Bringing a knife to a gun fight

A local Minnesota tradition is the Minnesota Ironman bike ride. This ride comes in 30 miles, 62 mile (100 kilometers) and 100 mile varieties. This ride is always held on the last Sunday of April and apparently it got it's name because if you can ride 100 miles in Minnesota in April (where the weather can at times be sketchy coupled with a limited training schedule due to said sketchy weather) you must be an Ironman. I signed up for this ride a couple of weeks ago. My head said to go for the 30 mile route, my ego said go for the full century route, I wound up with the 62 mile route.

Last weekend was 70 outside, this weekend 30-40 degrees. I figured that since I'm going to be outside for a while I ought to dress appropriately.
Torso (from inside out): Under Armour super cling, Nike dry-fit, cotton sweatshirt, SunIce jacket, generic rain/wind jacket
Legs (from inside out): Generic super cling, Generic long-johns, running pants
Feet (from inside out): running socks, wool socks, running shoes
Head (from inside out): Goretex wind head/ear band, knit hat, helmet

Basically this ride is a party, there's no ride times and you get to gorge at the stops (not quite like riding through wine country so I hear but I did get some peanut M&M's). Unfortunately it was a bit of a harder party for me than for others. I was on a $300 hybrid bicycle, which apparently isn't very efficient for this sort of gig. I like it to bringing a knife to a gunfight, just wasn't the right weapon of choice if I wanted to survive!

The rest of the 4000 cycles broke down as follows:

3990 road bicycles
5 hybrid/offroad bicycles
4 unicycles (amazing, I barely made it with two wheels)

The first few miles were painful to the extent that I was questioning my ability to finish (fortunately I'm stubborn (not quick mind you) when it comes to endurance events). These miles were hilly, my gears were giving me troubles and I'd forgotten to check my tire pressure. 28 miles in I reached my first rest area. 1 Banana, a few orange slices, a few energy biscuits/rolls, a muffin, and some gatorade later I was back on the course.

The second section went real well, the course had flattened out and the eau de bovine lingered in the air. I sped the 18 miles through this section without much trouble, back to the gorging! 1 banana, 1 bowl of pasta, a few orange slices, a few trail mix bars for the road later I was back on the course.

The third section was supposed to be 16 miles, i.e. shorter than the second section. Countdown was on. I tend to break things up into manageable pieces so I can see my progress (if I'm running 10 miles, each mile represents 10 percent, each of the first five miles represents 20 percent until halfway, so on). So in this case, 1.6 miles was 10 percent. 4 miles was a quarter of the remaining way. 8 miles meant that it's all downhill (figuratively) from here. The problem with this approach is that it only works when you know the end point and when your cyclometer is calibrated correctly! By the time I was "finished" (had ridden the final 16 miles from the last checkpoint) I was not at the end. In fact I still had 3 miles left (though I didn't know it at the time). Funny thing was, my cyclometer registered the 18 mile stretch (the second leg) as 18.55 miles, so not too bad. The 16 mile stretch was about 18.9 miles on my cyclometer, so either the odometer got hijacked or the distances of the legs were not correct.

62 miles later, all good to go, packed back into the car. 10 minutes into the drive home it started snowing.

Once I got home Amanda told me that I looked like a bum in all the layers of clothes.

Like most endurance events, it's more fun after it's finished. Maybe next year I can give it another go! Maybe next year I can also have a fancier bicycle, then I could give the 100 a whirl!