Ironman 2007

Ironman 2007 was today. I did the 62 miler instead of the 30 miler I do most other years. While that may seem very confident given my semi-daily rides of 6 miles to work and 6 miles home, and even that not all the time, I did take a book with me in case I bonked. I didn't bonk - but I think it was close. I feel like I've been pummeled with a sledge hammer - my knees hurt, my thighs hurt, my legs (top) hurt, my hair is numb, and my balls are numb (4 hours later). An important lesson learned is that I wouldn't be a good professional racer.

"Announcer: Scooter is going for the finish line. It's only a mile away. He's struggled the last fourteen miles against wind, rain (sprinkles), hills and himself. He's almost there! He just has to give one last push!"

"Scooter: hey, that's the Quick Mart that f-ed me over for a candy bar when I lost my keys. I'm going to buy a jug of water from them and nothing else, and I'm going to use sweaty money."

Yep...stopped 1 mile from the finish line for a water break. In retrospect, it was probably the wise move, as I'd been biking near this couple, and she was biking around the Quick Mart in circles trying to figure out if the bonk he'd been working on for the last hour had caused him to pass out somewhere nearby. I didn't have anyone willing to do an area search of Quick Mart for my body.

And I did better than the guy that was coming out of the highschool at the end, escorted by cops and paramedics and looking like he'd been tasered.

"Cops: we need you to keep talking. We want to make sure you're ok. What ride option did you take?"

"Guy: the 66 miler."

Um...nope...he needs some oxygen. 30, 62 or 100, dude. 66 just makes you sound like you need that ambulance ride.

The place was packed because it was so nice out. The day-of lines, many of them, were twenty people deep. Here's the beginning of the ride. Notice all the people coming down the hill in the background. And this is early. About 6:45 a.m. I think I officially started about 7:10.



Here's the first stop at Lonsdale. They have a butcher store that says something like, "Meating you is our business." Creepy. Just before I pulled into the rest stop, the woman next to me looked at all the riders ahead of us and said, "Seeing people from this angle always reminds me that I want a tattoo on my calf." That alone was funny, and then her friend added, "Your ass?" It was windy.

Six miles from Webster we got to go up an exceptionally large hill and another woman yelled loudly, "I'm freakin forty!" This bodes ill for my hill climbing next year.

The first rest stop was 29 miles into the ride. That's a haul without access to more water. At that point I was averaging about 15 miles per hour.


By the time I got to the second rest stop (had to come back to it after bypassing it by a mile - cop was blocking the sign), I was averaging even faster. The wind was at our backs on that run, and I think it took barely over an hour to go 19 miles. Here are some of the TCBC women hanging out and eating pasta. Apparently that was new this year.

Did you know that in southern Minnesota they sell "puppy goats"? I didn't either. But there was a sign. Guess it solves any inbreeding issues if you just cross species.


This is the third leg. Fourteen miles. Tiny bit of rain. But you could feel the wind sloughing across the prairie from the storm and pushing you anywhere that wasn't toward the finish line. It took me 1.75 hours (not including the Kwik Mart rest) to go that fourteen miles. That's not because I stopped a lot. I stopped once at 30 minutes, and once at 1.6 hours. I just kept pedaling in 2x4 to 2x1 the whole time. Ouch. So this is all the 62 mile people who've gone 54 miles or so. They all look like they're happy in this picture - but many of them were just as tired as I was. Except that brunette with the red tint to her hair and the excellent ass. She blew by me like I was standing still. Getting dropped by a hottie at 7 mph is freaking embarrassing. I think she was schooling me just for looking.


And here's some bobber guy from when I did stop. There was a lot of new scenery on the 62 miler, for me.