The bike

I am a bit tired tonight, so I will make this shorter than I might other times.

After the swim I got on the bike and headed down a fun 4 or 5 mile downhill run. Top speed was in the mid-40's. It was dry at this point. Lots of ominous clouds though.

I believe at around the 10 mile mark is started raining. And raining. And it rained so hard the it just plain stung my skin. It was hard to see at times. This made it difficult a few times on some downhills.

I consistently traded places with a woman named Trish. All of our numbers had our first names on it. She would get ahead of me on some of the uphills and I would blast back by on the downhills. We did this off an on for all 56 miles. Of course on the run she blasted by me.

Somewhere along the way I passed Fish, who had a couple of flats. He caught up to me at a time when I was trying to nurse my legs. I was a little demotivated too. When I tried to put a little more effort into the pedals, everything would cramp up. I tried stretching, occasionally I would try to kneed my thumbs into my calves as well. That started around mile 35 and lasted pretty much the rest of the bike. It was frustrating. My theory is the cooler air and the pouring rain had an adverse affect on me. It was a little chilly, but not too bad. If not that, I don't know what the deal was.

My bike time was 3:09 and change. I don't remember right now and I am too lazy to look it up. I expected it to be closer to exactly 3 hours, but whatever. After Fish caught me I let him set the pace. It was my goal to basically just run with him during the run. And since he has done more of these triathlon things I decided to let him set the pace during the bike. I figured that if he had enough gas in the tank at a whatever pace he was going so would I. And that was pretty much correct. So I would guess that my last 15 miles were at about the same pace as my first 15 miles and that in the middle I was lollygagging a bit too much.

Also, I need a better way to take my in-race supplements than in ziplocs. The good thing is that the Endurolytes and other pills stayed dry. But, open the ziplocs while trying to pedal is a pain. I have to slow a bit and I lose momentum. It probably takes a full minute for me to get all the pills down on some of the hourly dosages. I was taking something or another every hour. Even hours I took about double what I took on the odd hours.

Doing a gel at least every 10 miles was a good thing. I think that the Cramp-Buster Shot Bloks may have helped get me through the crampy phase. I didn't cramp up much after I took the second pack of those or during the run.

My position was pretty comfortable, but my back started hurting off and on after mile 15. Not sure what the deal was.

Anyway, tomorrow a quick finish about the run.