Ironman Wisconsin : Official Thread (Page 16)

May totals:

Running: 16:00 hrs, 108 miles

Cycling: 24:46 hrs, 453 miles

Swimming: 10:08 hrs, 16.8 miles

Yoga/core: 50 min

Even if there is no yellow line, you can't ride to the left. 

Garfoot is fun, not scary. I didn't see a car there in 2009 or 2011. I didn't see a bike marshall there, either.  The decent on Timber Lane is steeper (>40mph) and with the left turn at the bottom there are more crashes there.

I crashed there this weekend.  I normally don't slow down for the turn but this time there was too much gravel to make the turn at full speed but I didn't see it until it was too late.

Very sorry to read of your crash -- hope it wasn't too serious?

I've seen riders down in both of those turns (Timber and Garfoot), so need to be careful.  Especially if you aren't familiar with them.

I'd say do what makes you feel safest.  You'll lose even more momentum if you bail into the ditch. 

Can be done, but I don't.  I take both of those descents cautiously.  For one thing, on Garfoot you never know what might be coming up on the other side of the road (unlikely, but not impossible).

My approach to racing is to (try to) never ride so that I wonder if I'm out-of-control or not.  That approach probably costs me a minute or two on IMWI course, but at the end of the day, safety is most important to me (knock wood!).  IMO, the paychecks are too small to ride any other way.

Crash is probably an overstatement.  It was more of a pick a soft spot to lay it down event.  I did, however, slide a good 20-30 feet.  I had to go back out last night to find a water bottle I lost so I paced off the slide marks.  No damage other than my pride but to say I got lucky would be an understatement.  

I would not recommend taking Garfoot in the aero position.  I was on the horns when I saw the gravel and still did not have time to slow down enough to make the turn.  

Glad to hear it.  One good thing about pride is it usually recovers quickly.

What should I expect of Madison?

I'm staying 9 miles West of the race site (Middleton).  Is public transportation easy and reliable in Madison?  I'm wondering if I need to plan for a rental car.

What about restaurants, places to hang out and relax by the race site? Hoe's Middleton?

Thanks for any feedback I could get on this !

While public transportation is pretty good if you're willing to take the bus, I recommend renting a car since you'll be back and forth to Monona Terrace several times before the race.  Unless you've sent your bike via a service, you'll also need to get it to check in and the car would make it the easiest.

You have a great Italian restaurant close to you for your carbload-Vin Santo is in Middleton and on opentable.com.   It's small so you will want to make a reservation ahead of time.

A decent place close the Monona Terrace is Paisan's.  If you like unhealthy salads Paisans has a porta salad that will provide enough calories to cover two days, it's truly amazing.  It's about a block south of the race site and there is outside seating that overlooks part of the swim course and Monona Terrace.  There is/should be a farmers market in the capital square (1 block form Monona Terrace) Friday and Saturday as well.

Most of the hotels in Middleton are in a business park/ retail area.  There are several good chain restaurants in that area all of which should be within walking distance, depending on which hotel you are in.  If you get in on Thursday night and like banana cream pie I highly recommend finding a diner called Three Sisters Inn on Parmenter St in Middleton.  I'm pretty sure Three Sisters is closed on the weekends.

On the opposite side of the capital square (1/2 mile from race site) is State Street.  This is a pedestrian (mostly) only street with a variety of restaurants, bars and retail shops.  If you go down there Saturday night it is very entertaining, the far end is attached to the University of Wisconsin.

I rode the loop twice on Sat.   It looks like somebody swept the turn at the bottom of Timber, all the gravel was off to the shoulder and not in the middle of the road.  Two weekends ago I almost took out a deer on Garfoot going down the hill with the S curve. 

FYI...they are chip sealing County S this week going out of Mt. Horeb. 

My Joule 2.0 altimeter puts climbing at around 6.5k total for the course.  Have gotten similar data for a single loop of the course retracked on BT.  But who knows if either is really accurate.

But, you've done Louisvile.  So probably more useful is to say that IMWI is very similar to Louisvile.  Train like you're getting ready for Louisville's bike course and you'll be all set.  Biggest differences are that IMWI has a couple technical descents where you need to back off a little (at least pre-drive if you can't pre-ride), and the road surfaces are slower at IMWI.

Anyone else taking part in Team Evotri's WIBA weekend June 22-24? I'm staying at America's Best Value Inn (3438 Hwy 12-18, Madison) and my brother from Chicago recently backed out so I have room for another. I have a double room and if anyone's interested I'd cut a sweet deal. I'm driving in from the Minneapolis area on Friday 6/22 in the afternoon. 

Here's the link for the weekends itinerary: http://www.wisconsinbrickadventure.com/

Total elevation gain is listed at 2,890 on the Ironman website (http://ironmanwisconsin.com/files/2010/09/Wisconsin_BikeElevation_2012.pdf).

Jeffrey: 

I'm planning on doing the WIBA weekend also, well at least the swim and the bike.  After that, I may end up at the bar too long to do the run on Sunday.  There are 2-3 of us coming up for the weekend and we are staying at the University Inn.

Are you planning on doing the entire swim and bike??  I think we are going to swim as much as they will allow and bike most of the course if possible.  Then depending on how we feel on Sunday will depend if we stick around for the run.  We are coming up from Omaha / Des Moines.

I plan on doing the swim and bike on Saturday. Then Sunday I plan on doing the run, but plans can always change. I'll then need to do some recon for IM weekend and get the "lay of the land". I'll have the wife and kids on IM weekend so I'll need to be able to point them in the right direction; good spots to watch relative to our hotel (Campus Inn).

See you at Gino's!  

Thanks Rob.  I will pre-drive.  Pre-ride isn't really possible.

I've seen loads of wildly different estimates of the elevation gain.  Good to hear from someone who has on-the-ground intel.