Bike 112 miles
I ran across the mount line and kept running past the people sitting right on the mount line who were getting on their bikes. The cheering crowds were right next to me, cheering loudly, and I laughed and failed to clip in immediately and said there was an awful lot of pressure with all of them there. Finally got clipped in and started riding. Matt flew by me and I wished him a good bike.
The first part of the course was through town, and involved a lot of turns, so I stayed out of my aero bars. Lots of cheering crowds all through town. I was feeling good, so I decided to start the eating process, a process which begins on the bike and ends either at the end of the triathlon, or whenever your stomach refuses to take in any more food (or starts getting rid of it in some fashion). I ate one of my peanut butter crackers, and discovered that eating, especially such a dry and large thing, meant I couldn't breathe through my mouth. And apparently the cold swim and cold bike meant that my nose was running horribly, and so breathing through my nose meant a massive amount of snot-production. And I was riding through the cheering crowds, trying not to have snot dripping from my nose, or to smile with a mouth full of cracker, and spray it everywhere. I'm such a mess. But I didn't want to start trying to expel the snot until I got out of town and to a more barren area. Rode past Julia, who took my picture, where hopefully I wasn't too visibly snotty, and finally made it out to Coeur d'Alene Lake Road (CdALR). This was the first out'n'back, and goes along the lake and only has one real hill, so I was looking forward to this part.
(Cyclists on CdALR a few days before..)
This is where I started to realize that I must have done pretty okay on the swim. I realized this because every person who I'd beat of the water now proceeded to pass me on the bike. I'm not a strong cyclist. I'm a steady cyclist, and I can ride at a slow pace forever, but I've not yet gotten my cycling up to a decent speed, especially when I know I have a long road ahead of me, and I'm trying to be conservative. So people were flying by me right and left (er, actually just left, since I was politely hugging the right side of the road). Instead of fretting over the fact that everyone was passing me, I rejoiced that I had kicked these peoples' asses in the swim. And it helped that I was wearing my arm warmers.
Oh, my arm warmers. I think my ride would have been 60% or so less enjoyable if I had opted to not wear my arm warmers. I'm SO glad I managed to get them on. Because I'd say fully three-quarters of the people that passed me on the bike (and as I mentioned, that was a lot of people) commented on my arm warmers. Guys and girls. They loved them. I spent so much time saying "thank you" to their "nice arm warmers!" or "I love your arm warmers!" And the spectators loved them, too. I'd play the "is this person a cyclist or not" game, based on whether they said "I love your arm warmers!" or "I love your (some other thing, like sleeves or arm bands)!" I think I got 2 compliments on my bike/bike color, and about 200 on my arm warmers. Literally 200.
So I got a lot of positive energy out of that, and then I played with the crowd for a lot more energy. I think a lot of people were so focused on the task at hand that they ignored the crowd, but I thanked everyone who cheered for me or said I looked great, I smiled at everyone, I told people they had cute dogs, or asked if their babies were future Ironmen, I asked kids on bikes if they were going to sign up next year, and just generally sucked all the positive energy out of the crowd that I could. One of the main things that hurt me on the bike was my cheeks, from smiling so much. On the not-as-smiley front, though, Matt passed me (I think) twice more, each time having had to stop and use the portapotty because of stomach problems. He told me he'd taken some immodium the last time I saw him, though, and thought it was helping. And he didn't pass me again after that, which I considered a good sign.
I sure needed that crowd energy, though. The CdALR part was nice, but then after a brief jaunt back into the town, the route went north to the town of Hayden, and the hills started. This was a new course this year. The route used to go to Post Falls (where our hotel was), but it was rerouted through Hayden this year, and it got much hillier. I'm not a strong hill-rider. It's very rare that I actually have to get off and walk, but I go very, very, very slow. And I don't tend to get out of my saddle unless it's completely necessary, especially when I know I have a long ride ahead of me. So I went up a lot of those hills at 5 mph. But these aren't just wussy little hills, some of these were pretty impressive. You know it's probably an unpleasant hill when there's a sign at the bottom of the hill politely requesting that people not paint messages on the road. That means that the hill is bad enough that people want to paint motivational messages on it to cheer people up the hill. Not that the signs stopped people from painting on the road. And they often painted peoples' race numbers on the hill, and I can imagine racer number XXXX was mortified when he saw "Go, XXXX!" painted on the road right near a "Don't paint on the road" sign.
I was pretty nervous about the hills, especially after driving the course. As I'm sure most of you know, I was on a brand new bike, which I'd only ridden 4 times, and never on any significant hills. And while people compared these hills to 360, in my opinion some of them were steeper than that. And they just kept coming. I had looked at the elevation profile, and it looks bad, but you can't really tell much just from a picture, and it's just as bad as it looks in the picture. :)
But! I made it up the hills just fine, if very, very slowly. Just spun my way up, wishing I had more gears. And as a reward, for every brutal uphill, there was a screaming downhill. The only reason my average speed wasn't 8mph was because it was countered by many a long, long downhill where I went 30+ mph the whole way. The bad part was that some of those downhills were on winding roads, and some of them were downhills directly into a 90 degree turn at the bottom of the hill. In fact, Mike Reilly, the guy who does the "You Are An Ironman" announcements at the finish line, rode the course a few days before the event and had a pretty bad crash where he collapsed a lung. I didn't see any bad crashes out there, but I did see one guy ride off onto the shoulder, lose control, and fall over into the ditch. He got up pretty quickly, though, and appeared to be okay.
So, lots of hills, up and down, and less crowd support out in this section. Many of the Hayden residents came out to the ends of their driveways to cheer, but there's just not that many houses out there, and it's pretty wildernessy, so it got a bit more lonely. I also found it very difficult to eat and drink during the hilly sections. And since the hilly section was about 25 miles, that was a problem. I had eaten 2/3 of my peanut butter crackers, but then they fell out of my bento box, so I had to start in on the Cheez-Its. I knew I probably wasn't getting enough calories, so I started taking bananas from the aid stations periodically, too.
Oh, the aid stations. Bottle hand-ups. I hadn't practiced bottle hand-ups, but I hadn't practiced them last year at Vineman either, and I managed to fake it just fine. And that was the case this time, as well. I took a Gatorade handup when I needed it, and took water from nearly every aid station to refill my aero bottle. That took some strategizing, since it meant throwing out what was in my water bottle cage, putting Gatorade in there, then waiting until the next offer of water and taking that, and managing to dump as much of it as I could in my aero bottle before Last Chance Trash Drop. I think each aid station went something like: Gatorade, water, powerbar, gel, banana, gatorade, water, portapotty(s), last chance trash drop. It was really well organized.
So, I wasn't sure I was getting enough food or drink, but I was doing the best I could, and I knew this would be a potential point of failure for me, so I tried to just.. stay focused and positive. My hydration definitely benefitted from how comfortable I am in the aerobars on my new bike. Most hills I got out of my aerobars to go up, especially the steep ones, but otherwise I spent most of my time aero, and since I was down there anyway, I might as well drink from my aero bottle! And to save my neck, Jay, I left the straw pretty long, even though I know I could have probably averaged 10mph faster if I'd shortened it. :)
At some point I finally made it out to the furthest point out on the hilly section, and crossed the timing mat. It was only ~30 miles in, but it felt like a major accomplishment, AND it was like checking in with the folks at home, because I knew that split would be up on ironmanlive. It was like the beeping of rolling over the mat was a "hi, guys at home! I'm still alive! Thanks for watchin'!" And then more hills as I headed back into town.
On the way back in, I found myself a new mantra. There was a series of 4 signs set up Burma Shave style, so you had to read them all to get the full message. They said:
Don't lose your head
To gain a minute
You need your head
Your brain is in it
And for some reason, that made me giggle uncontrollably. And for the entire rest of the day, all eleventymillion hours of it, I repeated that rhyme in my head at least once every half hour, sometimes just over and over. I know it's not the most logically inspirational mantra, but it worked, so who'm I to argue? See, I'm smiling now as I read it again. I need to find whoever put those signs up and thank them.
On the way back into town, I finally decided to stop and use the portapotty. I picked a likely aid station and pulled off the road to the portapotties. Instantly someone grabbed my bike from me as I stepped off of it, which freaked me out. I'm not used to being catered to! It's weird! Someone else said all the portapotties were full, but I was next, and would I like a banana? WOULD I? Sure! So I ate my banana as I waited and as I went into the portapotty, and as I came out, they asked me if I needed anything? Water? Gatorade? Gel? I said I was fine, and as I was mounting up I heard the older man there instructor the younger volunteers on how they should always face the bike out toward the street as they held it, so the athlete could get back on and immediately ride out. I felt somewhat like a really important person, and somewhat like a complete poser. :)
Finally made it back to the main road back into town, and straight into the wind. I tried to stay aero to stay out of the wind as much as possible. It was tough when I got to the split off, where you either start your second loop or finish up the bike section, and I jokingly whined to the crowd that I wanted to turn right instead of left, please. But I headed back out for my second loop.
I swear, the second loop won't be as wordy! I hope. A lot of that was just general info stuff. I realize this is really long, and I'm sorry, but this is for me as much as it's for you, and apparently I need to be wordy!
I asked a spectator as I went through town what time it was, and he said it was 12:30. I knew the cut-off for the first bike loop was 1:30, so I cheered at him and thanked him, though I'm sure he had no clue why. I had made it through my first loop with plenty of time to spare!
Through town, out onto CdALR again, and past Coach Jamie, who cheered loudly for me. Finally got to the bike special needs area, which was at the CdALR turnaround (Higgins Point), instead of exactly at the halfway point (for logistical reasons). I saw some people ride past it without stopping, but my nutrition and hydration plan depended on stopping there and refueling. As I rode into the cul-de-sac, a person with a megaphone called out my number, and by the time I came around the other side, a person was holding out my bag for me. I dismounted and pulled my bike over to the side of the road.
Once again, my proximity to one of my bags caused my brain to shut down completely. I had wanted to give myself a special treat in special needs, but I hadn't been able to decide what I might want. I wanted to be sure SOMEthing appealed, so I gave myself a lot of options. A lot of options plus a lot of exercise isn't really a good recipe. I had a cookie in there, a Snickers bar, a pb&j sandwich, and then more crackers of various types to replace what I'd hopefully already eaten. I hadn't eaten all that much, and I still had Cheez-Its left (and Cliff bar under that), so I grabbed the sandwich. I ate half of it, and put the other half in my bento box. I replaced the gu that I'd eaten from my singlet pocket. I ditched my half-empty bottle of Gatorade and put in my full bottle of eload. I considered taking off my arm warmers, because it had warmed up, but then I realized that I had gotten so much positive energy from them and the comments, that I couldn't bring myself to take them off. I decided that was good enough, and all I could do at that point was waste more time staring into my bag blankly, so I handed my bag back and mounted up again.
Passed by many of the same spectators from the first lap (these spectators were incredible, both in energy and in endurance), and got a lot of "Hey, it's the cheetah girl again!" and whatnot. I was still in good spirits, though definitely tiring. My back was hurting a bit from not being used to being aero for so long, but most concerning was this weird thing happening with the back of my left knee. It started late in the hills on the first loop, and it kept coming back periodically. It would feel like the tendon in the back inside of my knee was.. not hurting, exactly, but maybe like it was so tight that on each downstroke, it was being pulled to the very furthest it would stretch. So it wasn't so much that I was in pain, but it was freaking me out, because I didn't know what it was, what it meant, or whether it was a sign of something bad. I thought maybe the saddle was pressing into a nerve in my upper inner though, and constricting blood flow or something. I really had no clue. I tried shifting around, but I couldn't figure out anything that helped, and then eventually it would clear up for a while. I finally just wrote it off to doing a really long ride that was hilly on a bike that I barely knew. There were bound to be problems, and if this was the worst, as long as it didn't get any worse, it was okay. After a while it did start happening on BOTH legs, and that was concerning again, but again, it wasn't painful so much as bizarre and alarming, so I just tried to change positions until it cleared up, and hoped it wouldn't haunt me on the run.
Other notable things (because I haven't said enough, obviously)..
- A person dressed as Elmo was out on the course cheering, all day
- A girl kept riding past me and saying "Hey, it's Amy with the armwarmers!" (our names were on our bibs, which we had to wear on our backs for the bike). About the 3rd or 4th time she passed me, I said "Where do you keep coming from?!" and she said she stopped to pee at every aid station. But that she could pee lightning-fast! Eventually I planned to counter her next "Amy with the armwarmers" greeting with a "Hey, it's Samantha with the bladder problem!" but I didn't see her again after I decided that. :(
- At some point I stopped again at a portapotty, though I don't recall where. I also tried to do a banana handup and missed, and at some point in time my sports beans worked their way out of my singlet pocket and fell out on the course (fortunately with no officals around to penalize me for littering).
The hills were, predictably, much harder the second time around. At this point, nobody was really passing me anymore. I'd settled into where I belonged in the grand scheme of things on the bike, and that was near the back, and that was okay. I leap frogged with a bunch of people, and we'd exchange banter as we passed each other, and strangely they were mostly guys. I passed over the timing mat again at mile 90, and realized I'd now gone further than my longest training ride, and that I was checking in with people at home again, and hopefully they weren't too concerned about my having slowed down. Because I knew I had, but I still felt just fine, so I wasn't concerned. I was making a lot of "Hey, you guys wanna switch places for a while?" jokes with the spectators, and a lot of "Uh, we're supposed to run a WHAT after this?" jokes with the athletes. Still smiling, still in great spirits. I had a brief down moment when I was going up one hill and my chain dropped. I tried to shift to fix it, and instead it locked up completely, and I had to quickly unclip and step down in the middle of the road, hoping nobody hit me. Got off to the side of the road and it took me way too long to fix it, because it was somewhat lodged in there. After a few wasted minutes, got it back on and then had to gruelingly start back up in the middle of a hill.
As I got to 100 miles, I realized that I was seriously going to finish the bike leg, and I started to cry (with happiness). Then I decided that crying was a bad idea, because I was already so completely snotty that crying could only make me MORE snotty, and that seemed like a bad idea. Trying to clear out my nose had covered my thighs, my shoulders and my hands (and probably much of my bike) with snot. Turns out, Ironman is a snotty sport. At least for me. So the crying was aborted. :)
Back into town, which meant back into the headwind, and more cheering at Elmo. Oh, did I mention this bike course was beautiful? Yeah, it was. And I tried to appreciate it when I could remember to. It's harder when you're aero, though. But I really did try to be in the moment, and appreciate things without wishing they were over. As I got closer to 112 miles, though, I was glad it was almost over. I also had a little celebration when I got to 101 miles, as that was officially the longest ride I've ever done (and the only century I'd ever done was day 1 of the MS150, and that was really more like 99 miles). I was SO glad I'd decided to use my new bike, even though it was.. so new to me. It caused me weird back-of-the-knee issues, and also a weird arm nerve thing sometimes when I sat up for too long, but it was SO much better than my old bike; so much lighter, more comfortable, and it had caused me nearly no butt pain even after such a long ride.
Right before the last turnaround in town, Kerstin flew by me on her bike, and I cheered for her and followed her in. This time I got to go to the right, for people who are finishing their second loop. YAY.
As I rolled up to the crowd of volunteers, I dismounted and made sure my legs still worked. I thought all the volunteers were maybe catchers, in case peoples' legs DIDN'T work, but then when I stepped down, someone grabbed my bike and said "I'll take that!" and whisked it away. I'd forgotten that we didn't have to rerack our own bikes. Full service!
Crossed the timing mat and split, and saw something like 7:58, and rejoiced that it was under 8 hours. I mean, it was close, but I really thought that my speed would average well under 14 mph just for riding time alone, and then when you factor in time for portapotties, special needs, chain, etc, I figured it would be even slower.