Ironman Wisconsin first look

Today, I went with a couple of my coworkers up to the Madison bike course to take my first look at it.  Up to this point, I have only heard stories and seen a few video clips of the brutal bike course up there.  So this was my opportunity to get a look at the course myself and really establish what it will take to conquer it.  I walked away from the workout today with a new sense of understanding about what it will take to become a full ironman.

Starting out on the course was fairly smooth.  It had a couple rolling hills but they were no different from the ones I had faced in Racine.  As we continued the course the hills began to get significantly higher and steeper.  At a few points they seemed like walls of asphalt!  I kept at it and was shocked at the slow going of some of the climbs.  As I worked up the hills I kept one eye on my garmin which was reading speeds as low as 5mph.  I have never ridden a bike that slowly before....I have never ridden a course this mean before!  The bright spot of the course were the downhills.  When I descended the first major hill I was intimidated by the accelaration and speed I was achieving.  After the first one, I craved more downhills to feel the rush.  I was not dissapointed!  I was topping out at speeds of over 35mph.  So much fun and a huge rush!

The ride was great up until the 30 mile mark.  I had begun one of the major descent sections of the course that involved a winding road with some blind turns.  I came around a turn and all was great until I began crossing into a gravel patch on the road.  Up until this point I have been naive about gravel and rocks on the road and how it affects my bike.  Today I was given a stern warning.  When I crossed into the gravel area of the road I was going roughly 27-29mph.  It was at this point that I felt the wheels get very loose underneath me and the back tire began kicking out to the right fast.  I quickly did the only thing I could think of in that instant and tried to gently tilt toward the outside of the gravel patch.  I think it was the speed that saved me as it pushed me through the patch quick enough for the tires to re-grip the pavement and stabalized the bike.  After that near disastorous event I backed off a lot on the speed and became very paranoid about gravel I saw anywhere on the road.

After getting lost 3 times and nearly eating the pavement back I finally finished the workout all the bit wiser and prepared to plan workouts that will help me improve my strength to conquer Madison.