South Bay Triathlon VI
Uvas Reservoir, Morgan Hill, CA
3/4 mile swim - 16 mile bike - 5 mile run
Sunday, May 17, 1998
Part III
The Bike - 16 miles
Rolling out of the transition area, I can't help but fume at myself. I brush the dust and grit from my left leg in a vain attempt to conceal my bobo-ness from the general public. Now in addition to a sore ankle I have a sore knee (my left knee has led such a difficult existence; sigh). Grumble grumble grumble. All right, get over it, just get to work.I settle down into the aerobars, take a deep breath, and pedal, suddenly realizing that there are people already running out here. Man! Talk about feeling out of the race. The run course is an out and back on the first two and a half miles of the bike, and I actually pass the race leaders, Pete Kain and Kevin Joyce, running side by side a mile out. Even in my grumpy frame of mind, I am moved by the beautiful picture these two superb athletes paint as they lope gracefully along, stride for stride, at a pace I couldn't match in an all-out sprint. Absolutely mesmerizing.
Meanwhile, back here on the bike in Boboland, TriBobo---er, Baby, is busy fighting one very disheartening headwind. Man! This is so discouraging. A girl on a yellow Cannondale with no aerobars blows past me and I surrender. Uncle! I give. No contest. I'm going to sit back and relax, cruise this bike ride, enjoy the (very beautiful) scenery, and go stuff my face at the post-race party. Why fight it? I can't even keep ahead of a girl without aerobars riding in a headwind! What's the use?
Thus resigned, I relax. For a bit. It certainly is beautiful out here, anyway. And the sun seems to have come out of hiding permanently, hurray! But the wind is chilly, and I'm glad I bothered to pull on the vest. The bike at South Bay rolls constantly. There's only one significant hill, but the rest of the course is characterized by constantly twisting rollers and rough pavement snaking through pastures, oak groves, and wineries. Very, very beautiful. It is strikingly similar to the Vineman course.
After the first 2 or 3 miles, fighting the headwind all the way, I sort of decide that I want to get back into this thing. I get a few rollers under my belt, enabling me to enjoy some speed on the descents, so I feel a little more into it. The girl without aerobars hasn't managed to completely blow me off; she's still within view, so my goal, ignominious as it may be, becomes to catch and drop her permanently. Heck, I probably won't be getting to run today anyway, so why not blow a gasket on the bike? Go for it!
Vrrooom, vrrrooom! Yeah. Well, easy to say, hard to do. Despite getting more "back into" the race, I just am not going very fast. A lot of congestion on the road in the form of other cyclists and car traffic backing up behind other cyclists frustrate me. A lot of ignorant cyclists blocking on the left frustrate me. And my own lack of power on the uphills frustrates me. Bottom line: I'm frustrated. So my mind starts to wander again.
When we finally get one solid, fast downhill followed by a relatively flat (though still curvy) section, I seize the moment. Round that fast curve, power up through the gears, and blow past Miss Cannondale. There! Exclamation point. That's more like it. Now, umm, back to our regularly scheduled mental meandering.
I roll blithely along and am pleased to see 25mph on my computer for a few minutes, but it occurs to me that I'm violating one of the cardinal rules of tri racing, as stated by Paula Newby-Fraser: The key to doing these races is to be "present where you are" at any given moment. I realize that I am not doing that, my mind is far away. And you know, given the way that this weekend (not to mention this morning) has been going, and given the rough condition of a lot of the pavement here, that's not a terribly smart place for your mind to be. FOCUS!
I regain my focus in time to haul it with me up the hill leading to the 12-mile marker. Ouch! You'd better focus here or you'll be falling over. I swear that hill gets harder every year. I lose more places climbing this half-mile monster and am powerless to do anything about it. This is purely a question of survival.
I crest the hill and prepare to reap the rewards of the subsequent descent, but am moved to caution by several signs warning of rough/bumpy pavement ahead. Knowing the havoc wreaked by El Nino on roads everywhere, I feather the brakes and scrub my speed all the way down, only to find things no worse than last year. Oh well, couldn't have lost *that* much time.
I focus and hammer the remainder of the bike, re-encountering that ugly headwind on the final leg back to the transition area. Having watched my time all the way along, I knew perfectly well that my bike split was far off of last year's time. As I carefully pull my feet from the cleats and rack my bike, I take one last look at the timer on my computer--- 53:54. Oh dear. Last year was 49:51. Could that wind account for 4 minutes? Ugh. I doubt it.
So now, how does that ankle feel? Shall we give it a try? Oh, come on, so you've had a really sucky day so far, big deal. Don't be a quitter, at least try to do the run, don't just concede now simply because things haven't gone as planned.
OK, I'll give it a try. Clip off the helmet, grab the number belt and torso pack, slip on one shoe, now the other...Damn, why does that feel so tight and cramped...? Oh. Duh. *sigh* Slip the shoe off once again and dump out the tube of SportSlick stashed in there so I'd remember to put some on my thighs as I started the run. Looks like I put my foot wrong again. OK, OK, let's go, there's the "Runners Out" sign---hey, that's nice, looks like this really turned out to be a primo transition spot after all. No, as a matter of fact, I still can't feel my feet or my lower legs, so let's see how far we can get before that ankle wakes up...