I was very happy to rip off my wetsuit and was really looking forward to the bike ride. I took a few extra seconds in transition and made sure to drink a few shots of my water that had my prolytes in it, knowing the water at the aid stations would not have the needed electrolytes in it. Feeling pretty good I set out to conquer the ‘beast’. I looked down at my watched and noticed that my HR was 185 despite not feeling that bad. I realized that I needed to slow down as my body had not recovered from the heat of the swim yet. It took me a few mile but managed to get the HR back down to my normal range. I felt pretty good and took it pretty easy on the bike, wanting to go up the ‘beast’ and achieve my main goal for the race - no walking on the bike course. I pounded up the hill and felt awesome doing it. I didn’t get passed by anyone. The hill was so steep at points that it required us cyclist to ‘zig zag’ or ‘switchback’ to get up it. There was a welcome aid station at the top with a large group of encouraging locals, it was just awesome! The first half of this ride was up, up, up, and on very bendy and mostly rough roads. The entire course was beautiful. When the roads weren’t tree lined, there was an incredible view of the ocean. I tried to drink half of bottle of supplied Gatorade and grab a cold water bottle to dump on my head to keep my body temperature down each time I went through one of the four aid stations. 40 miles into the bike ride, I knew something was wrong. I started to get a wicked side stick and I never get those on the bike. The next sign was when the woman age groupers started going by..... not that these woman weren’t athletes because holy crap they were. At mile 52 there was a long swooping hill with a sharp left hand turn close to the bottom. I am not a great bike handler and slowed down to ensure a safe exit at the bottom. One of those speedy age group woman didn’t have the same fortune. I came around the hard left to see this pour girl sitting in the ditch with blood everywhere. I slowed even more to see that a race official happened to be right there and radioed for help right away. The idea of that nightmare haunts ever cyclist during a race, and this girl happened to be in second place at the time, ouch. The second-half of the bike course took us to the other side of the island, which was a bit more open, and the winds were still brutal. I limped into transition extremely glad for it to be over with a blazing time of 3:09:51.
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