My most memorable workout
FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2016
Back when I was deep in training for my fourth Ironman race, I was asked to write about my most memorable workout. I thought, "Too many over the last decade to isolate any one as 'most memorable.'"
But then I thought about a workout I did earlier that summer. Here's what I wrote, a story that I think is worth retelling, if for no other reason than to show the level of training (insanity?) it took for me to get a faster Ironman age group finish time.
The workout was a brick (bike and run, for those who don't know the term). A 7-hour 27-minute 40-second brick, to be exact.
I try to cap my Ironman training build-up with a Dave Scott-style "training camp," a several day period where I train the to max, before my taper starts. I needed a 100+ mile ride, I needed hill bike training and I needed a brick. So I decided to do it all.
I had done 14+ hours the prior week, including nearly eight hours the previous two days, Saturday and Sunday. I had sore legs, sore feet, was weary and sunburned. But I needed just one more dose of insanity. My taper was supposed to start Monday. But I could spare one day off work and to delay the taper start by one day. Hills in Illinois? Few and far between. But I had been doing some homework and some asking around and had figured out that Kettle Moraine State Park in southeastern Wisconsin, where the Ice Age 50 miler is run, has plenty of hills.
Temps were in the 80s when I finally made it to the starting point mid-morning. The sun was hot. It was high midwest humidity. I parked in the shade in the lot opposite the country store as I readied my bike. I had a cooler full of ice and cold liquids. Except for a few mountain bikers heading off for the dirt trails, some mad dogs and Englishmen, no other bikers were crazy enough to be riding around the park on this day.
The opening miles were OK, but the wind, sun in the exposed section through cornfields and sore feet did not bode well for the ride. Furthermore, I was not quite sure where I was going. I had maps. I knew where the park boundaries were and could chart the roads that crisscrossed the long, skinny park. But despite all my research I could turn up little on which roads were good, which were bad, where the hills actually were and what the best route around and through the park was. Everybody said "Ride Kettle Moraine," but except for the dirt trails, little more info was forthcoming. I am an adventurous sort, so that would normally be OK, but today I did not want a tour, I wanted a race course that was marked. I was too weary to "trail find." So I had consulted my maps, marked a possible course (several loops with some options), and took off.
After the cornfields I rode up and down some initial hills and by a lake--a little more interesting--but beyond the lake the cornfields started again. I was feeling better, though. My speed crept up. I got some breaks from the wind as the course wound around. I reached one edge of the plotted course and changed direction. The road started to roll more. And more. More wooded sections appeared. Hills rose under my wheels. Beautiful "kettles" filled with wild flowers rolled into view, with wooded glacial ridges beyond. A little later I zoomed downhill for a good stretch, leaning into the curving road, with the wind more cooling than before. I reached another extremity of the course. More woods and hills. I was not going at race pace, but I was getting my hill miles in, good for IM Canada. Finally I was on the road back to the general store. I passed the entrance to the John Muir Trail, where the mountain bikers were headed. My car came into sight.
I took a lunch break and got a sandwich, cold drink and *ice cream!* in the *air conditioned* general store/bike shop. (Neat place for in the middle of nowhere!) I restocked from my cooler and took off again. I was stiff. I was sore. I was tired. It was now 92 degrees. But I had 55 miles more to go.
The same loop, again. But 2 X 45 = 90 and that was not enough miles. So at the north extremity I kept riding north. Long straight, flat, quiet road. For a good length of time I cranked at race pace. I could have kept that up seemingly forever. But after a while the road stopped going straight, I rode through some road construction and traffic. Civilization had really appeared. Where the hell was I? I had ridden off my map. Now I really was trail breaking. Through a busy downtown and even further north. The sign said Delafield (s.p.?), Wisconsin. I knew this was a Milwaukee suburb. I rode past Northwestern Military Academy, which I knew from their ads was located here. Further north. But time was running out and I had added more than enough extra miles to get my 100 miler in. Also, here was the entrance to an Interstate. Way too much civilization! I stopped on the grass near the on-ramp and did a map check. A beautiful deer with great antlers bounded out of the bushes and stopped short when he saw me, all of about 6 feet away. We stared at each other, eyeing each other, silent, trying to figure out what each was up to. Yeah, neither of us were where we wanted to be. He trotted across the busy road toward the trees. I mounted and rode down the busy road, toward the trees.
The ride back to my car was long and hot, but the shaded tree sections helped. The hills were harder this time, but I knew that these hills were really achieving what I needed to condition me for Canada. I would feel the pain for a few days for a later gain! Finally, finally, as the sun was getting low and normal people were sitting down for dinner, the dirt trail entrance rolled by and then my car came up again. Whew!
I drank. I drank. I refueled. I changed. I sat in my car. I wanted to make this a leisurely long transition. Actually, I wanted to go to sleep. But it was not a leisurely break, only a couple of minutes. I started my car and drove down the road in the beginning of the dusk to the parking lot at the entrance to the John Muir Trail. I knew I needed to get some kind of run in to remember how it felt to run after a taxing long ride. I had a plan, probably crazy. But I had already entered and dwelt in the land of crazy, so why not? I'd only ridden 103 miles in scorching heat and humidity, only a little more than half an Ironman race's worth of time (yes, but certainly more than half an Ironman's worth of effort).
Running shoes on, Fuelbelt on. Off on the mountain bike trails running the opposite direction of the bikers for safety's sake. Would I have any legs, any speed? Could I run any distance? This was a real test! Whoa! I can run. Heart race monitor says 8 minute mile pace right away! Yes! And the trail was really fun, narrow, snaking, up, down, curving, me leaping from side to side, caroming off of roots, rocks, stumps and more. Hills and flats, curves and dips, getting more wooded and then breaking out into a meadow, as the sun slipped away, the light horizontal and a deepening red, the woods now more ancient and seemingly filled with life lingering in the growing shadows, just a few bikers blitzing by in and out of the increasing darkness, me still keeping up the pace and feeling great, striding up rocky slopes and leaning forward, speeding up, on the downside, finally emerging from the four mile loop. I was soaked. I was spent. I was grinning ear to ear. I felt terrible. I felt wonderful. I walked toward my car. Only one other car was in the lot, parked next to mine. A friend of my son's was finishing putting his mountain bike on the car. My head spun. I had been in my own training universe all day, and then as I emerged someone from my normal universe totally unexpectedly entered my altered reality. We talked briefly. He said he and his friend had made a last minute decision to drive up after work and get in a ride in the twilight. I knew he was there because my script demanded it.
