Chad and Nicole

Before I rant about the weather, the MN Ironman bike ride was awesome. Perfect weather except for it being a little chilly at the start of the ride. I managed to conquer a few hills and a few hills conquered me. But thats all part of training.
Besides the MN Ironman bike ride and a few days between, we have had some of the strangest weather I have ever been a part of. In a 48 hour period we went from freezing temps of 30F(-1C) degrees to a high of 90F (32C). We have had snow, ice and on Saturday night we got over 5 inches of rain. The resulting flooding has made getting out on my bike a little difficult. (Luckily its almost dried up.) With the colder temperatures, its also been hard to get open water swimming practice in. The water is still a bit too cold, even with a wet suit.
I am down to just over 100 days until Ironman Wisconsin and while I feel more prepared for it than ever before, I still have a lot of work to do. My main goal for June/July is to run a full marathon. Based on my schedule and budget, I will be doing that on my own around our bike trail. I already have a great route selected that has lots of parks, bathrooms and water fountains along the way. Once I do that, I will have completed all 3 distances of the Ironman. Then, I just have to put them together in 1 day. No sweat right?

Training has been going well except for the all the stinking snow we got in April. We got a pretty bad ice storm last week that dropped a lot of trees all over town. The bike trail is a bit of a mess at the moment. I originally planned on taking my bike off the trainer last week, but obviously that didn’t happen.
I am going to have to take if off soon though, next week is the Minnesota Ironman Bike Ride. A 100 mile bike ride near Stillwater Minnesota. So far my longest bike ride has been 60 miles, so I am excited to get to the 100 mark. Its a pretty casual event that draws around 4000 riders, so I can treat it like a training day.
I have a bunch of smaller sprint triathlon and 10k races I have signed up for through the summer. The even that has me most excited though is the Wisconsin Brick Adventure. Its a 3 day event covering all aspects of the Ironman WI course. That will be the biggest chance for me to know what to expect on race day.

Made it through the holidays without too much trouble. With the new year we are starting to increase the training and are now in search of a place to get more swimming in. Though that may have to wait until the snow clears. Until then, here is a funny picture I made that only a few people will get.

Nicole and I got lucky again to head to the Brainerd International Raceway Performance Driving School. This time, however, Nicole drove her own 2006 Dodge Magnum and got to see what her HEMI could do. She had a blast doing it and is already wanting to go back. I decided not to drive this time, but I did get to ride along in a 2005 Lamborghini with a driver who knew what he was doing. We reached at least 145MPH, which was a pretty big rush.   I posted the pictures I got from the day at my Flickr Account.  I also took a couple videos:
Video 1
Video 2

In July, I met my goal of doing a half-Ironman. Now its time to go all out and do the real thing. The Wisconsin Ironman historically sells out within 24 hours of registration opening. This year it sold out in 8 hours and and I was one of the lucky few to get a spot. I was also lucky enough to get the exact hotel I wanted: the Hilton Menona Terrace, which is where the transition area is. This also means I will pay a hefty premium for this privilege. I have 1 year to get my crap together and see if I can get this done. Everything about this race is double anything I have done before and what I did before was pretty hard.

2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a full marathon. Oddly enough the swim doesn’t scare me at all. I have become very comfortable in the water and am almost looking forward to that portion of the race. What scares me is the bike. The bike course in Wisconsin is brutal and considered one of the most difficult of any Ironman event. What makes it so cringe worthy are the hills. I am told they are not particularly steep or long, but they are non-stop. You are given almost no breaks and are always going up, down or turning. This is a big change from the long straightaways I have done before. If I can survive the bike, I know I can do the run. I will limp my way across the finish line if I have to. I dont have any time goals for this race, other than to finish, even if I am the last one across the line. Training wise, I found a nice hill that I will be using next spring to get used to that non-stop up and down. I am hoping for another mild winter. Last year’s lack of snow really helped with my outdoor training. The other hard part of my training is the nutrition. I still love my sugar though I have also fallen in love with new veggies. I just need to find more vegetables to love.

Well, we are slowing going to get back to normal.  I found a new web hosting service and hopefully they workout a little better than the last.  Stay tuned for more info.