When last we saw our heroine, she was struggling.
The bike is my strength, relatively speaking, and I was discouraged to see how slowly I was going downhill. Things got better when we turned out of the wind, though, and I was pleasantly surprised when my watch buzzed to tell me I had completed the first five miles at just under a 15mph pace. I was even more surprised shortly afterward, because I was heading uphill on the stretch that was painful last year.
But this year the wind was blowing from the south -- right behind me -- and I found myself cruising up that hill. The thing about tailwinds is that they can be hard to recognize. I have a rule for myself: if it feels easy to go 19mph, there's a tailwind. Save some energy for getting home. Yesterday I was doing a painless 19mph uphill, which should tell you that this was a serious wind.
I didn't smile for the cameras this year, because I was focused on hitting a goal. I don't have a triathlon bike; it's just a regular secondhand Cannondale with fattish tires and no aerobars. Last year I overheard two women talking about their bikes, which cost more than we paid for our Ford Focus. I knew I wasn't going to keep up with the serious competitors on my secondhand Cannondale, but I wanted to go >15mph on the bike leg. That goal kept me pushing hard when we went back into the headwind -- especially when I saw my second 5-mile split time -- and all through the rest of the second loop.
It paid off! My Garmin tells me I averaged 15.5mph for the bike leg, compared to last year's 14.4. The timing chip numbers are a little lower (15.27), because they're based on the shortest possible distance rather than my actual distance. You'd have to be the only cyclist on the course and hit all of the tangents exactly right to go only the advertised distance. I won't complain.
When I headed back into T2 I felt significantly less defeated than I had in T1. "Now you only have to run a 5K!" said a spectator who probably intended to be encouraging. I doubt, however, that this spectator had any intention of running a 5K in those conditions. In contrast to last year's weather, which was unexpectedly and deliciously cool, temperatures were climbing toward 90. Blech and double-blech. I racked my bike and drank some Nuun and gobbled down some unpleasant chewy things. One of my roommates came tearing into transition a little behind me. She's the fastest of the five of us on foot, so when when she went rocketing back out of transition at breakneck speed I didn't expect to see anyone I knew until the finish.
My innards were grumbling. My legs were tired. I wasn't feeling confident at all. But off I went.
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