“The mother of all bricks” as my neighbor called it. The plan was a half hour swim early in the morning, a five hour ride, and a three mile transition run afterwards. That was the plan anyway. If you’re looking for inspiration or a great story of man conquering the odds, read no further. You won’t get any of that here.

I should have known it was going to be a bad day when I saw the weather forecast in the couple of days preceding. The hot weather that we’re getting this week has been a nice pleasant change from the weeks past, but it kept getting hotter… and hotter… and hotter. The mercury topped out in the upper 90s today. The record high in Minnesota for today is also in the upper 90s, but we haven’t seen temperatures that high since 1937. Today, records in some cities will be broken. I’m pretty sure we rode through those cities this afternoon. To add insult to injury, there was a nice steady 15 MPH wind for most of the day.

I’ve never been very good on the hills on my bike. I’m working on it, but todays ride by far had harder hills than any other ride that I’ve ridden. We had them all today. Long, steep, steep and long. The course beat me up pretty badly and left me feeling pretty wiped by the turn around and I realized that I was only half way there. Those hills would be waiting for me on the way back home.

Coming out of one town, we make a left turn up a street that had a hill that looked like it had been taken straight out of San Francisco. It was on this hill that I experienced both of my two firsts ever on a ride. One, I started cramping. First, it was just a twinge as I applied pressure to the pedal. But with every subsequent down stroke, my muscle started cramping harder and harder and HARDER. It was like some kind of ratchet and with ever crank of the pedals, it would tighten up, hold, and tighten up some more on the next revolution. Finally the pain was too great. I couldn’t pedal through the cramping any longer so I pulled over to the side. This brings me to my second first of the day. I walked my bike up the rest of that hill. Yup, I’m now a member. If you’d have me before today’s ride, I probably would have put good money down that I’d never have to walk my bike up anything. I’ve seen it happen to folks before. I didn’t really see how it could come to that. Now, I’m all too familiar. A grown man, and a supposedly “in shape” “Ironman” one at that, walking his bike up a hill. If that isn’t the saddest of sights, I don’t know what it. By now I’m completely demoralized and wanting to just crawl into a hole and die. I still have 30 miles to go.

The rest of the ride was pretty much of the same although things did get better for me towards the end, but worse for my neighbor who organized the ride. He had similar cramping problems that I did and then he just competely overheated and bonked. At one point, my neighbor was feeling so awful he desperately needed to sit down in the shade for a few minutes. I certainly wasn’t going to pass up that invitation. I had some issues earlier in the day with my stomach not emptying out. I was taking in liquids, but they just seemed to sit in my stomach and slosh around. While we were stopped, my stomach finally started processing its contents and getting back out on the road I felt much better than I had before.

Eventually, we made it back to where we started from. By that time, I probably felt well enough to have been able to run, but I was so dejected by this point that I just passed and went back into the lake to cool off for a bit. My neighbor and I chatted about what a miserable ride we had just done. He’s feeling equally dispirited. I tried and convince him that the bike leg of Ironman Wisconsin was easier than what we just did.

So, that was my wonderful day. I’m sure one day I’ll look back on this day and it’ll be a source of strength knowing that I gave it a good effort and that I’m stronger now having done that training. But not today. As I sit here writing this, my stomach still feels queasy and I’m just in sort of a daze. I’m exhausted, embarrassed, and a little depressed. But tomorrow brings a new day and another opportunity. One day, I’ll ride that route again and have my revenge.