Super Fun Week and Bike Psychos 200k Ride Report

I can't believe all the great stuff that I did and that happened to me this week.

• I selected and ordered a new laptop for work.  Another DELL.  They make good machines.  This one comes with a webcam, and I know what you are thinking---OH NO CRACKHEAD HAS A FUCKING WEBCAM!!!  The NSA and Quebec are going wild as we speak, see below.
• Quebec disallowed a friend from accessing my blog.  He was up there getting ready for his Ironman Mont-Tremblant, tried to read my blog from his hotel and got the following message: Reason: Weighted phrase limit exceeded.
  Categories: Pornography, Pornography (Malay), Pornography (German), Proxies. I had my friend, Susan, check some other areas of Canada for me, and B.C. was able to access, and also in The Netherlands.  Although I told her it would make sense for The Netherlands to not have any filter since they are OK with whores and pot.
• I ate about 8 Italian Beef sandwiches for dinners from Monday through Friday, with sweet and hot peppers.  You might think that is not good training fuel, but apparently it worked out quite well.  However, on Saturday, I gifted my brother, Mike, with the remainder, as I knew it was time to get back to a whole lot more carbs!
• I got new tires put on my car!  The POS feels a whole lot nicer to drive now!  I am blessed to have had a great, reasonable mechanic for years--Beard Auto in Downers Grove--who told me I needed the new tires.  Sears put them on and tried to claim I hadn't paid for disposal when I got there, so I paid $10, then when I got home I checked the invoice and I HAD paid, called Sears, and they fixed it.
• I had my annual eye exam.  Last year, I went while I was in the dregs of depression.  My eye doctor is a really fast triathlete, so he usually listens to me go off about all my races and crazy training.  Last year, I was very subdued.  This time, he told me I'm a completely different person!  And I know that he meant it in a good way.  My eyes had improved over the last year, too!  Last year I had these huge, annoying floaters in my left eye.  They are still there, but nearly gone now.  Dr. Kampschroeder told me my eyes are in excellent health!  When my exam was finished, I was waiting to have my bill made up when these frames just screamed at me TRY ME ON!  I wasn't planning on buying new glasses (my prescription hasn't changed and I have 2 perfectly good pairs), but I tried them on, they are gorgeous, and decided why not.  When I got home, I realized that I had set aside plenty of money in my FSA to cover them (my vision plan will cover either contact lenses OR glasses in a year, so I'll use the benefit to pay for the glasses, which are more expensive geez the frames are like $250), which made me feel good about an impulse purchase.  But they are beautiful, and I can't wait to get them.  Hint: the front of the frame is black, and the sides and inside of the front are HOT PINK!!!!!
• I had another blood draw to test my thyroid function and it is finally in working order!  I feel FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC and CRACTACULAR!
• I ran into a friend at the grocery store and caught her up on things, and she remarked that many times last year when she would see me she could tell I was on the verge of tears, I felt that bad. She could see how great I feel again (my normal self), and I told her, and this is the truth, that lately I've been on the verge of tears at least once a day because I feel so good and am so grateful for everything in my life.
• I got a massage on Friday evening from my most excellent masseusse, Mike.
• I made my coachee, Brad, an official NothingMan finisher shirt (black with white NOTHING letters on the front, and nothing on the back), and I made us matching shirts for IMCOZ that I am not going to show you until we are close to race day or I can't stand the suspense any longer.  I was so excited waiting for Brad to get the package on Friday, because I knew it would get him pumped for the weekend's training festival.  I wore my own NothingMan shirt on Saturday and Sunday.  When I was coming out of the Y on Saturday, a man saw me in it and said, "Cool shirt."  I smiled broadly and spun around and said, "LOOK IT SAYS NOTHING ON THE BACK, TOO!"  We both laughed hysterically at that. I think Brad and I are going to flip some people out at IMCOZ by going to packet pickup with our homemade shirts in our hands, slip them into our bags, and then pull them out as if they came with the swag, and go "LOOK AT THESE!"  Trust me, they are awesome and one of a kind!  Brad actually thought I had the shirts custom silk screened, but I ironed on the letters (and numbers for IMCOZ) myself.
• On Saturday, I did (so did Brad) an inside out mini-NothingMan sprint.  1 hour really hard bike ride (I accidentally deleted the Power tap file, but know that I was hitting some really good wattages), then a :40 brick run which didn't even suck, and finally I swam 1,000 yards really easy.  
• Saturday afternoon I picked up my new MTB, christened Death Machine.  He's (yes, this is my first male bike) a beauty, has 700cm wheels with Presta valves (no more Schrader, fine by me), the frame has room for TWO bottle cages (meaning I can ride many miles without stopping to refuel), is fairly lightweight and just fucking cool looking. While at The Bike Shop, I had them adjust the saddle height and fore/aft, and then they sent me off for a test ride.  I was like how the hell do I shift this thing, because I've never had the thumb shifters.  I must have looked pretty funny and clumsy while riding and trying to figure it out, but I did!  When I got back to the shop, I asked my most excellent mechanic (and Bike Stylist, as I now call him, since he finds cool parts that will look good on my bikes) if he would wrap the hand grips because they were a little smaller than I liked.  And I showed him how big I wanted them to be with my hands.  Well, let's just say that Drew and the other 2 mechanics had a good laugh--I didn't realize right away what it looked like I was doing with my hands, but then I did and I turned beet red!  Drew asked what color, and of course, RED would be the only logical choice, so Death Machine is all ready to go.  I also got a matte black Giro helmet, whose model name is, oddly enough, "Savant." Huh.  Kinda fits me, don't you think?

Death Machine in front of my POS car (but it runs fine!)

Got the grips wrapped because they were too small for me

• Saturday night, I had dinner with my brother, Mike.  We ate a bunch of sushi and I had 1 huge and 1 small Sapporo with dinner, and I also had a miso soup.  I was not wearing any Ironman shit.  A man, shaved head, looked like late 40's or early 50's, swaggers into the restaurant wearing an M-dot shirt.  After him comes his out of shape and not too attractive wife.  Then another guy, not very buff, wearing an IM shirt and his fat, unattractive wife.  I was wearing a shirt that says SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.  Well the 2 men were eyeballing me the entire time to try and figure out what my thing was.  Mike and I finished dinner before their table, and on the way out, I flashed the M-dot on my bag (it's from Kona).  Set them straight, huh?
• Gave my old MTB, Clipless Fuck, to my niece, Michelle (she can rename it since she probably won't use clipless pedals).  She seems excited to have a pretty nice MTB, and I look forward to the day when I can go riding with her!
• Began getting excited about going up to Ironman Wisconsin in 3 weeks to be a professional spectator and dispense immense amounts of HTFU to both racers I know and completely random strangers!
• Slept 8 hours last night.  This is the frist time I've slept that long in about 3 weeks.  I've figured it's because I've been so excited at feeling good again, and also that maybe I just needed to really tire myself out in order to sleep well.  Mission accomplished!
• Yesterday I rode 129 miles at the Bike Psychos 200k Invitational Ride. The remainder of this post will be about that.  My friend from Miami, Peter, was texting me to see if we could get together afterwards since he was in town for his Mom's birthday (she's 95, I believe), and I called him and had to say no, I would be pretty tired, and I was.
• I tracked a few people I know at Ironman Mont-Tremblant when I got home from riding and was perturbed that ironman.com displayed the athlete tracking data in kilometers.  I was joking, though, when I posed about it on Facebook, although a few people became outraged and hurriedly told me how to convert kms to miles, which I know how to do, except my training spreadsheet does it for me automatically and I'm not used to doing it "by hand."

OK, so for that ride report...I woke up so excited to ride far, and did my normal routine:

• Cup of coffee. Gather up clothes and shit to go with me.
• Apply chamois cream to my bike shorts and hang over bathtub.
• Wait 1/2 hour to take the thyroid pill.
• Eat regular breakfast, catch up on Facebook.
• Chug down Ultrafuel, strip and put on sunscreen.
• Drink 2 more big glasses of water.
• Load the cooler with my bottles for during and after.
• Pump my tires.
• Put my contact lenses in and put on my bike clothes. I wore black tri shorts, a black tank, my usual low cut socks, my silver Sidi's and the white Catlike helmet.  I had really wanted to wear my Bell aero helmet, but thought I'd be too much of a dork if I did.  Well, I'm a dork anyway, but it's tough to talk to people with it on.
• Grab a Coke from the fridge for the drive over.
• Load the car.
• Drive to Coal City, IL, about a :40 drive

On the way there, there was a bunch of fog, and the temperature was high 50's.  I knew I'd be cold to start, but depending on whether the fog dissipated by starting time (6:30 was the plan), I might or might not wear arm warmers.  The plan was to meet a friend, AJ, and ride with him, as he was doing the century. 


I got to the start at like 6:10, so I could sign in and wait for AJ.  I was freezing cold (someone took a pic of me, but it's not yet posted anywhere).  We got these rad neon technical shirts, that I will be able to use on cool fall runs.  Many times I don't want a t-shirt because I have so many, but some are now worn out and I do enjoy keeping the ones from 100+ mile rides now.  Lots of people were lusting after Skull Kingdom, and why not?  I think it's the most unique, beautiful bike I've ever seen.  How can you go wrong with skulls on a bike?

AJ showed up around 6:30 and still had to register.  He was smart, and had worn a long sleeve shirt that he intended to toss at one of the rest stops.  We immediately started babbling on about this and that (he's doing IMWI I can't wait to cheer him on!), as it had been a few years since we'd spent any time together, and at best, it would be passing remarks during or after workouts.


I decided I needed to go with the arm warmers, and I was actually shivering waiting for AJ to be ready to roll.  We headed out, and I don't think there was a moment of silence for 53 miles!  We rode side by side most of the time, and we passed loads of people.  We were just laughing our asses off, sharing stories about our wild youths (his was more wild than mine until my 20's, but I still refrain from divulging all of that because it was let's just say EPIC), being OK with packs of roadies passing us, and generally having a great time.  I quizzed AJ about his training and race preparation, and I hope he shares his race plan with me because I want him to have a great IMWI, which will be his 2nd IM.

Early in the ride (I think it was about :40 in), we were at about a point where it would have been nice to have a rest stop because I always have to piss right away especially when it's cool and foggy, and AJ saw what he thought was a rest stop, so I pull in behind him and it turns out it was a bunch of tables set up (with place settings) for what I thought was going to be a wedding reception!  We had a huge laugh over this, because, well, bike ride rest stations don't usually have tables and chairs and tablecloths!  Later on there was another area that we thought was a rest station that turned out to be a campground!  We had another huge laugh over that.

We were pedaling and talking and laughing the entire time.  I don't think there was a minute we weren't both smiling or thinking of the next story to tell one another.  At one point, AJ says he has to tell me this story that is going to make me laugh, so he starts in on once when his wife was at the Y on a treadmill, this 'woman' came up to her and started grilling her about the Ironman hat that she was wearing.  All of a sudden, I remembered the incident, and "that woman" was ME.  I thought I had written a blog post about it, but I can't find it if I did.  AJ described to me the encounter from his wife's perspective, which was that I was basically a stark raving lunatic who chastised her for wearing an Ironman hat when she hadn't done an Ironman race.  Turns out the hat was AJ's, and HE never wore it (until he'd done an Ironman), but he hadn't told his wife "the rules."  At that time, someone used to call me "Crazy Sheila" all the time, because I was the only swimmer who did triathlons way back when.  Well "someone" has now qualified for Kona a few times, is a good coach and is living the dream.  Who's crazy now?

It was funny to me that I could remember just how riled up I felt at the time, and how now I wouldn't say anything if I saw someone who looked "unqualified" wearing Ironman stuff.  Whatever.  You do an Ironman, you wear the shit.  You haven't done one, it inspires you, wear the shit.  You are a lazy, fat slob, wear the shit.  It's no different than NFL gear or stuff from any pro sports team. I rather like the idea that even when I'm not wearing the shit (and I don't wear it all the time), I get people coming up to me and telling me I look like I do Ironman.   No shit, Batman!

Back to the ride...we got to the turn around for the 100-miler, and at that point, the 200k ride does a separate loop from there, so unless AJ went with me, we were done riding together.  He was making some calls, and I was talking to some people about my dilemma. I considered lying to AJ and telling him that the 100-mile route was really only 87, so he should go with me, but I decided to go with the truth.  I tried valiantly to convince AJ to keep going, but he had other commitments for the day, and so we said goodbye, and I kept on riding.  But I had SO much fun riding with AJ.  It was almost exhausting trying to keep up with his stories (and comedy, which apparently runs in his family).

Also at that same stop a guy who I ran into last week on a ride came and said hi to me and I forgot who he was and he said he'd tried to keep up with me last week but it only lasted about 3 minutes ;) There was also a group of 3 roadies who remembered me from years past, and they always were just a few minutes ahead of me.  I think they were secretly worried I'd catch them.

On the loop that was only for the 200k, I was not far behind a guy on a road bike, so I figured I'd just follow him.  When we got to the town of Tonica, I remembered I'd been lost there a few times, but was confident since I was following someone that I was OK.  Note to self, NEVER assume who you are following knows where they are going or that they are even DOING the ride you are on (I had made this same mistake a week ago trying to chase down some roadies and successfully intercepting but then discovering I was nearly lost). He stops all of a sudden, and I yell, "ARE WE LOST?"  And he says we missed a turn.  I really didn't care, since I knew it couldn't have been that far back.  But the guy didn't wait for me or anything, so I was on my own finding my way to the turn.  I stopped at a kid's baseball game and asked some locals where E 550 is and they said, "We don't know the road numbers."  I laughed and rode on, figuring I'd only ridden 1 mile out of the way but it turns out it was more like 2.5.  Whatever.  I found the turn and remembered the road, which was awesome.

I was all by my lonesome for the rest of that loop, and wondered just how many people were even doing the 200k, since you'd need to have started early.  I circled back to the same rest station where I'd left AJ, stopped briefly, and then started back with mostly 100-mile riders. I don't remember when I started counting how many people I was passing, but it must have been awhile.  There were 2 more rest stations, and I really looked forward to the next one, as it was getting warmer out and the wind was picking up and we were riding right into the wind.

I forgot that the way back takes a different route than the way out.  We ride along the Illinois River, and it's just beautiful to see it, and there are tons of motorcycles out riding in that area.  Many of the motorcyclists would wave at me once they could see the skulls on my bike!  

There are lots of ups and downs, too, as we pass through valleys of the river and its tributaries.  One really cool part is Ottawa Canyon which goes through a part of Starved Rock State Park.  The road is all windy and twisty and up and down and lots of WOO HOO downhill and just really awesome!  I bombed through there and passed several people who I think were a bit shocked when I flew by.   We get back along the river and then there's this tall hill on the right and I'm like, "I hope they don't make us go up that," but they DID, and it wasn't really that bad.

When I got to the second to last aid station, I went over to a table where they had a big map of the ride and asked one of the volunteers, "WHERE AM I?"  It made me laugh to ask the question, since I just follow the road markings and go where they tell me having absolutely no clue where the hell I am. 

I ran into a guy, Fred, that I've know for years (and ridden with a few times).  He and his 2 sons and their wives are ALL doing Ironman Wisconsin!  They should get McDonald's to sponsor them (that's their last name)!  I thought Fred would ride with me, but he left before I did, but then I caught him and we stayed together a bit, but then he got well ahead of me or so I thought.  Turns out I was only ever may 30 seconds behind him, and we rolled into the last rest station nearly together.  At that one (and all the other ones) there would be at least a handful of people (mainly guys) staring at my bike.  Sometimes I say nothing, and sometimes I say, "Cool bike, huh?"

Well it was time to get back and be done, and I'm riding and riding, and thought we were close, and I could just tell I thought I'd already done 200k, because I've ridden that far on numerous occasions.  I'd had the Power Tap on elapsed time only because then it tells me when I need to take in nutrition, and I hadn't looked at actual mileage.  Well I did, and I was at 126 with some miles to go!  I laughed because I was dead on feeling like 200k.  I passed a few more people with only 1 mile to go, and one group of guys I said, "Sorry, but I have to pass you now even though we are almost done."  I needed to be done.

There were 2 girls riding together that I was about to pass, and I noticed one of them had a really poor bike fit, so as I passed I yelled, "YOUR SADDLE IS WAY TOO HIGH," and she actually yelled back, "THANK YOU," and I thought maybe she then added to herself COMMA BITCH, but whatever, her saddle was way too high.  I didn't think anything of it and rode on.

I got to the turn into the parking lot of the Coal City High School at 128.75 miles, so you KNOW what I had to do...noodle around in the parking lot to hit 129 miles!  I said goodbye to Fred and said I'd see him (and his famous family of McDonalds) at Ironman Wisconsin.

I then see 2 women and one of them looks like the woman I'd yelled at, and I asked, and she said yes, we talked, turns out she (Caroline) lives near me and is doing Ironman Cozumel (and her friend, Monica and her husband are going to cheer)!  So hopefully we will get to do some training together, since Caroline is an ultrarunner turned triathlete, and I suck at running so maybe I can get some HTFU from her.

At the end they had an ice cream truck giving us free either ice cream sandwiches or cones.  I got a sandwich and went into the school to shower and change.  I ate only 1/2 the sandwich and laid it on top of some extra toilet paper in the locker room while I showered, then I panicked while I was showering in case someone took it!  But nobody did, and another woman and I were babbling and laughing and thankful for the post-ride shower.

I went back to my car to start the drive home.  I immediately ate a Twinkie I'd brought along, and it was actually quite good after being heated up in the car, except the creme filling was liquid.  Then I grabbed the can of Pringles that was on the passenger side floor and the top popped off and a bunch fell out on the floor, but I didn't care, so I munched those on the way home and drank Endurox R4.  I called my friend, Peter, from Miami, to tell him that no, I didn't want to drink champagne tonight, and we decided to skip a bonus meeting since I'd be too tired and he wasn't having dinner with his folks until 7:30, at which time I'd be nearly pass out.

I got home, unpacked the car, inhaled 4 pieces of sushi left over from Saturday and cracked a beer, put stuff away, put a Lean Cuisine in the microwave, got on the computer to start tracking some Ironman Mont-Tremblant people, ate the Lean Cuisine, waited maybe 15 minutes for more hunger to arrive, decided on a big, fat avocado stuffed with tuna, one more beer, more water, and that was all I could manage before passing out at 8PM.

What a week, huh?