Ironman Texas: The Bike

The 1 loop Ironman bike made a spectacular comeback in Texas, taking full advantage of the hundreds of miles of not much of anything on the outskirts of the Woodlands. The first 30 miles of the bike are relentlessly flat, before some gently rolling hills poke out of the National Forest. Driving the bike course, my mind pretty effectively dulled after mile 60. Sufficed to say the course is mostly flat with a number of very gentle climbs. And it all looks pretty much the same.

The worst part of the course was the fact that the wind was backwards. You get to enjoy a 3 mph tailwind during the first 40 miles of the bike and fight a 10 mph headwind for the last 45. For the first two hours, I feel like I have wings. Keeping my easy Ironman rhythm, I’m averaging right at 20 mph even after hitting the rolling hills. My speed oscillates from 16 mph climbing the hills (and coming out of aero for the first handful of times) to 28 mph shooting down the other side of them. I kept clipping away the miles and checking my average speed. It’s very easy to break up the miles when you’re doing 20 mph; the math always works out very easily. It’s 3 minutes per mile, and the numbers almost always end in a 0. So for the first few hours, I was in pretty good spirits.

I didn’t have enough Infinit to get me through any significant portion of the bike, so I brought energy bars to do the job. Unfortunately I had dropped 2 hours worth of food in the first 10 miles, leaving me to more or less depend on what they had on course. The Ironman Perform has caused me problems in the past, but seemed to be keeping just fine so far. I know Bonk Breakers are relatively inoffensive, but I don’t get my paws on one until the 2nd half. So I basically subsist as long as I can on what I’ve managed to not lose and just rely on the course after that. What’s the worst that can happen, I throw up? Ha! That’s a funny story I’ll get to in a minute…

The food I am able to take in is either too much too quickly, or in the moment unfamiliar to my body and I can’t help but notice a side stitch for the first hour and a half on the bike. Side stitches on the bike are kind of a fun experience. On the run they’re so debilitating, so painful as they’re being constantly tossed around and re-aggravated. On the bike you barely notice that it’s there. Just a bit of tension in the side, but it never really hurts worse, makes you want to stop or even slows you down; you just kind of take a casual notice to it and keep going. I cross the mile 40 marker in 2:00:04 and turn out of the tailwind.

The forest is pretty cool, giving us not only something to look at but quite a bit of shade for a little while. While the roads were kind of intimidating in a car, being on a bike and having relative certainty no cars would appear around the next bend was quite exhilarating whipping around the turns and taking full advantage of the flat terrain. At the start it appeared to be a good mix of farmland, forest and state highways. Things were happening pretty quickly until mile 40. They slowed down to what they probably should have been thereafter. After one of the bigger turns I saw Gant on the side of the road. I didn’t have much time to think about what had happened, but I later recalled that he routinely races without any tubes or bike equipment of any kind. Maybe he learned a lesson sitting on the side of the road out there. From the look of the time and average speed of his first bike segment it looks like he spent a while out there… 

The stretch from 50 to 65 is kind of hard to recall. I lost track of the turns, more or less completely forgot where I was at any given time. I definitely couldn’t remember where Special Needs was. The gels I had packed weren’t providing too significant a carrot to chase, but the Delta E could not get here fast enough. It’s brutal stuff to take down, but I eagerly squeeze out every last drop when I finally get my hands on it. By this point, around mile 60, I could feel my energy levels drop off in the first significant way. To be honest, 60 miles in was farther than I expected to get before having to dig a little bit. I got as mentally strong as I could before the turn at mile 65 into 25 miles of direct, non-interrupted headwind.

I broke this section up into 5 five-mile stretches, each one getting me marginally closer to T2. Not much to be said from here on in. Where I had earlier averaged 20, I was now doing well to hold much more than 14. A 10 mph wind doesn’t seem like much, but it was on the back end of an increasingly hot Ironman bike ride. My back, butt and knee are getting sore and I just finished up the last of my earlier purchased food. One of my goals was to pee twice during the bike ride and again in Transition, so I was glad to have to stop around mile 75 to do so; this means I’m not dehydrated to the point where I can expect system shutdown early in the run. Each 5-mile patch passes slower than the last, but I finally make it to mile 90 and turn out of the headwind into a somewhat headwind. Essentially, it’s into the wind all the way back. Mentally I broke around mile 85. I just didn’t care about time too much anymore. For the first time in my Ironman life, nausea started to creep up during the bike. I tried to induce vomiting at the last aid station to no avail. Guess we’ll have to save that for the run.

The short version is I eventually outlasted the course and made it back to T2. The last 10 miles happened to be on the whitest pavement I’ve ever seen before, blinding me and probably most everyone else, but we made it back in once piece. Immediately upon hopping off my bike, the outside of both my feet were very, very tender, tender to the point to where I doubted my ability to run off of it. I did a bit of a jog-walk to the transition area and it finally alleviated. Taking my time, I dusted off my feet and changed into my run clothes.

The swim and bike are done. The realization that you now have to run a marathon is very often a crippling one, but to me I was glad to say that very little would be left up to chance from here. In the swim, you can get kicked in the right spot and break your goggles; you can cramp up and hyperventilate; you can catch an unwanted water bug and spend the rest of your abbreviated day puking up everything you eat. On the bike, you can blow one too many tires; you can snap a cable or break a chain; you can crash with another bike, or a car, or simply not pay attention and run yourself off the road. But on the run, not much can really prematurely end your day. So long as you have enough time and you’re smart with hydration, nutrition and temperature management, you can always keep moving. You can control it better.

That’s what I was thinking as I began my run. The only thing I deserve to do, the only thing I’ve ever really cared to do, was to finish. And, at this point, it’s just a matter of time.

Bike Time: 6:40:32 16.78 mi/h 91/160
First 56 mi: 3:07:06 17.96 mi/h
Second 56: 3:33:26 15.74 mi/h