Ironman Wisconsin tip #1: eat at Mickies. As in Mickies Diary Bar, located right across from Camp Randall Stadium at 1511 Monroe St. Check out the run course after eating, it’s right there.The outside is plain, it’s not the sort of place that needs flash to pack them in.

The inside is classic dinner, red vinyl swivel stools bolted to the floor and booths, straight out of the early 1950’s. They even have the original 50’s menu and prices posted on the wall. The four of us had the breakfast special, cheese omelet, potatoes, toast, bottomless coffee. You could have a pork chop with it; but since I was racing, I had bacon. Only at Mickey’s could bacon seem to be the healthier option. There’s more than breakfast, the food is real and the people are mid-west nice. It’s a must do.

Ironman Wisconsin tip #2: drink local beer. Pre -race , I had a couple of Leinenkugel’s Oktoberfests

each night (1 1/2 beers night before the race, trying to be healthy). It’s available Aug. – Oct., and in a 12-pack – good for sharing- so look for it race week. I laid in a supply of Capital Brewery’s Fest , another seasonal beer, for post race at the recommendation of team manager Ben Harper. After 140.6 miles and 3 Fests, I was moving slower than Frank Ferrar at midnight, and my day was done. Ben, I need some 3.2% beer suggestions if you want me to throw out hats at the finish. Day after the race and awards, I re-hydrated with more than one New Glarus Brewery’s Fat Squiral and a white brat at a bar on State St. I saw during the run the day before.

Where else but Wisconsin? No place I know.

Here’s a tip: Your Trek TTX uses a mighty long rear derailleur cable. At least mine did.

I installed new cables in my bike in preparation for IM Wisconsin. It seemed like a good idea after watching (from 4 bike lengths behind, of course) my training partner, John Wilson, big ring it all the way back from Hawi in last year’s Ironman after he notice his front derailleur cable had frayed almost to the point of breaking.

Replacing the front cable is easy, just thread it through starting at the shifter. I removed the metal plate just below the front derailleur, but you don’t have to. There is a pocket behing the plate and the cable housing tucks in there, pretty neat, so the cable end pops out of the hole.

I tried the same thing on the rear derailleur cable but no shiny cable came out of the housing. I thought I’d miss-threaded. Then I saw just the tip of the cable sticking out; the housing was just as long as the cable, and this was a 2000 mm length cable. I solved the problem by cutting off 2″ of housing near the rear derailleur, it looked as if I had enough extra slack. You can see that the one derailleur housing in the picture is shorter…it’s all one piece, just push it through until there is enough coming out of the rear chain stay for a nice smooth loop behind the rear derailleur.

I ride a size small TTX, if you’re on a large, check with the mechanics, I don’t know if a 2000 mm cable will reach. Now if I could only figure out how to drop my fork out, I could change the housing. I’ll check in with Doug, the team wrench, at the race site.

See that thing that looks like a single serve pizza in the middle of my wheel? It’s a 27 cog and mine is part of a Shimano 10 speed 12 X 27 cassette which replaced the 12 X 25 I’ve ridden for years. While Laura Tingle finds it so hard having enormous hair, I love having an enormous cog.

Western CT where I ride is hilly, but I didn’t get one because I was “paper-boying” up the hills here with a 25 cog. I got it because I run better after spinning up those hills with a 27 versus dancing on the peddles with a more manly gear. The jump between gears isn’t as great as I thought it would be, as this gear chart shows.

I’m swallowing my pride and packing up this super granny cassette for Ironman Wisconsin. Last time I raced there, a spectator dressed up as the devil taunted riders struggling up Stagecoach Rd with bacon stuck on the end of a pitchfork. This year I plan to be smiling when I pass him.

18 years of triathlon had convinced me that I didn’t like swimming. Every touch of the pool wall represented an opportunity to stop and go home to me. I seized many. Maybe if I did all my running on an indoor, dimly lit, 50 yard track I wouldn’t like running either.

I’ve blown off the pool for the month of August. I don’t claim this will make me a faster swimmer, or live longer, but I sure like swimming more. I’ve gone all open water, all wetsuit, all the time – no intervals, no drills, no turns.

I’m lucky, my training partner has access to a lake and 3X a week we’ve been hitting it for 65-75 minutes. That’s an eternity for me in a pool. Check this out. That was taken on a Sunday morning about 6:50 AM and I was looking forward to swimming because it would be fun. I haven’t thought that since summer camp.

Perhaps it’s the same type of fun Conrad gets from riding a single speed, simplicity. I enjoy it when the weather is nice because it’s a beautiful place and I enjoy it when the weather is bad because I’m encased in neoprene so it’s more comfy than biking in the rain.
Recently, I added adventure to open water swimming in the form of a few jellyfish and a lot of fog with a 2.5 miles point to point swim in Long Island sound from Stamford CT to Todd’s Point Beach in Greenwich CT. Reveille was 5 AM, car drop off at the beach was 6 AM and tide and fog made it a longgg swim. We weren’t going to take the short cut across the cove when we couldn’t see the other side. I don’t swim straight even when I can see where I’m going.

Here’s the start. We thought the fog would lift.

And here’s the finish with our leader, 70+ year old John Cook. He’s managed to keep swimming fun.

The Eagleman ½ IM, excuse me, 70.3, is one of my favorite races. It’s fast – the bike and run course profiles are the same as the swim’s… flat, and it’s fun – gets a big field with big name pros. You’ve probably heard that Natasha Badmann set a world record for the 70.3 distance but you may have missed her calling out cheaters (a.k.a. drafters) in her award acceptance. Now, that’s not your usual dull post race chit chat and always a crowd pleaser away from the ITU events. No names were mentioned, but I think it’s a safe bet that she wasn’t talking about the amateurs who were all riding behind her or the male pros riding ahead of her. You can check which suspects got out of the swim ahead of Natasha here.

I had my “usual” race; slow swim, pretty good bike leaving me behind an unknown number of fellow M50-54 starting off on the run. I like my age group. People in it introduce themselves to one another when we meet during the race. I passed a few people in my AG and chatted, but it wasn’t clear to me how many others in my AG were ahead of me. And since ours was one of the last male waves to start, the run course was crowded. I finished in 4:30 and the results said I was 1st in the M50-54 AG.

Whoo Hoo turned into Boo Hoo when I found out that 52 year old Herb Spicer had turned in a 4:12 and was listed as the 3rd place master (that’s 40+) somehow bumping him out of the age group results. Amazing time for a guy who has been getting mailings from AARP for 3 years.
Bob Vigorito, a first rate race director, gave Herb the award for 3rd place master and me the award for 1st place M50-54. I felt like I had been part of a tomb looting. While I had the trophy, it sure didn’t belong to me. So I gave it to Herb…damn, he is fast and perhaps Natasha wasn’t the only one to set a world record. That’s what I’m telling myself.

Oakes Ames