Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, buy me a new bike

Finish a race on the same bike I began has never crossed my mind as being a race day goal. Now it is.

As you recall, I had a bike failure a few weeks ago during a race. I thought it was fixed. The mechanic put my rear wheel back together, test rode the bike, declared it healed. It’s not his fault. Despite all the people, things, events I was blaming during my race last Saturday, it was not anybody’s fault. Some bizarre, 1 in 1 million chance means that the bearings in my rear hub failed and it’s super hard to diagnose that without taking the entire wheel/hub apart. So 3 miles into the race I heard the squeaking and smelled burning grease, AGAIN.

“Are you kidding me.”

I stopped right away, I wasn’t going to risk a wreck and this time I had more options. I pulled to the side of the road where a volunteer was standing with a radio. He said, “I heard you squeaking, something’s wrong, want me to take a look?” I said, “give me your phone, and do you smell burning grease?” I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it and before I took extreme measures I needed some validation. I called Hubs and when he answered I yelled, “bring me your bike. Bring me your shoes. Now. I don’t know where I am, Monticello Rd and something. Just get here!”

I then stood on the side of the road for 17 agonizing minutes, watching people fly past. There was a man, his wife, and their 2 young girls volunteering, along with a friend of mine who helped me during my last race, waving riders around a corner. The dad asked if I wanted to sit down in one of their chairs and take a break or if that was against the triathlete code.

I probably would have if I’d been in a clearer frame of mind but I told him triathletes must suffer the entirety of the race or it doesn’t count. A few minutes later my volunteer friend asked me if I was feeling okay.

“Why? I’m fine.”
“You’re kind of making a weird noise, do you need some water?”

I had been growling every time a cyclist went past. Oops.

Hubs suddenly flew up on his bike. We had an awkward moment of more bikes than hands and somebody asked what to do with my bike.

“Set it on fire and buy me a new one.” This was my suggestion as we quickly changed shoes and jammed water bottles into holders.

I had to wear his shoes, because his bike has different pedals than mine. I looked like a clown. The dad volunteer said, “you’re getting a bike change? Is this the Tour de France?” My friend said, “this is not typical for a triathlete to have multiple bikes.”

He then looked at my small shoes and Neal’s not small feet, “how is he going to ride that thing back?”

“He’ll figure it out, I have to go.” I took off.

45 seconds down the road the chain drops.

“Are you kidding me.” I pulled over and fixed the chain.

What I didn’t know was during that chain fix, my gel nutrition fell out of my back jersey pocket.

I reached for it 10 minutes later to find it empty.

“Are you kidding me.”

That was apparently the theme for this race.

Hubs’ bike is awesome, but it’s not a triathlon bike. It’s a road bike, with different handle bars, different seat, different riding entirely. Not to mention he’s taller than me, so the saddle was a wee bit high. Which meant every pedal stroke I had to push up onto my tip toes to get maximum power. Long story short, I was dying. My only thought was damage control. Make up as much time on the bike, get to the run, don’t blow up.

We listened to a triathlon podcast in the car the day before and the athletes discussed professional time trial cycling*. The words they used were “white hot pain.” I’d been very uncomfortable during races but wasn’t sure I had ever found that level of effort.

Well I found it. I found white hot pain and I lived there for the whole race. Heck I built a house and moved into it. While that sounds dramatic, it’s actually an excellent mental exercise. The next day I raced again and as soon as I got on my bike and felt the aches in my muscles I decided to ride until my body hurt more than the day before. I pictured that house in the land of white hot pain. I pictured myself walking up to the house, opening the door, and sitting down in a chair. I visualized the closed door as a barricade between myself and everything outside. It helps. It’s amazing how strong the mind is, how we can actually endure more than our bodies tell us.

I made it to the run.

It was a beautiful route, shaded, twisty, and through the woods on a gravel trail. I kept with my motto of damage control and tried to pass every person I could see. As I passed one guy I heard him say “you dropped a baggie.”

At that point in the race your brain is mush. It took about 45 seconds for his words to process. I skidded to a stop, “I dropped a bag?”

“Yes, back there, it’s got white tabs in it.”

“Are you kidding me.” It was my little ziploc of electrolyte tablets. Sodium boosts that I swallow throughout the run at aid stations. I had to turn around and sprint back.

3 miles in I caught up with a guy I had been chasing for a while. As I passed his shoulder he said, “I’m going to stay with you. Pace me until I blow up.”

“Great. Let’s do it.” I’ve talked before about the triathlon community and how cool it is to meet people during races. Running together is always better than alone.

We held pace for the last three miles, chatting on and off when we could gasp enough breath. He acted like I motivated him to the finish, but the last quarter mile he started sprinting. I was going to let him go, I had maxed out my effort and wasn’t in the mood to throw up on him. But I’ll be darned if he didn’t encourage me to keep up! He beat me across the line but I can 100% say I would have been slower if he hadn’t said such kind words.

Now we’re friends on Strava and can follow each other’s races and training. I look forward to crossing paths again.

Hubs looked very concerned when I crossed the line; I thought that was so sweet, he was worried about how I’d be feeling.

“You didn’t crash my bike or anything, did you? You’ve never ridden it before, it’s not outside the realm of possibilities.”

Eyeroll.

I placed 1st in my age group, which is an accomplishment considering the time lost. If you do the math and subtract 17 minutes from my results, I would have placed 1st female overall. Hubs doesn’t think I should include this fact. He says it sounds desperate and needy….if the shoe fits…

I don’t know where I stand in the Kinetic Cup rankings yet. It takes a few days for them to update the points and there’s still a few more races in the circuit. I have one more KC race in October, and perhaps the stars will align for that one and I can get a perfect score to guarantee that Cup! Here are pictures of the Cup, as promised.

Look at the picture of the cup for 2020. I laugh every time.

The next day was the Sprint distance race. I had arrogantly assumed I’d be able to take this race easy, use it as a buffer for my Cup standings. Given the horrors of the day before, strategies changed and I needed to go all out for this one. Of course, we have the issue of my non-functioning bike, but I’ll get into that next week.

Remember my portapotty woes? Look what was at this race. Yeah, you better believe that’s the one I used. Clearly I’m not the only one who feels strongly about this.