TO THE DEVIL's LAKE WITH YOU

• So, if it's all about the Road to Pardeeville, why did I spend a perfectly lovely afternoon on the bike course at Devil's Lake, near Baraboo Wisconsin, site of the 9/17/06 Devil's Lake Challenge Sprint Triathlon? Good Question.
  
  Friend Steph, always up for an adventure, has agreed to come to Wisconsin to try a tri with me. I thought Pardeeville was the one, for all kinds of reasons--okay, two: 1) the delightful absurdity of saying "Going to Pardeeville;" and 2) the thing seemed manage-able for what Jayne Williams calls "Slow Fat Triathletes." Unfortunately, Steph can't make it for July 1, so we set our sights on Devil's Lake in September, which also gives my fractured leg a little more time to recover. Intrepid researcher that I am, I set out with a companion for Devil's Lake yesterday, thinking that, hey, I'd done the Pardeeville route, so why not? and that it would be good to give Steph, sitting in the Arizona flatlands, a report.
  
  It was a beautiful, cool day--no worries about heat stroke. When we arrived at Devil's Lake, we found and followed the bike course. In fact, we did it twice, just to make sure it is really as bad as we thought it was the first time. It is. The course starts on a narrow, uphill, serpentine path and then alternates between long, slow climbs and runaway downhill segments. I was exhausted afterward, and feeling quite dubious about the Devil's Lake Challenge. I mean, if it's this bad in a car, what's it gonna be on a bike?
  
  I have just two words about the Devil's Lake Challenge: Pardeeville 2007.