Ironman Wisconsin : Official Thread (Page 5)

Another option is to bring your camper or pitch a tent for $62 a night at Lake Farm Park.   https://www.countyofdane.com/lwrd/parks/lake_farm.aspx    I just checked and there are still sites available.  It's  about 4 miles from Monona Terrace along the bike path.  It's a clean county park with a nice bathhouse.   It'll have a fun atmosphere come race weekend with either IM participants, volunteers or Badger fans there for the football game.  

Farlig, I just reserved a room at the Concourse for ~$290/night for a double queen. I surprised they still had anything. Thanks for the tip!

Secondly, I'll be having knee surgery in one week. I believe I'll be having yet another piece of meniscus removed from my left knee and I'll be sidelined for 4 weeks from running following the surgery. Swim and bike training are on track and actually probably above what I thought they might be at this point in my training, so those aspects of my preparation look very good right now. I'll take the surgery in stride (as much as possible) and keep on rolling.

Thanks!  Only a few days before I get to see what our couch looks like for longer than I would like too.  I'm ready to get it done and over with!

More good news related to my IM training;  My coach told me this morning that, based on last night's long swims (2000, 1000 and 1000 w/paddles) that he thinks I may be able to get my swim on race day done in an hour or just over.  That would be almost 10 minutes faster than I would have imagined.  Obviously there is a lot of time before race day and race day itself will show for what I really can do rather than what someone thinks I can do.  Moral: Don't count your chickens........

I got outdoors for my first ride of the season yesterday and it was a doozy.  It was slightly breezy with sustained winds of 22-24 and gusts to 31MPH according to the national weather service.  I was still able to manage a ride with a 20.3 average speed over 50+ miles.  Now, before any assumes I should be riding in the Tour this year, I was riding with some of the best cycists in the area including a national champion time trialist for his AG.  the winds were out of the SSW and we were headed due south and then west for the first 25 miles and we were holding 18-20 MPH speeds throughout this first half.  The turn back north brought speeds of the upper 20's and low 30's.  Man I love that feeling!!!

Anyway, we had a quite a group of riders so we could all take turns pulling.  Although this was slightly above the threshold (85% FTP) I was supposed to be riding since my 2 week old knee surgery, it was fun and my knee seemed to experience no ill effects from riding at this intensity.  It was a heck of ride and an equally hard one at that.

Since this is wetsuit legal, do people do full changes after the swim into bicycling (bib shorts, jersey), then running gear for each segment, or just go with a one piece tri suit for the whole thing and deal with sweating through the same smelly kit for 10-16 hours? I'm on the fence at this point, but probably could be convinced to err on the side of comfort, even if it costs me 3-4 minutes in transition time.