IRONMAN 70.3 ROCKFORD TRAINING – WEEK 4 WRAP-UP – MARCH 30, 2025

I was a little concerned about the weather for the weekend, so I thought I might have to shuffle things around again to make sure that I got the important weekend workouts done and not skip them.  Sunday looked to be the worst of the weather, so I moved that long run to Friday and did two hours of easy run/walk through 10 miles.  Friday was a good day to do it; a little windy, but otherwise, very comfortable.

That left Saturday for the bike as usual.  My plan indicated that I was supposed to do two hours and fifteen minutes of riding.  A day or two earlier, Jim, a local friend who admins our local bike “club,” posted on Facebook that he was planning a 3-hour gravel ride on Saturday.  Three hours was a little more than the 2:15 ride I was supposed to do, but I figured it wouldn’t kill me.  I replied that I’d be there and crossed my fingers for good weather.

I normally would have ridden to the normal meet-up location, but since the ride was going to be three hours, I didn’t want the extra 40 minutes of riding.  I loaded my stuff into my truck and drove to meet Jim.  As I backed out of the driveway, I could see sprinkles of rain on the windshield.  It was raining consistently when I met up with Jim and another rider, Dave.  I invited Jim into my truck, as he had ridden the half-mile to the school from his house, and we checked the radar.  The rain let up enough to begin the ride, but since Jim’s house was on the way, we stopped for him to get some extra riding gear to handle the weather.  I was starting to think that this ride was going to be a character builder – one that you don’t want to do, but if forced to do it, you would get it done.

As we began again, the rain had stopped, but what was on the road was spraying our legs, feet, and butts.  But it wouldn’t be long before we would dry out from riding and enjoying a nice gravel ride through the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.  We had no overall plan other than to get to Midewin and then wander through the park, exploring different abandoned roads and trails that none of us had explored before.  Jim had realized that his front tire was going flat, and I just so happened to have brought along my new electronic pocket pump, which filled his tire quickly, and thanks to his tubeless tire setup, I think the tire probably had enough sealant in it to stop the leak.  

Upon riding through Midewin for a while, we arrived at a newly re-opened trail that had been closed for the past couple of seasons. Jim suggested that we ride over Route 53 and then loop back.  I looked at my watch, and it showed 1 hour and 50 minutes of riding.  The Gilligan’s Island theme song popped into my head – “A three hour tour, a three hour tour.”  If we kept riding further out, this was going to turn into a much longer than a three-hour ride.  It was a good thing that I had a stash of extra gels in my bike top tube bag.

Of course, the first bridge we got to said “CLOSED DANGER” or something like that.  We crossed it anyway.  Building character.  The next little bridge we came to was also apparently closed, as it had mounds of crushed limestone piled in front of it.  The ground next to it looked wet but possibly passable, so we dismounted and walked through the wet stuff, just barely sensing some water seeping into our shoes.  More character building.  We rode a little further and came to another bridge that was impassable due to a creek, and we just weren’t ready for that type of character building, so we decided to turn back.  Upon getting to the swampy bridge that we had previously just passed, I said screw it and rode my bike through it.  It might not have been the most sound idea I have had, but I must have picked the correct gearing to get through it without sinking.  We gathered again, and up ahead of us was a single rider stopped, looking at the ground.  She was looking at a snake she had narrowly missed and then said hello.  After a brief introduction, Kristen said that she was from South Carolina and had recently relocated to the Chicago area and was exploring the preserve.  She was headed for the direction we had just turned back from, and she decided to join us as we found an alternate route.  Kristen wasn’t any new rider; she shot ahead with us three older guys trying to keep up.  She wanted to see the bison, so we headed that way, and we weren’t disappointed.  The bison were out grazing in the prairie, and Kristen found them to be worth the trip to the area.

Kristen decided to visit the park’s visitor center, and we parted ways, deciding to head back to our cars.  We got a little turned around, riding a little bit out or our way again (more character building), then finally into the town of Manhattan.  We decided to pick up some fuel, but the little eatery that Jim wanted to stop at was now closed.  A trip a little bit down the road found us parking our bikes in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts and heading in for a brief refueling.  Then it started to sprinkle.

The sprinkling led to consistent rain, and it wasn’t looking good.  We opted to ride a busier road as it was a more direct route, but other than the driving rain, we had no further issues.  

I had mentioned this character-building ride several times to Jim as we kept making dumb decisions, and each time he said he didn’t need any character building, as he was already a “character.”  Aren’t we all?

But the ride did provide a couple of insights for me.  If I need to ride in weather conditions that I would normally avoid, I can do it.  And, after logging nearly 56 miles, I don’t have to worry about covering that distance in my upcoming race. Twelve more weeks of character-building to go.

Week 4 Totals:  Swims 0 – Bikes 3 rides/84.5 miles – Runs 4/23 miles