run. The words weren't directed at our coach, more at the fact that we're all just tired. I have said this many times before in this blog. A lot of this training is about getting our bodies to perform even when we are physically and mentally exhausted. We always run after we ride. Every long workout has either a hard workout the day before or one the day after. We have been teaching our bodies how to use fuel (food and sports drink) in the most effective way possible so we can keep ourselves moving forward. I haven't ran on fresh legs in months. Why, because there is nothing 'fresh' about doing a marathon after already having swam 2.4 miles and biked 112.
Which brings me to Day 3 of Epic week: A long run. Today I woke up at 5:30 and got a 1:45 run in. At lunch time I will run another hour which will conclude my long run for the week. I have broken up the last two long runs and I think I like it. It's still really hard. It's hard to keep yourself focused during the day to make yourself go back to the gym and finish the run. Running 1:45 is still a nice long run. I got in 19.8 miles. It was really slow. It was just hard though. I was pacing 10 minute miles and then I would walk for 30 seconds after every mile to imitate walking through an aid station. I hate practicing as if I'm walking through aid stations but I think it's important to teach yourself how to do it. One might say: how hard can it be? Realistically though, it takes discipline to ONLY let yourself walk for 30 seconds. If you don't practice it, you won't know how fast 30 seconds goes by and next think you know you look down and 2 minutes has gone by and you are still sitting at the aid station. So yeh, I do it. It means I get less miles in on my long runs (Coach is adamant about NOT going over a certain amount of time on these runs due to the impact it has on your immune system)
Day 4 of Epic will be a rest day: WOHOOOOO
Day 5 is a 1:30 bike ride,
Day 6 is Epic Saturday (2.4 mile OWS, 100 mile ride and 4.5 mile run)
Day 7: 50 minute run.
This is one of those training weeks where you can't think about it and you just have to do it. In fact I asked my friend Cindy how her epic week was going and she said this exactly "I have to just keep doing everything without thinking about it and at the time that I have it scheduled without skipping or substituting anything because if I don't do it my whole week will literally fall apart". I couldn't have explained epic week any better. It's one of those workout weeks where you have to plan EVERY workout for the entire week and then just do it when you say you will and DON'T stop to think about it. If you think, or change the plan everything else will just fall apart.
I will leave with a final quote that I saw last week on tridad's blog:
As I started planning for Epic Saturday I looked at my trainingpeaks schedule (an wesite where my coach loads my workout plans for me) and I realized that this isn't just Epic Saturday, it's Epic WEEK! Every workout it really long.
Monday started out with a planned 2.4 mile OWS. Since I've done a TON of OWS this season and a cut is just healing up I did my swimming in the pool and just went to Smelts practice (my Masters swim team). I haven't been to a Monday night in forever because it is usually a rest day and the Monday night coach is notoriously hard and well planned out to kick you A$# into shape. I figured it would be a good time to go so I did. In hindsight I think I regret not just doing a 4000 in the pool by myself. The workout is below:
Warm up: (1000 total)
400 swim
200 pull
200 IM
200 kick
Set 1: (600 total)
3 X:
4 X 50s: easy, medium, fast, easy
set 1: Free on the 100
set 2: Kick on the 1:05
Set 3: Free on the :55
Set 2: (1000 total)
Pulling: (allowing 1:05 per 50)
50, 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 50
200 Free (medium)
Set 3: (I completed 1350 total)
20 minute continuous clock swim
Set 4: (300 total)
6 X 50's, IM order w/ no free
200 cool down
In total I did a 4450. I was spent after this. It was a hard workout. One thing I am proud of. My average, per 100 time for my 20 minute continuous swim was 1:27. Why is this a big deal you might be asking. It's a big deal because I was swimming at Ironman pace. Ironman pace is supposed to be your swim test time + 20 seconds. My last swim test time (done in May) was a 1:18/per 100. So theoretically I should have been around a 1:38. I was a whole 11 seconds faster than this. The other thing that's cool is that my first swim test per 100 time was a 1:28. That test was done in March, 2010 while I was training for my first Ironman. When I did that I almost threw up and my arms were ready to fall off. Now, a whole 17 months later, I'm able to hold that pace for a 20 minute swim. To me, that's flippin AWESOME. I think a lot of that gain is from just from simply swimming continuously. I didn't stop swimming in the off season. I also think that swimming with a masters team has helped make my workouts more intense.
ok, back to the topic of this blog: Epic WEEK!!!
Last night I had a 2:30 bike/run workout with the team. It was good to see everyone. It was also good to hear that i'm not the only one who's had some training "funk" days where they just wanted it to be over. In fact i'm pretty sure I herad some profanity when Liz (coach) yelled at us to get our running shoes on because we had to go for a 25 minute run. The words weren't directed at our coach, more at the fact that we're all just tired. I have said this many times before in this blog. A lot of this training is about getting our bodies to perform even when we are physically and mentally exhausted. We always run after we ride. Every long workout has either a hard workout the day before or one the day after. We have been teaching our bodies how to use fuel (food and sports drink) in the most effective way possible so we can keep ourselves moving forward. I haven't ran on fresh legs in months. Why, because there is nothing 'fresh' about doing a marathon after already having swam 2.4 miles and biked 112.
Which brings me to Day 3 of Epic week: A long run. Today I woke up at 5:30 and got a 1:45 run in. At lunch time I will run another hour which will conclude my long run for the week. I have broken up the last two long runs and I think I like it. It's still really hard. It's hard to keep yourself focused during the day to make yourself go back to the gym and finish the run. Running 1:45 is still a nice long run. I got in 19.8 miles. It was really slow. It was just hard though. I was pacing 10 minute miles and then I would walk for 30 seconds after every mile to imitate walking through an aid station. I hate practicing as if I'm walking through aid stations but I think it's important to teach yourself how to do it. One might say: how hard can it be? Realistically though, it takes discipline to ONLY let yourself walk for 30 seconds. If you don't practice it, you won't know how fast 30 seconds goes by and next think you know you look down and 2 minutes has gone by and you are still sitting at the aid station. So yeh, I do it. It means I get less miles in on my long runs (Coach is adamant about NOT going over a certain amount of time on these runs due to the impact it has on your immune system)
Day 4 of Epic will be a rest day: WOHOOOOO
Day 5 is a 1:30 bike ride,
Day 6 is Epic Saturday (2.4 mile OWS, 100 mile ride and 4.5 mile run)
Day 7: 50 minute run.
This is one of those training weeks where you can't think about it and you just have to do it. In fact I asked my friend Cindy how her epic week was going and she said this exactly "I have to just keep doing everything without thinking about it and at the time that I have it scheduled without skipping or substituting anything because if I don't do it my whole week will literally fall apart". I couldn't have explained epic week any better. It's one of those workout weeks where you have to plan EVERY workout for the entire week and then just do it when you say you will and DON'T stop to think about it. If you think, or change the plan everything else will just fall apart.
I will leave with a final quote that I saw last week on tridad's blog:
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Iron Motivation
Earlier today I posted about how I was exhausted. In hind sight the blog was pretty negative and whiny.
This afternoon I took a break from working (does anyone honestly actually work a full 8 hours without taking a SINGLE break to browse the world wide web). I went back to a prologue of an ironman documentary that is what actually got me to sign up for the race in the first place. A friend had sent it to me in preparation to chear for someone else who was racing in 2009. I watched it and immediately knew I had to do an ironman. Three days later I was signed up.
The full documentary is not available and it has been broken up into sections. In fact he used to have it on his blog but it looks like the copyright police came after him because of his background music. I am only posting the prologue because it's just so freaking motivating but I recommend the whole thing is you can get 45 minutes to watch it.
This afternoon I took a break from working (does anyone honestly actually work a full 8 hours without taking a SINGLE break to browse the world wide web). I went back to a prologue of an ironman documentary that is what actually got me to sign up for the race in the first place. A friend had sent it to me in preparation to chear for someone else who was racing in 2009. I watched it and immediately knew I had to do an ironman. Three days later I was signed up.
The full documentary is not available and it has been broken up into sections. In fact he used to have it on his blog but it looks like the copyright police came after him because of his background music. I am only posting the prologue because it's just so freaking motivating but I recommend the whole thing is you can get 45 minutes to watch it.
Exhausted.
This has been the last week:
Thursday: 18 mile run (on the treadmill) due to work commitments
Friday: 90 minute bike
Saturday: 1:45 swim, 1 hour run
Sunday: 114 mile course ride in Madison, 15 min run
Monday: Pack apartment and load truck, get official job offer letter.
Tuesday: Continue to load truck, say good bye to Monkey, go to work and clean apartment of all the stuff that didn't get moved to Birmingham
I was late to meet a friend on Saturday and he asked me if he was getting in the way of my life. I responded with "No, my life is getting in the way of my life". Then my coach asked me how my ride was going on Sunday and my response was "I wish the race was tomorrow" My life just has to many things going on at once. It's great when just one life event is going on. Right now there are four: Ironman training, new job, long distance move, and engagement.
I'm just ready to be done at this point. I am exhausted from the move, new job etc, but also exhausted because that's the point of Ironman training right now. You're supposed to be tired and training your body to move forward even when you are tired.
Sigh.
I'm sorry to complain to you all but I'm just exhausted. Monkey has already moved and I can't complain to him so you're getting the brunt of it. My apologies.
Thursday: 18 mile run (on the treadmill) due to work commitments
Friday: 90 minute bike
Saturday: 1:45 swim, 1 hour run
Sunday: 114 mile course ride in Madison, 15 min run
Monday: Pack apartment and load truck, get official job offer letter.
Tuesday: Continue to load truck, say good bye to Monkey, go to work and clean apartment of all the stuff that didn't get moved to Birmingham
I was late to meet a friend on Saturday and he asked me if he was getting in the way of my life. I responded with "No, my life is getting in the way of my life". Then my coach asked me how my ride was going on Sunday and my response was "I wish the race was tomorrow" My life just has to many things going on at once. It's great when just one life event is going on. Right now there are four: Ironman training, new job, long distance move, and engagement.
I'm just ready to be done at this point. I am exhausted from the move, new job etc, but also exhausted because that's the point of Ironman training right now. You're supposed to be tired and training your body to move forward even when you are tired.
Sigh.
I'm sorry to complain to you all but I'm just exhausted. Monkey has already moved and I can't complain to him so you're getting the brunt of it. My apologies.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
This just in:
On August 24th I will move to Birmingham, Alabama. Monkey (Fiance) moved there today to go to grad school (Masters in Heatlhcare Management at UAB). Yesterday I got a job offer so I am officially moving. It's pretty exciting. Since this is a blog about my training, you should understand how this is going to impact Ironman plans. The tough thing it that I move there and two weeks later I'm back up here for Ironman. The question that I've gone back and forth with is do I move my
Here is the schedule for the next few weeks
Current week August 8-14: Rest week
August 15-21: Still in Chicago, last hard week, Including Epic Saturday (1 mile swim, 6 hour ride and 1 hour run)
August 22-28: 1st week of taper including: Move to Birmingham on August 24th. I must have done all Open Water Swims at that point
August 29- Sept 3: 3nd week of taper: In the pool and on a training/spinning bike since my bike will stay in Chicago.
Sept 4th: Race week:
Fly to Chicago on Thursday, Sept 8, spend the night in Chicago, pick up bike
Drive to Madison on Friday, Sept 9th, Race weekend BEGINS
Sept 12: Drive back to Chicago, Fly to Birmingham.
I still need to figure out how i'm going to get my bike back to my new home, Birmingham. I don't have a bike transport system which makes it hard. I also don't want to buy one.
This move is requiring me to have the rest of training planned and ready to execute. I know I need to be flexible with training and moving workouts around, while still getting them done.
Personally, I'm exhausted right now in general from training so it'shard to add this to the mix.
Drive to Madison on Friday, Sept 9th, Race weekend BEGINS
Sept 12: Drive back to Chicago, Fly to Birmingham.
I still need to figure out how i'm going to get my bike back to my new home, Birmingham. I don't have a bike transport system which makes it hard. I also don't want to buy one.
This move is requiring me to have the rest of training planned and ready to execute. I know I need to be flexible with training and moving workouts around, while still getting them done.
Personally, I'm exhausted right now in general from training so it'shard to add this to the mix.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Ragbraid
Last week I was Ragbraid!
I'm sorry (again) for not having posted in a while. I've been exhausted. I'm in the toughest part of IM training right now. Every workout just hurts, even the easy ones aren't easy anymore. Everything is just tired. I'm sleepy at work, I can never get enough sleep. I'm icing all the time. Then I throw in RAGBRAI in the middle of all that and lets just say from a workout perspective, it's just tough right now. I was joining RAGBRAI (the 450 mile ride across Iowa over 7 days) mid week so I knew I would be racking in at least 250 miles within 4 days. Well, I thought coach would give me an easier beginning of the week, but boy was I wrong.
Here's my schedule from last week:
Saturday: IM Wisconsin course ride: 100 miles
Sunday: 60 minute recover bike and swim (1 mile)
Monday: 17 Mile run
Tuesday: off (I was supposed to swim but I was traveling out to ragbrai and I couldn't fit it in)
Wednesday: 56 mile ride (RAGBRAI)
Thursday: 58 mile (RAGBRAI), 2.5 mile run
Friday: 75 mile ride (RAGBRAI), 1.5 mile run
Saturday: 71 mile ride (RAGBRAI)
Sunday: Rest day
So overall, in one week I did 360 miles of riding, 20.5 miles of running and a mile swimming. Did I mention I did this while I was camping. Yes, ladies and gentleman. Ragbrai involves camping. I explained a little bit about this ride in my last blog post but I will now go into the great detail that made this my favorite endurance event I have ever been a part of.
I met up with Gina on Tuesday morning around 11. We loaded her car up and went to Jen's where we met up with the whole group that was going mid week (5 riders). It took us a while to get out of the city so by the time we got on the road it was 1 PM. We got to Davenport where Gina's parents where. They were super awesome and were acting as our shuttle out to Boone where we would meet up with the rest of the crew. We loaded her dad's truck with our bikes and then we the riders rode in her mom's Minnie van. Then we drove the 3 hours out to Boone and met up with the crew. It was a long day, and when we got to the camp site we were tired hungry and hot. Not that we could be complaining about the heat. The rest of our team had already ensured days of 90+ temperatures with humidity in the 75%+ range. We set up our tents, ordered Pizza, had a beer and hit the hay.
The next four days are a blur. I remember lots of riding. I remember stopping at lots of towns. I remember lots of rolling hills (Iowa is not flat btw). I remember it being really hot. The days melted together as I rode from one middle america town to the next. My teammates were awesome. I was always riding with someone. Everyone was just lots and lots of fun, and of course super chill.
Here's a schedule that we pretty much followed every day:
6:15: Wake up (everyone else around you is awake and packing tents so I couldn't have slept in even if you had paid me a million dollars too!).
7:30: Wheels down
8:00: First stop for breakfast (Breakfast burrito, doughnuts, Hyvee)
10:30: First town, stop and eat something on a stick, fill water bottles
12:00: Lunch Stop
2:30: Ice cream stop
3:30: Beer stop in last town before the camp town
5:00: Pull into camp site, set up tents, shower, go to the local water park
8:00: Dinner (wherever you can find it)
10:00: In Bed
That schedule doesn't begin to express how awesome it was. Imagine, 10,000 people riding there bikes and camping every night. Every five minutes you pass someone with a boom box on the back of there bike (every once in a while they pass you too). Then every town you stop in is having a carnival because ragbrai hasn't been there in decades. Then when you feel up to it, there's a live band and a beer tent that you can stop off at and get hydrated before hitting the rest of the ride.
There were lots of inside jokes, bad nicknames, good nicknames, good beers, smelly clothes and laughs had throughout the entire time. I loved it. I do think it's one of those things you have to be pumped for. You either like it our you don't. There were tons of people that had done it for years and years. The hardest part of the week is that you are camping every night. It gets in the way of recovery. If you can get over that, you will love it.
I know I will certainly be back for more (hopefully next year)!
I'm sorry (again) for not having posted in a while. I've been exhausted. I'm in the toughest part of IM training right now. Every workout just hurts, even the easy ones aren't easy anymore. Everything is just tired. I'm sleepy at work, I can never get enough sleep. I'm icing all the time. Then I throw in RAGBRAI in the middle of all that and lets just say from a workout perspective, it's just tough right now. I was joining RAGBRAI (the 450 mile ride across Iowa over 7 days) mid week so I knew I would be racking in at least 250 miles within 4 days. Well, I thought coach would give me an easier beginning of the week, but boy was I wrong.
Here's my schedule from last week:
Saturday: IM Wisconsin course ride: 100 miles
Sunday: 60 minute recover bike and swim (1 mile)
Monday: 17 Mile run
Tuesday: off (I was supposed to swim but I was traveling out to ragbrai and I couldn't fit it in)
Wednesday: 56 mile ride (RAGBRAI)
Thursday: 58 mile (RAGBRAI), 2.5 mile run
Friday: 75 mile ride (RAGBRAI), 1.5 mile run
Saturday: 71 mile ride (RAGBRAI)
Sunday: Rest day
So overall, in one week I did 360 miles of riding, 20.5 miles of running and a mile swimming. Did I mention I did this while I was camping. Yes, ladies and gentleman. Ragbrai involves camping. I explained a little bit about this ride in my last blog post but I will now go into the great detail that made this my favorite endurance event I have ever been a part of.
I met up with Gina on Tuesday morning around 11. We loaded her car up and went to Jen's where we met up with the whole group that was going mid week (5 riders). It took us a while to get out of the city so by the time we got on the road it was 1 PM. We got to Davenport where Gina's parents where. They were super awesome and were acting as our shuttle out to Boone where we would meet up with the rest of the crew. We loaded her dad's truck with our bikes and then we the riders rode in her mom's Minnie van. Then we drove the 3 hours out to Boone and met up with the crew. It was a long day, and when we got to the camp site we were tired hungry and hot. Not that we could be complaining about the heat. The rest of our team had already ensured days of 90+ temperatures with humidity in the 75%+ range. We set up our tents, ordered Pizza, had a beer and hit the hay.
The next four days are a blur. I remember lots of riding. I remember stopping at lots of towns. I remember lots of rolling hills (Iowa is not flat btw). I remember it being really hot. The days melted together as I rode from one middle america town to the next. My teammates were awesome. I was always riding with someone. Everyone was just lots and lots of fun, and of course super chill.
Here's a schedule that we pretty much followed every day:
6:15: Wake up (everyone else around you is awake and packing tents so I couldn't have slept in even if you had paid me a million dollars too!).
7:30: Wheels down
8:00: First stop for breakfast (Breakfast burrito, doughnuts, Hyvee)
10:30: First town, stop and eat something on a stick, fill water bottles
12:00: Lunch Stop
2:30: Ice cream stop
3:30: Beer stop in last town before the camp town
5:00: Pull into camp site, set up tents, shower, go to the local water park
8:00: Dinner (wherever you can find it)
10:00: In Bed
That schedule doesn't begin to express how awesome it was. Imagine, 10,000 people riding there bikes and camping every night. Every five minutes you pass someone with a boom box on the back of there bike (every once in a while they pass you too). Then every town you stop in is having a carnival because ragbrai hasn't been there in decades. Then when you feel up to it, there's a live band and a beer tent that you can stop off at and get hydrated before hitting the rest of the ride.
There were lots of inside jokes, bad nicknames, good nicknames, good beers, smelly clothes and laughs had throughout the entire time. I loved it. I do think it's one of those things you have to be pumped for. You either like it our you don't. There were tons of people that had done it for years and years. The hardest part of the week is that you are camping every night. It gets in the way of recovery. If you can get over that, you will love it.
I know I will certainly be back for more (hopefully next year)!
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