Hiawassee Summer Sizzler - The Bike

As I started out on the bike, I was struggling to recover physically, mentally, and emotionally from the swim. Physically, the blood hadn't quite started flowing back to the legs, despite my best efforts at kicking the last 200 meters or so. Mentally, I was coming around a lot faster. I had done very well on the second half of my swim. I did the first lap in 14 minutes and some change, and I completed the second lap in 13 minutes and change. I'll take a negative split and a good second lap any day. Emotionally? Blech... I was mad at myself for doing such a crappy job on the first lap, and I had a long bike ride ahead to think about it.

As I left the mounting area, I made a right down the entrance into the park. Dee Dee was there waiting for me to snap my picture and cheer me on. I would be remiss not to mention what a great job Dee Dee did of capturing the race.


I wasn't in a big hurry to spin up the hill on the way out. I had used my legs way to much during the first lap of the swim, and they were tired. Dee Dee snapped a picture of me on the way out from the back side. I'm sure she was fixated on my butt, but ignore that for a minute and see if you can pick out the lines running through my left leg. My muscles were clenched and tight. Not a good thing for starting out the ride.


As I exited the park, I made a right turn onto the highway and began a long descent to the road that would take us north. I was on the tail end of a group of about five riders. Within the first mile of the bike, I got passed by a couple of people with some really sweet rides.


Once we reached the intersection with Hwy 515, we made a right turn and headed north into the State of North Carolina. I thought that was very cool. I had never raced in two states in one event. It was on this section of the route that the rolling hills began. Stupid me forgot to set my Garmin on cycle, so I had no idea what my current or average speed was. I was however, setting some records for running pace :-)

For the next eight miles or so, a young thirty-six year old woman and I played tag. She would pass me on the uphills, and I would pass her on the downhills. The route around the lake was beautiful. I remember traveling past the golf course and seeing a group of golfers waiting to tee off. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not totally confident in the golfing abilities of the residents of Hiawasee, and their fairway was right next to the road upon which I was traveling. I breathed a collective sigh of relief as I rode further up the fairway and saw that they were waiting on a group of golfers to exit the fairway. I was safe for the moment.

As I passed striped tri-shorts girl one final time, I joked with her and said we have to stop meeting like this, and on the next hill, we did. Stop meeting that is. She powered up the hill, and I let her go. I basically admitted that she was more fit than I was, and if I spent the entire bike course trying to keep up with her, I was going to die. For the next 10 miles, I kept her within a quarter of a mile or so, until even then I couldn't keep the pace any more. It was the last time I saw her until I made it back to the entrance of the park.

Around mile 10, I felt the rumble of my stomach demanding food. At that point, I remembered that I left my food in the transition area and silently cursed the triathlon gods. I had remembered to fill my bottle with Accelerade, and I used that to satisfy my hunger a bit. The problem is that whenever I drink on the bike, it gives me gas and upsets my stomach. I managed to down a quarter of the bottle over the entire 23.5 miles.

Around mile 12, I thought to myself I've been going for a while, I have to be getting close to the end. K? You can stop laughing now. I was serious. I had been busting my arse like I was on a sprint and had basically given it everything I had for the first twelve miles. Of course, the problem was that I still had half the distance to go. I got really really mad at myself at that point. What the hell was I doing? This was fun? If I didn't come out of the gate like a bull in a china shop, I wouldn't be already so dang sore and tired and frustrated with half the bike left to complete. Well, I took that opportunity to channel my anger. I knew I had it in me to finish the bike. I had trained hard. Eleven miles was nothing! I focused on pedaling from the core. My legs were nothing more than levers of my core muscles. They did no work what so ever.

For the next four miles this strategy worked beautifully. I tried hard to enjoy the scenery. The lake was beautiful. I remember going past a pasture of beautiful horses that were laying on the backs with their feet up in the air, scratching their backs. That brought out a serious chuckle. At one point, I made a right turn and headed back across the lake for Georgia. I had to cross a single lane bridge. The police officers were kind enough to hold up the traffic for me, and I waved my thanks to the six or seven cars on the other side waiting to cross.

Around mile sixteen the cramps started...

This was a sure sign that I had wasted to much of my legs in the swim and the early part of the bike. I got up out of the saddle and stretched my legs, preventing a serious set of seizures. By carefully sending relaxing thoughts to my muscles, I managed to control the cramps and continue my ride. That Chi Running book sure came through for me there :-)

In looking back over the ride, there was a lot of little hills, and maybe three or four serious hills. The Garmin told me that I was approaching the end of the bike route. The road curved ahead and gently rose into the sky. As I rounded the corner, I prayed to see the entrance to the park. Instead, I got the hill from hell. There really is no feeling quite like wishing to see the end of the race, and instead seeing a big ole stinking steep hill. I coulda cried. LOL. Well, not really... At that point, I did say screw it. There was no way I was going to bust my arse going up that hill. I ratcheted down into my lowest gear and ground my way up the hill, never once stopping, but never really reaching a good pace either. Once I crested the top of the hill, it was a relatively flat couple of miles through the town of Hiawassee back to the entrance of the park.

As I made the right hand turn, low and behold striped tri-shorts girl came riding up from the other direction. She had missed her turn and added a little yardage to her bike route. We road into the park together. Some dude came riding up and passed on my left and then slowed. It was understandable, as there were runners on the course now and we had to be careful. I, however, didn't want to pass on his right and/or take out a runner while I was at it.


Eventually, we got things straightened out. Once around the camp grounds and we came to the dismount point at the end of transition. I dismounted in pretty good shape. I ran into transition, ditched my helmet, gloves, and shoes. I slipped on the twin wonders, tied'em up, switched my race belt around and was out of transition in flash. My T2 transition time was my fastest ever!! 1:26 seconds... With the sun and temperatures rising, the most grueling part of the race was about to begin... and... you guessed it... My food was still sitting under my towel. Doh!! I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.