Bike

We had never practiced on open roads before so when we found out the bike portion of the race would be on main streets some of the girls decided to stick together after the first transition. From the pool we ran up a small hill to where our bike racks were and quickly got dried off! We threw on shoes, clothes, and our helmets and hit the ground pedaling. The day before, Shari and I drove the course and got a good preview on what was to come. One word: HILLY! We trained hard for this race but our area is relatively flat so the mountainous roads surrounding the park were a bit of a shock. Even with our weekly hill workouts this course was tough, tough, tough! Did I mention it was hilly??

The first section of the course took us down the main highway and we knew there were two huge hills right at the beginning. A quick right turn led us to the first obstacle. By then my adrenaline had already worn off and I was feeling the burn. I knew I didn’t want to kill myself so early in the race so half way up I jumped off my bike and finished walking up the hill. The terrain flattened out just enough to catch my breath and then we were tackling another huge climb. We had probably only biked three miles or so and I felt like I was going to throw up so I jumped off, grabbed some water, and gave my legs a break. I walked as fast as I could until the top and then hit the pavement again. I pedaled my heart out and managed to make up some time on the back of the course. There was one final climb before we were directed to one of the main roads and I knew we were in the home stretch. Thankfully there were police directing traffic so I zoomed through the last intersection and gave it my all. When I saw my friend Krissy’s dad filming from the side of the road I knew we were close to the park and couldn’t wait to get off my bike! We made it through the 10.62 miles in 48 minutes and still full of smiles!

It’s funny how incredibly slow we look in this video because I would have sworn I was going all out!