Bike 112 miles
The first thing that happens on the bike is you do a sharp left turn (180 degrees) and go straight downhill. That's intimidating in general, but now we've added in a bunch of wobbly-from-swimming athletes and pouring rain. Again.. surreal. But I managed to get clipped in and down the hill without killing myself or anyone else.
So now I was out in my most dreaded part. The first section was kind of a blur, but nothing really notable other than the pouring rain. The course was pretty crowded, so there was a lot of passing and being passed and just trying to stay out of peoples' ways. I got passed a lot, but it didn't bother me as much as at CdA. At some point Matt fleeewww by me, and commented on how I'd kicked his ass on the swim. It was a nice boost to see him briefly, and it gave me a little thrill to think that I had beat him on the swim (though I know it probably bummed him out some, though he'd never admit it).
Then came the downhills. While I'm not a strong hill-climber, I'm a fairly fearless hill-descender. Perhaps not always wisely. I had made Matt promise that he would be careful out there, though, so I had to do the same. I went into the downhills riding the brakes a little, but not much. Mostly the scary part was other people weaving around and riding the middle line and generally being unpredictable. Even riding the brakes, you build up a ton of speed on hills that steep, and there was so much water on the road, any sharp and sudden turns can spell disaster. Not to mention the roads were pretty awful in places, but you couldn't even tell because the cracks and bumps were in huge lakes of water on the road. I felt pretty strong so far, though, and like I had banked some time on the downhills that I'd need on the coming uphills. I passed Laurie, who is a stronger cyclist in general than I am, and I told her I'd pay for going out too fast on the second loop.
We turned onto Haselton for the out and back. I looked but didn't see Sarah and Jamie where they'd said they'd be, but I did see a ton of folks on the out and back. Matt looked really strong, then two people I didn't see called my name going the other way. Someone rode up behind me and passed me and said "Someone just yelled for you." and I said I knew but didn't see who it was. Then on my way back in, I saw most of the other TxFe people, all looking strong (and wet). The out and back was particularly puddly, and the more rain that came down, the more those puddles became lakes. The turnaround was a bit sharp and harrowing, but then I was headed back in, and this time I DID see Sarah and Jamie on the corner!
I passed by our hotel in Wilmingtown and said hi to it, and that I'd see it later (yes, all out loud), then turned onto the road leading into town. The road we'd driven a billion times. The one with all the hills. I just took it slow and steady and spent most of my time in my lowest gear or somewhere near it.
Meanwhile, I've been doing pretty good at my nutrition and hydration. It's harder when it's cool and raining, because you don't feel like you need any water, but I tried to still drink. Eating was even more interesting, because while my gummy foods fared okay, water would get into my bag with my Cliff bar, and it would get really gross and disintegrate. Any time I'd start to get hungry or feel weak, I'd figure I was behind on my nutrition, so I'd take a gu for quick energy, or take a banana or orange from the aid stations. I always feel like such a badass when I take stuff from the aid stations.. bottle hand-ups and food and whatnot. At least I'll feel that way until I fail to get the bottle or knock over a volunteer or something, which thankfully hasn't happened yet.
With hydration comes the resultant bladder issues. I was inspired by Cathy peeing on the bike at CdA this year, and decided I'd maybe give it a try, and Courtney expressed that she'd be disappointed if I didn't. I was a bit weirded out by the thought of people being around me while I was doing it, but it turns out the weather worked out perfectly for me! It's very difficult to detect that someone is peeing when it's pouring rain and everything's dripping. So I tried, was successful, and probably peed 3 more times over the course of the bike. I figure it saved me at least 5 minutes of time getting off the bike and hitting a portapotty and then getting warmed up again. Plus uh.. kept my feet warmer! Ew. I know. I will say, though, that I saw more people peeing that day than I ever have before. Anywhere you looked, 3 guys were pulled off to the side of the road peeing into the woods (on the bike and the run).
The hills going into Lake Placid were tough, but I still had a good amount of energy. Before I knew it, I was at the named hills, which meant 5 hills to go (Little Cherry, Big Cherry, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, Papa Bear), and almost halfway done. Papa Bear was amazing, because the hill was lined with spectators cheering and clapping and playing cowbells and Matt said there was even a guy with a drum under his poncho. Also a guy in a devil costume! Very Tour de France. After those hills, I was back in town, and there were a couple more hills, but those were all spectator-lined, and they were short, so I got out of my saddle for those, which I normally don't do if I can help it, but it felt nice on my legs to use different muscles briefly.
As I approached the lake again, I came to Special Needs, and they called out my number as I rode up. I rode down the line, but didn't see anyone holding out my bag, and then I was at the end. I had to get more nutrition out of my bag, so I stopped the bike and looked back down the line. A guy asked if I wanted him to hold my bike, and I asked if he was allowed (no spectator support allowed), and he said he was a volunteer, so I left my bike with him and walked back up the line. A girl came running toward me with my bag, and she held it while I dug through it to get what I needed (pb&j sandwich, another bag of Cliff bar, another bag of Luna Moons). I decided not to use my other bottle of eload, and there was nothing else in there I needed, so I thanked her and went back and thanked the guy holding my bike. I tossed the remains of my old Cliff bar, which had turned into disgusting brown Cliff soup, and restocked. I ate one square of my sandwich, and stuffed the rest in my bento box, and took my bike back. Before getting on my bike, I decided to look at my bike computer really quickly. I felt like my first loop had been strong, and I suspected my second would be much slower, so I wanted to see how I'd done before I lost that time. Cycled through on my computer, and found that I'd averaged 15.9 mph for the first loop! I was thrilled. I knew I couldn't maintain that for my second, but that was fine, because I had so much room to play with before my average speed was below 14.2! So I jumped back on for my second loop in a great mood.
Second loop was very similar to the first. Rain still pouring down. Every so often it would slacken off a bit, and I'd think it had stopped raining, then I'd look closer, and it just wasn't actively pouring, but was still raining. I kept my sunglasses on the whole time, in spite of the rain and darkness. Fortunately one of my lenses had been in the process of breaking just before the race, so we found an Oakley dealer and bought new, lighter-colored lenses a couple days earlier, which meant I could still see even though it was pretty gloomy out there.
There were less people around me on the second loop, so I didn't brake on the downhills, just let loose and made sure to keep control. I didn't ever feel unsafe, or I would have been braking, but oh man, was that fun. The only unfun part was the rain hitting me going that fast, and it felt rather like sleet. I was very glad for the sunglasses when it felt like sleet. I'm sure I had a huge grin on my face going down those hills, and I'd love to do them again some time when it was dry. My max speed was only 38 for the entire race (my lighter weight means less impressive downhill speeds), but I bet a spent a lot of time in the mid30s on those hills. There were also some uphills that I didn't remember from the first loop, that I'm fairly sure they added for the second loop. Jerks.
More cheering from Sarah and Jamie (and various other people.. they were fantastic at drumming up crowd support for me!) on the out and back, and once again I missed someone riding the other way yelling my name, and once again someone rode up behind me to tell me that someone had just yelled for me, and I very exasperatedly said, "I know! That keeps happening!"
I started to feel slower around this time. Part of it was tiredness, obviously, but I felt like I should be getting more speed for the effort I was putting in. I was really nervous that one of my tires was flat, but there wasn't any good place on the out and back to pull over and check, because it was fairly narrow, and the shoulders of the road were mostly under a couple inches of water. When I got to the turnaround, I pulled off to the side and felt both my tires, and they were fully inflated. That 30 second stop was the only stop I made other than at Special Needs, and that has to be the lowest stops to distance ratio I've ever achieved. Yay for peeing on the bike! I realized the slowdown I was feeling was actually related to the amount of grit in my chain/gears/whatever. I could hear it when I shifted, and shifting was slowly getting harder and harder. But there was nothing I could do about it, so I soldiered on.
Done with the out and back, more cheering from my IronSherpas, then back on the hilly road. This was my lowest point of the whole race. I was starting to really feel the hills, and that road is so long and hilly. I was slowing down, but still moving steadily. I was ready to be done with the bike, and it wasn't going fast enough to suit me. I had one distraction in the form of a girl who rode up next to me, glanced at me and my bike, and asked if I had 650s (small tires). I acknowledged I did, and she asked if I had a spare tube. I acknowledged I did, and said she was welcome to it if she needed it. She thanked me, and I asked her if she wanted to stop real quick and I could give it to her. She said that wasn't necessary, but she had a big gash in her tire, so if I saw her on the side of the road up ahead, she would sure appreciate if I could stop and give her the tube. I said I would be happy to, and she rode off. I think me being so ready to stop and get off the bike without even thinking of how it might impact my race shows how much my head wasn't in the game at that point. But I would have done it anyway. A few seconds added to my time to keep someone else in the game is well worth it.
As I mentioned before, the last 5 hills were labeled. I knew once I saw Little Cherry written on the hill, I was in the home stretch of the bike. So my eyes were glued to the ground going up each hill. And it was never labeled. I think 10 hills passed horribly slowly before one was labeled. And I cursed every one of those hills for not being Little Cherry. Out loud. I was getting pretty low. Laurie passed me back right around that time, and I knew I was slowing way down, just as I'd told her I would. Then FINALLY I found LC. The last 5 hills weren't fun, but knowing that I was almost done gave me a huge boost, and put a smile back on my face. Papa Bear still had tons of spectators cheering me up, and I was a little more sedate this time on the hills in town.
Aside from being tired and vaguely sore of legs, I felt.. okay. My left hamstring has been giving me problems on longer rides, where it gets really, really tight and uncomfortable, and that was happening. My upper back/neck always bother me on rides that long, and that was happening. But the worst was this ongoing toe/foot thing that's been happening this year. My right toe goes numb, and my right instep-sorta-area gets really sore. I'm not sure if it's cleat position or bike position or shoes too small or what, but I meant many times to get it checked out, and never ended up doing it. So I spent that last part of the bike trying to wiggle my toes in my shoe to get that loosened up and wake up my toe, to no great avail.
Through the cheering throngs lining the street, saw tons of people out on the run course already, and then I was approaching the dismount line. They said you should ride directly up to the line and then dismount, and actually crabbed at me a little for looking like I was going to dismount early (because I didn't trust my legs to cut it that close). But dismount I did, and they told me to take my bike over the timing mat, and someone would take it.
Crossed the mat, split my watch and saw 7:25. I knew I had to beat something like 7:54 to beat my CdA time, so I was SO happy! I had no idea what that equated to in average speed, but it was surely faster than the 14.2 I was hoping for.