Ken Woods and the Ironman

The weather sucked. The peddling was fun—but I had to come to work to recover.

This past Saturday I did my first official USA sectioned road race down by Cannon Falls. It was 21 miles in a rectangular shape. The flier said; “The entire course is in open farmland were the wind can be quite a factor.” Man, that was a true statement.

I was placed in Wave 1 starting time was at 9am. After registering and putting on what I thought was enough layers, I went out on the course to test the headwinds. I got about 2 blocks before I went back to put on more layers. The temp was about 35 degrees, wind was 25 mph with 40 mph wind gusts that was bitterly cold. I had four layers on my upper body including my jacket I used for skiing and a face mask. The mood in the parking lot was pure determination to get this race over.

Right before we started, the official announced they were moving our start time to 11:30 (when wave 2 would start), there was ice on the south side of the route. As I waited, the wind seemed to pick up, the snow started to come down more, and the temps were dropping…BUT the sun was now coming out! The big boys and girls started to show and the phrase that was rolling off everyone's tong was “This sucks. Why the hell are we out here?”

We all lined up, I was in the last group to go with the Juniors. We started in the middle on the north part of the course. The first mile was an easy 25 mph ride. We turned right and headed south. I quickly learned that those corners where going to bring us a new challenge. I was almost pushed off the road due to the winds. After regrouping and figuring out the only way to ride was to tilt our bikes to the right about 10 degrees while our bodies where upright. Before we started, us girls said the only way we were going to get through this was to work together. It was understood that taking a flier was not going to get you to the finish line faster just to a fast bonk.

The next right turn took us straight into the wind. Average speed on this stretch was between 8-10 mph. About 2 blocks before the next right turn while I was in fifth position, the girl in the third position touched wheels and went down causing us two behind her to run over her. My chain fell off and I started to panic thinking the group was going to take the turn and I wasn’t going to catch-up. The girl that went down was fine and so was I. We got up and worked together to make it up to the group shortly after they made the turn. We settled back into our original positions.

Heading northeast the wind was pushing us to speeds over 40 mph. It was a blast! The next right turn was the homestretch. The hill that I heard so much about wasn’t hard it was long and steady, but after pushing the wind for about 20 miles it was surprisingly more difficult than expected. Determination took over and I plowed up the hill, moved to my big wheel and sprinted to the end at 28 mph—not in my wildest dreams could I image doing that.

I was convinced that I came in fourth place. Not until I saw the final results and found out that a Jr. was in front of me and didn’t count in my category…I got third! The girl that fell got first.

Sunday was the MN Ironman. This is not a race, but a ride…thank god! I rode with Erika, her husband Andy, Matt Anderson and some of his friends. Matt did the race the day before so we where both not interested in anything further then 62 miles at a leisure speed, unless it was to get to the food stops quicker. Erika had a hard day so I hung back and pulled her to the first stop. The boys from MGC were there with the truck. I—being a smart ass—thought it would be funny to go up to Travis and stop right in front of them. So was the plan. I didn’t realize I was going as fast as I was so I wasn’t able to stop in time. I ran into Travis, took out a bike stand (the stand was empty) and a pump before I went down. Thank god since the truck was a few feet away. Laying there on the ground with my bike on top of me I started laughing. I looked at Travis, who was in shock, and said “My breaks don’t work.”

I picked up my pride, got some food, figured out how many miles to the next stop, said Hi to the TH group, and we were off! Last year the Ironman was my first century and what I think of as my first real accomplishment on the bike. I would never have imagined that the words “what’s next” that I said after the ride last year in the HS parking lot would have brought me to this point in my life. Every day I get off my bike and in some form of “what’s next” seems to come out of my mouth. Thanks everyone for your help and encouragement to get me to that next point!