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)!