WIBA

Best weekend of training EVER!!

I can't find my camera charger, so no pics from the weekend...sorry! But you can check out pics at the EVO TRI site or at Simply-Stu's! (links below)

**Sorry, I can't get the links to work right...

WIBA, or the Wisconsin Ironman Brick Adventure, is an AWESOME organized training weekend put on by Team EVOTRI, which consists of some fantastic bloggers and athletes in the triathlete community, including IronWil, RobbyB, Simply Stu, Rural Girl, B-town's Chris Sweet, and several others!!!

This training weekend is held in Madison on the Ironman Wisconsin course, and the organizers do a fabulous job of creating a fun, motivating training atmosphere!

I was lucky enough to have Tom W. (also doing IM Canada) and Damon D. (awesome IMer, but no Ironman this year) come up with me for the weekend (THANK YOU!!!) and we rolled into town and to the Coliseum Bar/Restaurant where the Friday night dinner took place. There were 50-80 people or so that came out for this event! Delicious catering for us, only $20. Robby B and Chris talked about the IMOO bike course, with detailed descriptions of the course and effective racing and nutrition strategies. They also answered LOTS of questions from first time IM'ers coming out for the weekend. It was also awesome to see that the comeback queen Cara Sweet came up for the weekend to have some fun training on the course sans baby...she is an inspiration! She goes and qualifies for Boston and PR's in like every race within a year and half AFTER having a baby!

Saturday was the BIG day....it started off with a swim in the lake. We coudn't swim in the actual IM portion of lake (waterski practice) so we ended up at Olin St. Beach...water was REALLY warm, like 80 degrees. It was nice swimming in open water, but we had to swim through a sea of algae out to clear water, then on the way back. Ick. But it was good mile swim. I need to swim more. I will never get better if I only swim like, twice a month!

After that, Tom and I rode out to Fireman's Park (13 miles) where the whole group was meeting to start the ride (distances varied -1 or 2 loops, etc.). Damon drove out so he could just do 1 loop and skip the pain of the 2nd loop (no Ironman this year for him! Next year we will make you suffer!!) Weather was fantastic - hot, breezy, and overcast. 1st loop went well - pretty challenging pace for me. After my ice cream treat last night I jokingly said I would ride Sauk hill 4x...didn't do that the 1st loop! 2nd loop was rough- wind picked up a bit, fatigue set in. Luckily, Tom was patient enough to slow down and pull me through the whole loop!! The only condition was that we did Sauk 2x the 2nd loop! Annnnd we did...ouch! I like that hill though - it's long and you can grind up it, it's the NEXT hill that's killer steep! Oh, and that twisty downhill part of the loop (well before Sauk hill...)- I'm feeling a lot better about handling descents - less braking, more confidence. There's no way I will be taking those things in full tuck 40 mph Natasha Badmann style, but maybe I won't wear out my brake pads so quickly...

PS toughest hill of the day...the sneaky bitch on the way back home!! It doesn't even look that bad, but my legs were so smoked by then, I was inching forward in my tiniest gear while Tom was 200m ahead of me haha!

106 miles down, 3 miles of running to go! Damon joined us for this (his 2nd run of the day!) We smoked it at sub-8 minute miles. Rockin'!

We finished the day off back at Fireman's park, where Steve in a Speedo was grillin up burgers and brats of all sorts!! After a long day of sugary gatorade, gels, and bloks, a salty, mustardy boca burger and chips hit the spot! PS...beef jerky on a hot ride is my favorite- 900mg of sodium in one serving, and the protein fills you up when gels and gatorade don't cut it!

To top it off...Tom, Damon, and I met up with Chris and Cara and some of Chris's teammates at Culvers for some ice cream! A well-deserved turtle cheesecake waffle cone hit the spot!

Sunday morning came quickly, and after some biscuits and gravy (thanks Tom aka Iron-GUT for the healthy inspiration) Tom and I started our morning jogging to Terrace to get some pre-group run miles in. We were planning on getting around 16 miles in for the day. We met Damon and the rest of the WIBA crew at Monona Terrace, and again, the EvoTri crew gave us some tips and advice for the IMOO run. Some people were running the full loop (13 miles) while some were running the loop to State street then heading back (about 7-8 miles). Again, great weather. It was cooler, around 65-70). AWESOME run. Tom and I stuck together, and ended up running Sub-9 miles the whole time. Felt strong on the Observatory hills, and it was a good moderate effort the whole time - not too easy, not too hard. On the way back we weren't with a group and got lost (found some more hills, geez!)...so we ended up with 20 miles for the day!

YAY! Great training weekend in the books! On the way home, we stopped at Endurance House in Middleton, where Evo Tri organized some running seminars and discounted shopping. Fun Fun! Chatted with Simply Stu, Robby B, and Rural Girl- found out their BIG TEAM RACE next year is the REV3 IRON-DISTANCE at CEDAR POINT in 2010...CHECK IT OUT!

Over the course of the weekend I was also able to chat a bit about TRAKKERS (website isn't quite up yet-still in development! Perfection takes time!), and how awesome this device is going to be once it's on the market- imagine being able to trak your athlete on an Ironman race course so you don't stand in one spot for 3 hours waiting/wondering how fast they are going, if you misssed them, etc....or if your athlete is on a 100 mile training ride and you can see exactly where they are at, how fast they are going, etc...or if YOU are on the ride and you start to get pelted with hail and you can hit the "panic" button to get help ASAP! Can't wait for my next chance to test it out!

Train on! 'Tis the season!