Madison Course Ride and Chicago Rock and Roll Half Marathon (Part 1)

Wow do I have a lot to say about this past weekend!


First things first.....Mark, you are a saint to have put up with my rollercoaster emotions and not go running in the other direction. You are my sunshine and never doubt that I am so proud of you for how strong of an athlete and a person you are :)




Random: Picture to the right is of
this odd troll statue outside our room



The weekend started with a late night arrival into Mt Horeb which is on the Madison bike course. Due to lack of sleep, we ended up getting up a little later than we originally wanted so our bike time got cut from what it was supposed to be (4 hours) to only just over 3. We needed to get out of town and down to Chicago for the expo before 5pm but more on that later.....


We started the ride and oddly enough were instantlly following 2 other people that were out riding the course. From where we started, we hit a few significant climbs within the first 10 miles or so and in my head I was figuring one or two of those had to be part of the "big 3 hills" I've been hearing so much about. Luckily the weather was cool, a few drizzles but all in all pretty good weather so far. You get to see a lot more of the deep farming country than I realized. The roads are a little narrow but very few cars and lots of cows. We came upon what I would call a 3rd significant hill, very long winding road that takes the granny gear for me to make my way up. After that, there is a very long downhill that is actually a little nerve-wracking since you had to ride your breaks or you'll go off the edge in the sharp 90 degree turns. But there....that must be all the "big" hills.....right? No....to wrap this up.....there was like 5 or 6 more that put me at witt's end. Thankfully my sunshine road with me on this one and honestly, if he wasn't there I think I would have given up and walked after being tired, slow, shaky, plowing through a heavy headwind and getting passed by like 50 other people out training that day. We did also get caught my a group of our friends that were out riding as well. That was a nice mental break for me to stop and have a chat.

We were coming back into Mt. Horeb and best I can describe it, I think I had a panic attack. I started to not be able to control my breathing, throat got really tight and I was on the verge of tears. Once we pulled up into the motel parking lot and mentally, emotionally I was a mess. We had to go out for a quick run afterwards and more than once during the run, I started thinking about the bike course again and panic set in. Nearly had to stop and walk just to make sure I could keep breathing.

What the frack did I get myself into.....

Mark (and I'll say it again), the saint that he is, helped talk me through all of that experience and I've come to this conclusion. I shouldn't have chosen Madison. It was not smart for me to chose a course based on what everyone else I know has done. I didn't look into it, research it, nothing. Just signed up for it. Not being a strong biker, I would have been smarter and felt better about what my goals are had I chosen to do a different Ironman. I feel I have failed Madison now without even having done it yet. I know I struggle with having a positive attitude about myself and my accomplishments but I don't know if I can fix that in the next 40 days, 19 hours and 51 minutes. I wanted to do Ironman as a personal journey, a way to help find myself amidst the mess that my personal life had become. But I feel like now it's more of a "dear God please help me not DNF this damn thing so I can get it over with and try better next time".

I know many of you are probably shaking your heads, thinking...."issues girl....issues..." but I'm just throwing out there all the honest thoughts that are in my head.

After a few hours in the car talking with Mark while heading for Chicago, the thought now is 1) hopefully not DNF Madison 2) consider doing IM Florida next year with Mark. It could be a warm course but is much flatter on the bike, and therefore a little more realistic for someone like me. There's a whole other discussion there so who knows what will happen.

Closing thoughts.....let's just forget that my ride ever happened for now k?