About a quarter mile into it my buddy Maarten comes whizzing by. “You all right?” he says, concerned that he passed me so soon. We both knew he would zip past me on the bike but it was supposed to happen at mile 20….or 40 even, but the transition had made it happen at mile 1! “Yeah,” I responded in a pretty dejected tone and he was gone. I would not see him again until the run, when our fortunes were reversed. Another training partner, Jim aka Buelito comes zipping by too. Man, mile one and everyone is blowing past me, this will be a long day. The first 6 miles is a nice flat ride around the lake we swam in, and then it heads out into the country. As we left the lake there was a nasty straight up hill. This set the tone early on. The first 40 miles of this course are pretty rough......tough hills and some even tougher pavement. As a big guy hills are good or bad depending on you look at it…good at the top, bad at the bottom. Gravity really works for you on the way down, but destroys you on the way up. You don’t see 200 pound Tour De France riders for that very reason. So, as expected, a steady convoy seemed to fly by me as I negotiated the first hill. I really suffered early on and 25th place from the swim had dropped to about 70th in the less than 20 miles. All I could think about were my two training buddies who I had ridden some tough rides with over the summer, dropping me like it was nothing and everyone else here who was flying by as well…..I panicked a little as I felt like many of my goals and expectations were disappearing right in front of me. This was not supposed to happen, I had trained to hard to sputter like this…….
Relax
I started thinking back to all the advice I had gotten during training……be ready to reassess your goals during the race….when disaster strikes, deal with it and refocus…..run YOUR race, don’t worry about everyone else……so I relaxed….I put everyone else out of my head and tried to just stay focused on my race and my nutrition and hydration. Right about this time there was a nice little 10-15 mile hiatus from the hills. The course flattens out until about mile 40 where there is a King Kong hill, Sugarloaf. On the flats, weight is less of and issue, and I remember thinking when I drove the course the day before that when it gets flat, you attack. And I did. I passed a guy….hey, that was fun…then I passed another…..and another….whoh….I was doing good….I was feeling good!….this is getting fun. I wanted to average between 19- 20 mph (that would get me in under 6 hours) over the course and when I was feeling crappy I was at 18.5, I looked down at my computer and I am cruising at about 24 mph and my average is up to 19.1. I am cooking!! Passing more people. Holy cow I am back to 58th place!!
Going up that big hill, Sugarloaf I felt great. One guy passed me (which was much better than the convoys passing me on the other hills). Like I said, when you go up, you have to go down and big guys like to go down so I flew past 3 people on the back side of the mountain. I continued to cruise to the special needs station at mile 62ish. On the way in I saw Jim (who flew passed me at mile 1) pulling out so I knew I had battled back.
Left the special needs area for the back half of the course
which is much flatter. At this
point I was averaging 19.6 mph and made it up to as high as 46th
place. I nearly pulled over to call
someone about my good fortune!!
Then.…disaster strikes!!
This is not
happening….
It
was mile 75 or so, and I look down and my rear brake had come loose from my
frame and was now dangling by the brake cable clicking my spokes as my rear
wheel turned. This can’t be
happening. I pulled over. Not only did I have no rear brake, but
now the dangling brake made it impossible to ride as it would lodge in the
wheel. I had no idea what to
do. I had tools, but no screw to
put the brake back. I could not cut
the cable and there was no where to put the brake to get it out of the way. I just look at the sky and yelled. I grew more frustrated with each WHIZ
from bikers that were zipping past me. Bikers I had battled so hard to
pass. Finally I managed to wedge
the brake under the seat. So, now I
road with no rear brake and the brake itself digging into the back of my left
thigh every time I pedaled down.
This was not going to work for very long. After about 10 miles I found a mechanic
on the course that could at least tape the brake to the frame to get it out of
the way. Now I just had no rear
brake. At mile 92 I finally found a
mechanic who could replace it.
These guys were great. It
took about 6-7 minutes to fix, but I did get a chance to rest. I hadn’t eaten any food all day -- only
drinks -- and I tried to take in a Pay Day candy bar which had been a go to pick
me up in training.…I could not hold it down. One bite and I nearly lost it
right there. Food was just not
going to work today. They got the
brake on and I was off to finish the hardest 20 miles of my life.
Survival….
I was beat at this point both mentally and physically. My once personally impressive average had dropped to about 19.2 and I was literally counting down the 10th of a mile as they passed. Every time I tried to get out of the saddle – cramps. I never get cramps, but I had them today and they were brutal. As long as I sat, I was ok. Everyone I passed or that passed me was in bad shape, we all were in survival mode now. We weren’t racing anymore. . With about 8 miles to go I finished the last of my energy drink. I was out of calories and only had a little water. I thought there was another aid station and there was not. This was turning into a major miscalculation. I started to get light headed and was looking for another competitor who could possibly lend me a gel or a few swigs of a drink to get me home. I was getting worried and I was not doing too good. But as I looked around I realized that we were back in town…..as a matter of fact we were back to the transition area. My computer was 4 miles off…..we were done….I was done…..I made it…..how did I do it…..this was the greatest miscalculation of my life…..I will never view accurate calculations again!!! A final look at the computer as I dismount……19.0 mph, time 5 hours 46 minutes! I did it! I hit my goal! I was in 73rd place!
Whereas T-1 resembled the
floor of the NYSE, T- 2 resembled the recovery ward of a hospital. I hobbled into the tent and saw some
people just sitting there slowly chewing on pretzels with a blank stare, others
are puking in the corner, still others are doing nothing. I slowly slipped on my running shoes and
drank some fluids and tried to get my head back together. I was running a serious calorie deficit
and I had not used the bathroom yet so I was likely not hydrated enough
either. And there was also the
issue of cramps. As I slowly left
the tent for the marathon….man…this is nuts just to write…as I left the tent for
the marathon the announcer announced my name and I waved and gingerly jogged out
of the transition. This was going
to be interesting.