I have noticed that a good number of us are planning to be in Madison on September 7th and was wondering if, as the coming months go by, we could use the forum to keep in touch with training plans, visits to the course, thoughts on equipment to use on that rolling loop, etc., etc..

While I have finished Kona twice ("comfortably" in 1991 and barely in 2001) this will be my first go at a mainland IM...and after the glowing reviews from last years race, I am really excited to take part in it...in fact, it got me going again after a lllooonnnggg layoff after the winds on the Queen K left me beat up in a lot of ways in 2001.

I am in Madison often (maybe this weekend!), and know the course well. I went to the UW, my family lives there and being only about a 95 minute drive away from the city means I will be training there often. It would be good to have some like-minded people to train and swap stories with as we get closer to September.

FWIW, I plan on doing the Springfield Ironhorse in June and the new Dairyland Half Ironman in July as race prep....all on a jet black 11 year-old 700c Klein Quantum frame...albeit one with some pretty trick componentry! I've got one of Dan's classic black Kilo's with the HED wheels in the garage sitting next to it and it's still damn fast, but being 6' 1" and doing all the long stuff this summer on those rolling hills, I'm on the Klein.

Good luck in the training and maybe when we get out of this 18 degree weather we'll see some of you up there!

Best,

Mark