part two: the bike

and away i go.

the first part of the bike ride is along the side of a highway so that's a little sketchy. i was riding a mountain bike and all these people on road bikes were whizzing past me. "on your left!" i tried not to let this get me down.

finally i crossed the highway and headed up the part of the course that was a less used road. as it turns out, the course is not as flat as i had remembered. i guess when you're in a car driving on the road, it seems flat but there was quite a bit of slow incline. unfourtunately, i'd been mostly training on flat courses. my legs were tired very soon into the 20km.


so i'm riding along when the paparazzi come up beside me in a pink jetta. oh wait! it's ang and judy hanging out the windows with their cameras. it was pretty funny. as you can see by the picture, i'm still able to smile at this point.

angela had put a squirt bottle in the bottle thing on the bike but as i was dying of thirst, it occurred to me that i hadn't practiced getting the bottle out while riding. my first attempt was pretty wobbly and i couldn't pull it out. second attempt, i slowed down a little and was able to get it out. i only pulled it out a couple times on the route despite being thirsty. people were still passing me fairly consisently as my legs were getting heavier and heavier. a lady with a basket on her bike and wearing a paisly dress passes me. that was a pretty low point.

as you're riding up the road, people who were way ahead of you are riding down the road toward you. so you're seeing how many people are in front of you. this stream of people seemed never ending and i still hadn't reached the turn around. when i thought i may never reach it, a guy riding towards me must have seen the desperation in my face and yelled out, "you're almost there!" thanks to tattoo boy for that!

on my way back down the road, i have to admit that i was happy to see that there were still people riding towards me. i was not the last one! i called out, "you're almost there!" to someone and kept going. now the running portion of the race also takes place on this road -- people run up the road then back down the road. so as i hit the 2.5km marker where runners turn around, i begin to see the people running toward me. in fact, as i ride down the road, i'm passing runners who are also going down the road! that's how much faster they were.

finally i round the bend and can see the end of the biking portion. i can hear my dad cheering on the people ahead of me. "Go number 35! Go number 248!" when he sees me he begins cheering, "Go 127!" afterwards, he told me that he thought i was going to fall off my bike, i looked so tired. i guess the smiling was no longer possible. my shorts that i'd bought two day prior and had never worn before were riding up (as you can see in the picture) and were driving me crazy. i now know why bikers wear spandex. i ride down the little hill to where the bikes are parked and there are what looks to be hundreds of bikes already there. my mom and ang are sitting in their lawn chairs and are suprised when i appear. my mom calls out, "i'll take your bike!" and when i look over, she's snapping pictures. apparently, i was a little rude in saying, "are you gonna take my bike or what?" i plead fatigue. :) she grabs it (thanks mom!) and i turn around and run through the finish line to start my 5km. the winner of the race is running towards me and calls out, "go get 'em!" to me. it's the motivation i need.

i run past jamie yelling "Go 127! You can do it!"...