I sucked down the Gatorade, took two salt tabs, drank half a squeezy racer bottle and headed towards the final climb of the day, Yellow Lake. I started to feel better about fifteen minutes after the Lemon/Lime pound-fest. By the time I had made the turn back onto Highway 3A, I had power returning to my legs. However, I still felt bad if I stayed on my aerobars for more than ten minutes in a row, so I didn't. I alternated up and down. Trying to time the "downs" with the flat or slightly descending sections of the road up to Yellow Lake.

Even though I was suffering, I did have one thought about the bright side of being MOP (middle of the pack). MOP-male is where a lot of the best looking women are racing. These are the ladies that are really fit but not quite as (how can I say this without offending anyone...) "thin" as the top ladies. These are girls that need their sports bras. Passing them and being passed by them was a nice distraction from some of the pain I was feeling. One girl even gave me a bottle of Lemon/Lime when I poured out my tale of woe. She probably has no idea how happy that made me.

A tailwind arrived and I started apologising to God for all the nasty things that I had said earlier while under physical duress. As the wind grew stronger, my legs found renewed power and I started dropping people. I actually had to hold myself back on the climb. For the first time all day, I was feeling really strong and powered up the hill saying hi to all the spectators and smiling from ear to ear. Towards the top, I saw some friends and that gave me a further boost. At the top, I grabbed a bottle of water and a Gatorade (turned out to be orange, so I dropped it).

The race organisers had closed one lane of the road from here all the way to the bottom of the Yellow Lake descent. This was a good move because it made the drop back to town much safer. There are a few short climbs after the main Yellow Lake climb but these were gravy as I was feeling good. I decided to go for it and got down on my bars for a high speed hammerfest. I have no idea how fast I was going but the Lord decided to give me a little reminder who was boss. I was happily listening to my race wheels humming and enjoying yelling at folks to get out of my way when a tiny puff of wind touched the side of my Hed Aero. The speed wobble that soon followed was enough to get me off my bars and on my bullhorns. My heartrate must have hit 170. Can't beat a little bit of fear to get a little more alert. Normally, I have to go mountaineering for that kind of adrenaline. Well worth the price of admission.

Got to the bottom of the hill and the turn on to Highway 97 and realised that I had a pee coming on. Hallelujah! This couldn't have come at a better time. I decided to deal with it at T2 and pushed back to town. There was zero wind and I got my head back down and was pushing a bit. By this time men surrounded me. Where had the tri-babes gone?

Pushed back to town and rode up Main Street. Had a thought for the poor souls last year that were facing a killer headwind back up Main Street. Nothing for me. Eased off the speed, started getting vertical and out of the saddle. Got to within one block of the bike finish and slipped my feet out of my shoes. A person in the crowd said, "It looks like you are happy to have your feet out of those shoes." The relief must have been written all over my face. It was heaven. Cool air passing over my feet. Rolled through the bike racks and handed my bike over to the volunteers.

The outside of the middle of my feet was trashed and very tender. However, I knew that the swap to running shoes wouldn't aggravate the situation. As a matter fact, I was looking forward to a brief leg-stretcher. Yeah, right.

Bike 05:54:49 - 168 out of 309 in my Age Group (AG) - 620 out of 1770 overall

Sitting in 644^th position (net gain 222 spots)

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