Farewell My Little Steed

I remember the first time I saw you: across the velodrome your small frame immediately caught my eye.  After a brief introduction I right away thought ours could be a successful partnership, and I took you home with me that day.

It was awkward in the beginning, as commonly found in new situations.  I climbed aboard and asked, should I put my hand here?  (Oh yeah, that's the spot).  We tried new things while I improved my balance and handling, and steadily we grew to know each other intimately.

As time went on I brought additional toys into the relationship and you willing let me strap or bolt them onto you.  Man, we've had some fun.  Then came my desire for power and though it required you to change, you went along with it.  I grew stronger and together we moved faster but sometimes... it seemed your heart was no longer in to it.  Like those times you 'broke a heel' and we had to struggle to get that fixed last minute before our events in Boulder and Penticton.  I was disappointed and tried not to hold it against you but my thoughts kept wandering: was it time for me to move on?

After a bit of rehab we pulled out a great team effort at our final race this year, shedding a nice chunk of time from our prior best split earned earlier this season.  
It was our perfect dance and will be the one I'll always remember.  But now, it's time...

While I'm sad that we'll be parting ways I want you to know how much I appreciate what you've helped me learn about myself, and that it is because of you I will confidently move on.  I'm optimistic about your future too, because I know you'll be a bright spot in the journey of another triathlete as she cultivates her own capabilities.  

And so it is with fondness I say: farewell, my petite P2C.  It's on to exciting new relationships, for the both of us.

Wisconsin 2012.

Mont Tremblant 2013.

Boulder 2014. 

Atlantic City 2015.

Penticton 2015.

Equipment I've Used - Ending My 5 Year Run with Egg Beater Pedals

In the beginning (1996), I had Look pedals.  It wasn't that I had to replace the cleats almost yearly that bothered me, rather that they had zero traction when walking.  This was a tolerable situation when walking on reasonably-well textured surfaces such as asphalt, concrete, gravel, or grass, but a horrible one on indoor non-carpeted surfaces like those found inside a convenience store; walking inside one as a pit-stop on a bike ride was always a risk for a groin injury.  When it came to running in them, as for the T1 and T2 transitions in triathlon, they were always a risk for wiping out.  This, and a little lack of information, is why I used my Crank Brother's Egg Beater pedals and mountain bike shoes for my first iron distance race.  I figured, of all days to not want to wipe out and potentially negatively affect my race, that would be it.  Little did I know that the transition area at IMLP was on grass and I really didn't need to worry about this.

My first cycling shoes, by Diadora.

Slick-as-shit Look cleat and shoe.

Look pedals.

No longer in "triathlon mode" after IMLP in 2010, I went on a bike ride with a couple of friends and brought my regular cycling shoes along, only to realize I still had the Egg Beater pedals on my road bike.  Not much I could do that day other than bike in the Teva sandals I arrived in.  But between this silly mistake and the better footing my mountain bike shoes provided, I decided I'd start running only one cleat pattern going forward, with no idea what a pain in the ass this decision was going to be.  

Egg Beater pedals.

Mountain bike shoes (Shimano).  Note
how cleat is recessed within the shoe tread.

This was also roughly when I decided to buy dedicated triathlon shoes and coincidentally corresponded to the end of when shoe manufacturers were making cycling shoes that accommodated both 3-bolt and 2-bolt cleat mounting patterns.  The powers that be had spoken - triathlon and most road shoes would be drilled for 3-bolts, not 2.

If you don't know, most bike shops don't carry triathlon cycling shoes and those that do tend to carry a single brand.  Availability opens up on the internet, however, and by ordering some 11 pairs of shoes I was able to try many manufacturers (you know they all have slightly different fit characteristics, right?) and old models that would still fit 2-bolts.  I settled on the carbon-soled Exustar, pictured below.  2 Velcro straps means easy in/out, though one might argue that the orientation of the Velcro so the straps pull toward the crank to open them is less ideal b/c they can get caught up in the chain if you try to leave them attached to the pedals and don/doff them while riding.  

Exustar triathlon shoes, Egg Beater cleat installed.

Anyway, shoes selected and cleats installed I hopped onto my bike only to realize a problem: mountain bike shoes have tread around the periphery of the shoe sole that rests on the Egg Beater pedal spindle; road/tri shoes do not.  This means there is no stabilizing interplay between the tri shoe and the pedal and the very small connection between the pedal and the cleat alone is very sloppy.

Not to be discouraged, I headed back to the internet to hunt down a solution, and found a few.  The first was an Egg Beater road cleat that had the peripheral tread as part of the cleat, and I did eventually end up ordering them.  Another thing I found was a Shimano "pontoon" that simply got placed over the cleat and bolted into place with the cleat bolts.  The bonus was, the bike shop en route to a triathlon I was participating in had them in stock.  

Egg Beater 3-bolt road shoe cleat
(pictured upside down).

Shimano pontoon.

Night before the event (wait for it), pontoons installed, feeling all proud of myself... only to learn that they didn't quite fit seamlessly with the Egg Beater pedals.  It was all I could do to slam down hard enough to get the cleats to engage because these rubber pontoons are sized for Shimano SPD pedals and needed the center of the tread to be shaved down to fit the Egg Beaters.  Once shaved down however, the fit was fantastic.  This really was a remarkable set-up because I had all the stability I wanted while walking and while riding, and the cleats are also lower profile than the Look cleats were so traction issues aside, they were just so much more natural to walk in.  I really could not understand why this movement (mountain bike cleats on road/tri shoes) didn't take off because this really seemed like the best solution possible, the bees knees, as it were.   

Egg Beater cleat with a now-significantly-worn
Shimano Pontoon.  Installation includes a Bebop
cleat adapter to protect the carbon shoe sole.

Once the Crank Brothers road cleats arrived (3-bolt connectivity) I installed them on my Diadora road shoes (which only supported a 3 bolt pattern).  It took no time at all to understand why this product was discontinued: they were crap, with the "traction horse shoe" crumbling apart right away.  Once that crumbled, the interplay of shoe to pedal was again sloppy.  The horse shoe was also unnecessarily large.  To fit with the pedal it really only needed to be in line with the spindle; there was no reason for the tread to extend back toward the middle of the foot or forward toward the toes.  All that did was make the shoe as awkward to stomp around in as the bigger Look cleats were.  Unfortunately, I had purchased multiple pairs since I thought they'd be great and hard to find again since they were discontinued.  (Yours for free if you want them, let me know!)

Back to the internet, I found another version of Crank Brother's road shoe cleats (with a 2-bolt pattern) which resembled the Shimano pontoon, but was all one brass piece instead of two pieces that nested together.  This was going to require a 3-bolt-to-2-bolt pattern adapter, however, to work with my road shoes.  Another learning around this time was a report of carbon-soled shoes cracking when used with 2-bolt cleats; too much force applied to too small an area, or something like that.  Reportedly, this also can lead to hot spots when biking high mileage.  At any rate, I found some 3-bolt-to-2-bolt adapters (Bebop) and bought a pair for each set of shoes, and also the alternate Crank Brother's road shoe cleats.

Bebop cleat adapter.

Egg Beater 2-bolt road cleat.

The thing is, by this time I'd come to know I had a leg length discrepancy and needed to have my left shoe cleat shimmed.  This led to a couple of annoying situations.  

For 1 thing, shimming the small cleat out from the bottom of the shoe changed the sensation of trying to land the cleat to the pedal.  Normally if you miss, you can feel a little on the bottom of the shoe where you are and slide your foot around to line up for the snap in.  But here, rubbing the bottom of the shoe around wasn't helpful b/c the cleat was protruding awkwardly out from the bottom of the shoe and trust me, it just made it less straight forward to engage.  

The next issue came from the construction of the Crank Brother's cleat, with the rubber being easily knocked off the brass pontoon that is positioned freely in space (due to the shimming) rather than pressed against the sole of the shoe.  Without the rubber, the interaction with the pedal spindle was reduced almost to the point of feeling absent.  And unfortunately, I lost the rubber from the shimmed shoe on only 1 wearing of the shoes.

Once the quantity of my LLD was established via X-ray the recommendation was to use shims in all my footwear.  I found a product that consists of 6- 1 mm layers of non-compressible vinyl that can be cut to size.  I'm still working to get these into all my shoes since cutting the stuff to fit is a huge pain in the ass, but got right on cutting one down to go underneath the triangular adapting plate used on my tri shoes.  Having the shims under the adapter plate worked great, barely changing the feel of how the cleat (using the Shimano pontoon) interacted with the pedal relative to the un-shimmed shoe. 

Over time, however, the pontoon has become bent by my walking since it extends beyond the surface created by the shimmed adapter plate.  I'm not really sure this is a problem, but here's where I am now:

Even though this Egg Beater cleat plus Shimano pontoon has proven remarkably robust, surviving 4 years of my tri shoes being used as my primary cycling shoe without replacement of any component (cleat or pontoon), I fear the bending around the edge of the adapter plate is going to increase the rate of wear on the pontoon that by this point in time will probably be really hard to find, even on the internet.  It's now a more than 4-year old part that I don't even know is made any more.

My road shoes had been sitting around waiting for me to cut and install the vinyl shims under the adapter plate.  The thing is, with my earlier observation that the Crank Brothers rubber pontoon seemed less robust to shearing action, I'm thinking that even if their being pressed against the adapter plate holds them on better (relative to being suspended in space when only shimmed right under the bolts), they may still take a beating over time as I walk in them because, like the Shimano pontoons, they extend a bit beyond the adapter plate.  It's silly to need to replace a perfectly good cleat because the funny little rubber thing keeps falling off.

2-Bolt Egg Beater road cleat showing pontoons extending
past the adapter plate, with vinyl shims under the plate.

And about those adapter plates, they're made of plastic.  Without some metal washers (which weren't provided with the item) I think the plastic will eventually break around where the bolts are and who knows if I'll be able to get replacements.  Though I guess it's possible that I'm their only user and that the inventor is sitting on a pile of them in his basement...  

Want to know what's funny?  Earlier this year I learned that Keo apparently makes Look cleats with a traction pad on them.  And apparently Shimano's 3-bolt road cleats also have traction pads.  All this time I've gone to unbelievable lengths to be able to use Egg Beater pedals with my road and tri cycling shoes and it was apparently completely unnecessary.  How the hell I missed that but found all these other obscure and discontinued parts is completely beyond me.  At any rate, now that the cleats on my tri shoes have finally worn down and need to be replaced, it seemed like the right time to give in and do things the easy way.  

In person, the hex bolts can be seen digging into the Bebop adapter, possibly compressing the "non-compressible" vinyl shim layers (left).  However the Shimano cleat comes with metal washers which probably protect the plastic cleat body (right).  Moving back to 3-bolt cleats means I wouldn't need the Bebop adapters but I think they're nice for holding the shim material evenly against the sole of the shoes, so they'll probably remain on the left shoes only.

Turns Out, Triathlon is a Team Sport

Someone once asked me what I liked about team sports and the answer was easy: I enjoyed contributing to something where the outcome was greater than what I could achieve on my own, and I enjoyed feeling like I belonged to something; team sports offered me a tribe.  Through team sports I spent years finding my voice, if you will, initially struggling with the pressure of screwing up and negatively impacting our results but eventually welcoming and wanting to be put into the game in critical moments.

Individual sports gave me a place to participate for fun, with no such pressures, and also a place to seek improvement in myself through achieving nominally better times which were not even remotely competitive with the larger field.  I was content to improve by small minutes and for years I sought challenge through choosing formidable events, be they longer in distance (marathon, ironman) or challenging in terrain (hilly).

It wasn't until the days following Ironman Wisconsin (2012) that I set a significant and specific goal time: breaking 13 h in an ironman event, and I entered a new and uncomfortable territory of working for something I did not seem to be able to attain.  Was I not working hard enough or was I simply not good enough?  I was repeatedly told by my coach to believe in the work was doing while simultaneously questioned by my Dad as to why I thought I could achieve some time (in a running race) which to him seemed unlikely based on x, y, or z prior results.  I am both too logical to blindly trust in my coach's enthusiasm or to tune out my Dad's questions, and too optimistic to believe I was simply wasting my time.  

My overarching goal for this season has been to really enjoy the process of training and to believe that I can successfully execute any individual workout exactly as intended.  This was an important first step because even I, with my doggedly rational approach to things, could see how I was undermining myself by looking at workouts and immediately exclaiming: good grief, is he crazy?! My thinking was this shift in focus would allow me many opportunities to enjoy success and my hope was that I could establish the trust in my coach and myself that was going to be required to attain any very specific time goal.  Come the end of summer what I think I learned was that I only trusted half as much as I needed to which still left too much on the table for full distance events (marathon, ironman).

This is not meant to say I didn't have pleasing results; on the contrary, despite not correctly executing most of my race plans, I found myself collecting Age Group awards in many of my events, which had very small fields.

Event		AG		Gen
AmZof		1/2		5/10
Deadwood		3/17		39/169
CAC		1/4		9/22
Penticton		3/10		20/53

Coming in to my last scheduled race of the season (Savageman) I wondered what it would be like to enter an iron distance race simply for the fun of it, without the heavy burden of several-months of preparation and expectations.  Many from my training group were gearing up for Beach to Battleship and I wanted another crack at correctly executing an iron-race run plan.  My coach thought I could physically do it, that we'd add one hard week of big hours to prepare for it following Savageman plus its few days of recovery, presuming I could mentally hang on.  I signed up part-way through that big week of work, 18 days before the event.

This was wild and I had literally no idea what to expect.  Would we recycle my race plans, maybe CAC's for the bike and Penticton's for the run?  Could I be faster because this was a flat bike course, or not because I didn't fully peak-train for this specific event?  When the email arrived and I read through my guidance I couldn't hide the disappointment I felt from my friends.  What had I done to reduce the coaches' belief in me that my run plan had been written so?  Instead of the usual very specific pace ranges, 10 sec wide and cutting down at specific mileage points, this one started out with a never-before-seen 30 sec wide pace window for the first 10 mi and then loose guidance to bring it down to just under the lower number from there, and I found myself wrestling with the fact that I was now upset for getting a plan I actually believed I could accomplish.  

Race day.  I experienced my first ever fun 2.4 mi swim and was happy with my current-aided time.  The bike wasn't easy; the winds made maintaining a consistent power output challenging and I spent the ride literally berating myself to keep pushing for the intended ranges.  That said, race day conditions were quite frankly very much easier than those found this year in Penticton and I think CAC as well.  I disregarded my run plan without doing the math to see what time it predicted.  In my head, I thought I needed to maintain <10:01 min/mi to PR against my open marathon time, which is what I wanted to accomplish, and I didn't think what had been written could get me there.  In the end I crossed the finish line with a cumulative time of 11:23:15 and a whole bunch of confusion.

Yes, confusion.  How the hell did I just cut 34 min off my prior best 112 mi bike split and come in >1 h ahead of any time I could ever have imagined?  How had I run what amounted to my most comfortable marathon ever while successfully logging a new PR?  How the hell did I manage to come within 2 minutes of the masters' podium, finishing 6th of a group of 68?  All of a sudden I've not only achieved this hard sought after goal of 13 h but I went screaming by it so far it's taken me completely by surprise.  Just what am I supposed to do with myself now?     

	Prior Best		B2B		Event		AG		Gen
S	1:25:53		1:01:55		Savageman		1/5		12/27
	CP 2015		[1:36/100m]*		Mills		1/3		5/13
B	6:25:07		5:50:55		B2B		1/16		20/142
	CAC 2015		[19.1 mph]
R	4:24:28		4:17:40		* current aided
	Deadwood		[9:50 min/mi]
O'all	13:51:28		11:23:15
	IMBO 2014

What should my new goals be?  Should I target larger events with deeper age group pools?  Should I stick with flat courses?  Should I only do races loaded with friends who provide encouraging support throughout the race?  To this last point, the answer could very well be yes.  I started triathlon in 2001 and after the '03 season took a couple-year break because it was a lonely pursuit.  Even after returning to it, it remained a summer activity - to enjoy a change of pace from ice hockey - and was not something I worked for year-round, as I looked each fall to return to my hockey family and the sense of belonging they provided.  And then, thanks to Ashley, I found the group at Cadence and now I have the best of situations with a supportive group of like-minded and driven athletes.  I've put more out in the Cadence cycling classes than I sometimes do on my own, in the Cadence (and certainly Upper Merion USMS) group swims than I sometimes do on my own, and maybe I'm more willing to leave it all out on the race course when it feels like I'm part of a team all working toward our own highest goals.  I'm thankful to be a part of this group and, what-ever my next goal may be, I hope I can be as supportive to them as they have been to me.

Race Report - Savageman, Sept 2015

What: a hilly er challenging er monstrously awesome triathlon
Distance: Olympic on Saturday, Half (70.0) on Sunday.
Where: Deep Creek, Maryland.

My thought process with regard to Savageman went as follows:

Picture from website www.savagemantriathlon.com.

• T minus ~15 years.  A new acquaintance tells me the bike ride that weekend would probably be pretty hilly and I respond that I hadn't yet met a hill I couldn't climb.
• T minus ~2.3 years (854 days).  Heather mentions this race that she and Matt are considering.  Hilly and hard?  Sounds intriguing.  I mean, it can’t possibly be any worse than the American Zofingen.
• T minus 853 days.  I watch a YouTube video taken on the Westernport wall.  Holy cow, that climb!  I want a brick!!!
• T minus 634 days.  Huge disappointment when 2014 Savageman race date is found to conflict with already scheduled Atlantic City triathlon.
• T minus 123 days.  Sign up for Savageman 2015.

  

  From top of wall looking down.

• T minus 15 and 13 days.  Ride road bike and then tri bike up local heinous cobbled road (Point Royal, in Roxborough).  Feel good about choosing the tri bike for racing.
• T minus 8 days.  Strains quads playing field hockey.  Damn, I really meant to take it easy.
• T minus 4 days (93 h).  Actually READ the course elevation profile, see that ‘that one climb’ is only the beginning of the hard stuff, and that the total elevation gain will exceed that for any other race (iron distance included) that I’ve done.  Holy Shit.
• T minus 90 h.  Coach suggests I put a 28 on my tri bike (which was otherwise outfitted with 12-25 and 50/34).  Yeah, let’s do that.
• T minus 16.5 hours.  I drive the course and turn white.  Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into??
• T minus 2 h.  Slept like crap, felt nauseous, and it was 46 degrees out.  Is DNS an option here?
• T = 0.  Here goes nothing.  Quads cramp as I get into the water to swim.

Course	Date	Bike Distance	Bike Elevation	Run Distance	Run Elevation	Total Gain	Bike Gain/Mi	Run Gain/Mi	Course Gain/Mi
Buffalo Springs	Jun 2002	56	992	13.1	882	1874	17.7	67.3	27.1
De Diamondman	Sep 2003	56	1000	13.1	236	1236	17.9	18.0	17.9
IM Lake Placid	July 2010	112	5601	26.2	998	6599	50.0	38.1	47.7
AmZof short	May 2012	29	2885	10	1565	4450	99.5	156.5	114.1
AmZof middle		58	5770	15	2484	8254	99.5	165.6	113.1
IM Syracuse	June 2012	56	2306	13.1	834	3140	41.2	63.7	45.4
IM Wisconsin	Sept 2012	112	6437	26.2	1138	7575	57.5	43.4	54.8
IM Mt. Tremblant	Aug 2013	112	5686	26.2	981	6667	50.8	37.4	48.2
Rev3 Quassy	June 2014	56	4101	13.1	876	4977	73.2	66.9	72.0
IM Boulder	Aug 2014	112	4573	26.2	823	5396	40.8	31.4	39.0
Challenge Penticton	Aug 2015	112	5472	26.2	390	5862	48.9	14.9	42.4
Savageman (pub'd)	Sep 2015	55.7	6718	13.1	1677	8395	120.6	128.0	122.0
Savageman (rec'd)		55.7	5732	13.1	1220	6952	102.9	93.1	101.0

  The course-provided elevation numbers are in blue, and put this at the hilliest course I've tackled.  However my Garmin data lets the American Zofingen Duathlon maintain this overall distinction.

The air temp reached 48 by the time I got out of my car at the race site, and maybe 50 in the sun before I got in the water, which at 70 degrees felt fantastic.  All women were in the 2nd to last wave and I’m sure the waves are set up intending to get the strongest riders out first in order to keep packs thin on the bike.  Swim was fine, though half of the course heads directly into the rising sun which made visibility tough.  Parts were shallow enough to see (but not touch) lake weed beneath us.  Watching the weeds go by gave the illusion that I was flying compared to my usual sensation of going nowhere while swimming.  One of the turn buoys was this turtle trampoline – how awesome is that!  Quads felt crampy the whole time so I did not try to push the swim pace.  Meanwhile, I wondered how far I’d get on the bike course with my legs feeling so bad.

Thomas Turtle was the 2nd turn buoy.  
I LOVED this.  Why don't more races 
show some kind of personality?

Being in the 2nd to last wave and at the slow end of the swimmers meant my bike was one of few remaining in transition.  Never mind what it would do to my time, I was going to dry off and put on my long sleeved shrug because the upcoming 12 miles of shaded decent was sure to be freezing while wet.

 

Bike starts with a solid climb and I was passed early on.  Oh well.  Between my legs and the course topology, I pretty much threw out my coaches race advice and took this all one hill at a time, easy as she goes.  There is relatively little of this course that is appropriate for mindless pedaling in aero.  Unfortunately I missed the athlete meeting the day before, so had to assume the course was open to vehicles.  So on narrow, winding, heavily-shaded but with occasional beams of sunlight getting through right into my eyes, roads that were mostly dry following some overnight rain, I sat upright on my tri bike to use my torso as drag to help meter my speed as I descended past a handful of competitors heavily riding their brakes because we all knew this route has several 90 degree turns in it.  (Breathe.)  The turns are marked with warnings but they are impossible to heed if you’re already carrying too much speed; more on that later.  Thank god the road surface was in good shape for the initial big decent because I could barely see anything, at times feeling like I was looking at a strobe light.  My big fat aero helmet was doing a great job keeping my head warm, but it caught so much air in that upright position that it was nearly pulled off my head twice.  All in all, a somewhat scary segment if you’re aiming to leave no free speed behind.  I did some pedaling when I didn’t really need to, aiming to keep my legs from getting stiff.

Shout out to the squirrel so determined to cross the road that after I screamed NO at him he ran back up the tree, put his tail into helicopter mode, then came running back at me kamakazi style while chirping his war cry.  I'm pretty sure I heard him say, You'll never take me alive!

The Westernport Wall (cue the dramatic music).  4 short-sided residential blocks long, this hill climbs ~150 feet with an average grade of 24% and hitting 31% (source - Kyle Yost, course designer) at it's steepest, on a place where the pavement has changed from standard mercadam to an uneven patchwork of rock and cracked cement.  It is lined with cheering spectators and it is this climb that earns one a brick if they make it to the top.  

I felt good starting out though wasn't sure how to deal with the fool zig zagging all over the road.  This maneuver is called Paper Boy'ing and is dumb.  If you learn to ride on roads with traffic, you can't do this as it is incumbent upon you to bike in a predictable manner so that cars are able to avoid you.  Biking a straight line got me past that chick quickly and I had no problem with the bottom 3 blocks.
On to the steepest one, my belief was that I would detect when I needed to kick over to high power to bust through and I wanted to get as far as I could before doing that since I was not sure my quads wouldn't lock up once I went full bore.  I stood up and continued on methodically for several more pedal strokes as I hit cracks I'd wanted to avoid.  I aimed toward the right since that is where the pavement is reportedly a bit better.  My perception was that the volunteer keeping pace with me was moving closer on my left, and with that unusual distraction (I don't normally climb hills with walkers talking me through it) I put myself on path to hit a nasty crack and I lost my momentum trying to avoid it.  My front wheel hit the curb and I fell off toward the right.  Video shows the volunteer was reasonably far away and I needed to have turned on the gas instead of changing trajectories.

 The steepness of the hill was a bit disorienting and I took my time standing up while my bike was quickly whisked away and racked just beyond the "top" of this climb.  The hill is so steep it was awkward to walk up during my scouting trip and even more so in cycling shoes.  Anyway, given the on-going sensation in my legs, I figured this was the expected outcome and there were several additional intense climbs I still had to get through.

Reunited with my bike, I began the second half of this ascent among what seemed like an explosion of other participants - where did they all come from? It felt like a weird game of Frogger, dodging people weaving all over the place, stopping in the middle of the road to unclip and walk, all while avoiding the strips and piles of gravel remaining from the relatively recent chip seal job.  This experience was clearly somewhere between hilariously funny and wildly sadistic.  At any rate, it felt good to reach the top clipped in and rubber side down, even if it was only at 3-4 mph.

Lighting was better for the remaining descents, with the sun higher and the tree coverage less thick, but it was still quite easy to carry too much speed into hairy 90 degree S-turns.  I was passed by such a person and for one hot minute wondered if I could go faster before deciding no, I couldn't.  When I saw him lock up his bike, cross the road, and narrowly miss creaming himself into some trees I over squeezed my own brakes and put myself into a skid that took me into the on-coming lane.  At this point I spotted the volunteer at the bottom of the S-curve and wondered why he wasn't positioned at the top, to serve as an additional warning instead of an observer to dial the phone if people wiped out.

Throughout the hills I ultimately caught a few more people than had passed me, and I reeled in several more on Killer Miller - the hill we had to summit before 3:30 o'clock else get swept from the course.  Fatigue was settling in but I found new life finally reaching the 49.5 mile mark, where I could finally lay down some comfortable speed in aero.

The final 1.3 miles were crowded with runners coming at me on my left, running my same direction on my right, and I split the difference and rode down the middle of the road, again hoping this wasn't actually an open course.  I pulled toward the dismount line unsure what was going to happen when I tried to stand up.

T2.  Time on the race clock was ~5:30 when I entered transition, meaning the lead women were soon to complete their races (winning time 5:32:09) and the lead men had already been relaxing for an hour (winning time 4:37:17).  It also meant I was probably looking at something like a 7:30 finish which was the bottom end of my predicted finishing window, assuming I didn't end up walking the descents after my quads finally gave up.  And with that thought I went ahead and used the bathroom.

I knew the run course was on both paved and unpaved trails but didn't get the chance to scout it as I had intended.  My plan had been to bike the run course but now running it I saw I would have had a really challenging time doing so on my Cervelo.  I expected gravel but not shaded and exposed tree roots on a sideways-slope, or grass, or soft forest floor (nice to run on, by the way) that was not obviously part of a regular park trail.  Those surfaces were short to get through but fresh off the bike sure made for some nervous moments as I wondered if my quads were going to survive this.  Overall the run was two laps of a mostly out-and-back nature on gently rolling terrain, except for two steeper segments.  The first was a loop through a campground, with elevation gain of like 120 ft (5-7% grade) for 0.4 miles of paved road.  The second was heinous - a dirt plus uneven-rock fire road with an overall grade of 8% for 0.4 miles.  I saw most people walked this but my first time through I took the first 3/4 of it at a slow jog before giving in, thinking the darn hill might never end.  At the top you traveled maybe 20 yd before hitting a turn around timing mat/cone and heading back down.  I ran down this hoping for the best: good footing and no quad whammies.  At this time I finally started to feel confident my quads were not going to cramp or give out and I wondered if I could negative split the run.  Ha!  Cute thought.  (I was more than 9 min slower on the 2nd lap.)

The second time through my hamstrings started to feel bitchy and the whiny side of my brain wondered what the point was of pushing myself when I was clearly not going to post a good time.  Reasoning with said voice, I figured the ride home was going to be terribly uncomfortable regardless, so I might as well feel gratified that I didn't punk out.  Still, I walked the entire fire road ascent the 2nd time through; I mean, it just seemed like the sane thing to do.  I shared the walk and some conversation with another competitor who after hearing what my A-race was this year said, "you're doing THIS race 3-weeks out from an ironman?!?!"  Uhm, well, yeah.  I mean, I figured it would be tough.  He said this was his A-race and he was struggling.

The run in from the fire road was notably less crowded than my first lap and I passed one or two folks checking what lap I was on.  I guessed they were starting to sweep the course which left me with the impression I was really Back Of the Pack for this one.  Despite that, the finish line was still fun.  It's not that it was lined with people still cheering, but that as a nice, grassy, lake-front park with also a sandy beach, lots of people were still hanging out enjoying the beautiful afternoon.  Music, great food - I mean real food, burger or choice of non-meat item, pasta salad, cookies, something else that made this seem like real food.  Free ice cream.  (All these same food items were available for-purchase for non-athletes.)  Families, groups of athletes talking about their races.  Competitors asking how my day went.  Just really enjoyable. This folks, is a must do event.  Real quality and a real challenge.

The printed on-site results stopped some 10 min before I got in and I didn't have the energy to read a list of ~150 names to see how many women were ahead of me.  I was in transition packing my things when announcements of random female age groups started.  One girl, in the 20-24 group I think and doing her first 70 mi race was excited to hear her name.  Then another excited utterance from another age group and a rack 10 or so away from mine.  Then I heard my name.  MY NAME?  For real?  Well isn't that a kick in the pants!   The 3rd place Master's finisher was in my AG so I got the bump to 1st AG place.  Giddy up.

	Time	Pace	AG Rank	Gender	Overall
Swim	44:43	2:01 /100yd	5 of 6	23 / 31	188 / 217
T1	5:16		3 of 6		137 / 217
Bike	4:21:21	12.7 mph	2 of 6	12 / 28	160 / 217
T2	2:36		4 of 6		114 / 211
Run	2:21:33	10:54 min/mi	2 of 6	12 / 27	134 / 209
Overall	7:35:27		2/6 --> 1/5	12 / 27	157 / 209

 
It took me long enough to hobble down to the award table that I don't know whether any other placers in my AG were present, but I asked the guy to take my picture and text it too me since this was my first chance to stand on the 1 (since I wasn't present to personally receive my Challenge AC aquabike award).  John Kenny (#3 overall finisher and the coach of my masters swim group) spotted me on my way back to transition and we chatted a bit.  It was really fun running in to someone I actually knew. 

The only thing I haven't covered yet were the fantastic volunteers.  Not only helpful but seemingly genuinely excited to be there and interested in my having a great experience.  This race was one of the top-est notch experiences I've had.  With an olympic distance race held the day before hand, this is a perfect event to bring your friends for a long weekend of racing and having fun.  As Arnold said, I'll be back.