Week #17 Iowa Wind and Rock (and rain/mud)

 

Week #17 - 516 miles

IWAR was an adventure this year. We battled wind for most of the race, rain during the night, and lots of hike-n-bike on the B roads. Everything was going fairly well for me through 170 miles (2nd checkpoint). The wind was challenging but I was trying to stay out of it as much as possible. My stomach was doing ok and I was trying to eat and drink as much as possible. After we got caught in the big rainstorm during the night, I got really cold. Luckily we were able to stop and put more clothes on after it stopped raining. I warmed up fairly quick but just wasn't feeling great. Pulled into the last C store at mile 270ish and was a able to eat a little more and get warmed up again. Two other guys caught us there so we all rolled out together. Through the rest of the night my stomach was ok but I knew it was going to be a struggle to the finish. Around 40 miles to go John and Jonathan pulled away from me and my day was done. I just need to regroup and get to the finish. I was pretty sure 4th place was a ways back but I still kept checking. Nice to get on the podium and cross the finish line for the third time at IWAR.

Week #16 Challenging Week

Week #16 - 305 miles

It has been a very tough week with Blythe getting killed in a car crash then Larry getting hit while out riding. The one small blessing is that all of the distractions going on, I actually took some down time on the bike and maybe rested my legs a bit. With all the stress, I did feel a little under the weather for a few days. These days you begin to worry about Covid, but feeling better now. The weather doesn't look as good now for IWAR. Hopefully the rain won't amount to much but it looks like we will have to deal with lots of wind. The field has dwindled down to 62 people so probably less than 50 will start. 

Week #15 The week of wind

 

Week #15 - 401 miles

Another week of dealing with the wind. It is getting a little old everyday knowing that the wind is blowing so hard. I did end up going into the park on Thursday to get a little relief. The bad thing is that it has also been cold so it has made most of the rides even tougher. Yesterday I got in 106 miles but it was supposed to be 115 miles. Just didn't really want to go any further into the headwind so I headed home. Probably not that big of a deal, just frustrating at times. Looks like Monday will get a little break, but then it comes back. Hopefully it will all blow now and then for IWAR we will get a break. I will probably still take some wind over wet roads any day for this race. One more 100 miler planned for tomorrow, then it will be time to rest up.

Week #14 Rolled over 6,000 miles for 2022

 

Week #14 - 477 miles

March - 1901 miles

I got over 6K today for the year along with 21 100+ mile rides. On Saturday was my last 8+ hour ride before IWAR. Things have gone well and hopefully the weather will cooperate come race day. The good thing is that I am prepared, now I just need to have some luck and stick to the plan. So many things can go wrong but the key is don't try to ride anyone else's race. I know that people will come back so don't try to go out too fast no matter how tempting it is. Hopefully all of this volume will make it a little less painful even though there will be parts of the race that will really hurt. The next couple of weeks will be trying to get the legs a little fresher and hoping not to get sick.