I Dared!

HA. I did the Dairyland Dare...on a WHIM.

Hank, my boyfriend and monster masher coach person, was not happy that they only had a 30 minute crit for him at Elk Grove, and with 140,000+ guys crammed onto the course, he decided he didn't want to do the race...He wanted to start up his fall training a bit early. I hesitated.. I LOVE the Elk Grove race. But I also love to just 'ride' and I have always wanted to ride the hills of the Blue Mounds area. I knew if I did this ride with him that I would most likely not be able to race. He wasn't expecting me to go with him. But I have been racing since Hillsboro ( March) and was just ready to do something fun.

I was torn. There are some weekends when everything seems to converge at once and you have to pick and choose. I surprised him and told him I wanted to go. A nice long 'low pressure' ride! I am glad I went. It was truly a fun day, rain and all. Training is cumulative and you will always benefit from long hard hills. :)

After all that talk about Elk Grove. ...(My FAVORITE race I have ever done, by the way!)) ...I made a decision to do a huge hilly .....((don't laugh))....COOKIE RIDE!
OK....its not fair to call the DD a cookie ride because it was really hard. Extremely hard. And after a summer of racing crits and road races I really felt the hilly miles. Oh...and throw in the THunderstorm complete with lightening and a huge 20+ mile an hour wind with gusts just hitting you hard in the face... it was exceptionally HARD. It was pretty much an epic day.
I really recommend this DARE ride and the entire area to anyone interested in some hill work. This ride was timed. The course was open but hardly any cars to contend with. The food was very good. All kinds of food.
They had cheese, though.
cheese. Does anyone eat cheese while riding? I mean. CHEEESE. in your tummy..going up hills....((only in wisconsin)) but then,....the super savvy-fast top elite gals on the XPlane/Team Revolution were at super week eating burrito's from taco bell only hours before the races and swearing up and down that they were THE best pre-race food there is.

((pause for effect))

yes I am serious. And you thought racing elite meant a strict diet of organic grains, malto dextrin and whey protein isolate. HA! wrong. It is a dollar ninety nine BEAN Burrito Supreme from TACO BELL!!
seriously.

((ok back to original post))

I did the Dairyland Dare. 100K. You get to wear a chip and time yourself. Not bad! I was kinda stoked to workout and time myself on a hilly course.
I was going to do the 200K, signed up to do it, but the wind and 'soaked- to- the- bone' shoes and chamois made me think twice. They let me switch to the 100K mid-race. That was nice.
Early on, We had hooked up with some rather good endurance fellows. Our pace was well tempo'd. Tim Trudeau and his friends were leading us up the hills and we shared in pace lines on the flats. Hey and a few others kept going. I talked to him when we saw cracks of lightening . He told me he was in the 100 miles of Vail during a thunderstorm at 14 thousand feet and they were the most conductive things around atop the highest hill. ((scary!)).

But after a few really tough hills and another cookie stop. I was so soaked. It was not what I was expecting the ride to be like. I swear to you I did NOT whine! I did not cry.
Ok ~once I cried. But you really have to ride these hills to understand that crying only happened at mile 60 when I was climbing for 5 minutes, only to feel the hill level off...but then look up to see more steeper hill coming up ahead of me...and also more rollers of greater looking steepness long long long ways ahead of me. never ending. brutal. brutal hills. Who made this road ? I was wet and cold and about to cramp up .....ok. You get the picture. Epic.

Hank said he was worried that the storm would get worst.....Hank hates to ride in rain....and I was particularly afraid that my shiny metallic 'magic' shoes would attract lightening......so we came back. ((is carbon a good grounding medium?)

The endurance guys forged on and we turned to the 100K course and headed back. We rode just the three of us, Me Tom and Hank. Hank leading us onward.
THEN... Our buddy Tom got a flat but we never heard him screaming at us in the 900 mph head wind so we left him for dead. When we got back, we didn't know where he went. Did he miss the last turn? Did he fall over and land in a ditch? Did he eat the cheese and have a massive gastric intestinal blockage? At less than half a mile to go he was right there in front of me ....then I moved in front of him on a hill and then... ..then he was just gone! We looked back for him after we crossed the final chip 'ding' thing ((it makes a dingy sound when you go over the wires) He was gone! I was too tired and shivery to ride even one more pedal stroke so Hank went back, but never saw him. He didn't know where Tom went so he came back and we decided to drive the truck to find him. But he then showed up.

glass. He ran over some glass. He showed it to us. He showed us the slashed tire. It was for real glass.
A REAL flat .

If it was any other ride I could race tomorrow and be ok. But the hills on this course were amazing. Just amazing. I dont think I can race pace . hmmm. Hank thinks I can. But ..nah. I will save it up for Downers Grove.

I have never trained at the Blue Mound Wisconsin park up near Mt. Horeb and Dodgeville. I hd no idea they were THAT steep and constant. If you have trained there, you would know that THOSE are some Mighty fine hills there. Long too!

ok....I WILL do Downers. Maybe all this training will help me score a higher place in that race than last year. I certainly hope so!
love you all!
:)