On Coomba Park Road, I was making good time and moving through the field. I came up on a pack of folks and they were slowing me down. I moved through them in small hills and then they ran me down on the flats. I assumed that either I had died or they were moving faster than me so I let them through. Once in front, they promptly died at the next hill. I moved through, they chased me down on the flats. This continued until the third cycle where I asked them to break up their pack and ride clean. At that stage one guy actually smiled and laughed at me. I thought to myself, "this is not the way I want to get to Kona" and let them pull a minute or so ahead of me while I took a pee (while riding, of course).

The officials handed out 130 drafting violations and 10 DQs and the ride was still a joke. Tour de France with tri-bars. I have said too much. Back to the positive stuff.

I pass the Special Needs station and they were in disarray so I cruise past. I am left with two GUs and a quarter of a powerbar. Time to move onto cookies and bananas. I learned a valuable lesson here. It is possible to have a good race and not pound huge amounts of food on the bike. I may have been eating too much on previous IMs. Again this is a point that Dave Scott makes.

The first loop of the ride goes like clockwork and once my hamstrings are right, I feel great the whole time. I arrived back in town with 2:35 on my bike time. I made a bit of a mental miscalculation here and decided that I was hammering and needed to back off. What followed was a 45 minute section where I consciously backed-off and in hindsight this was a mistake and cost me valuable time in my bike split.

Once I arrived back in the slightly rolling terrain, I was back in the game. Head down, good power on the hills and reeling people in again. Coomba Park Road was tougher the second time and I started using the small chain ring a bit for the hills. A good move, some folks tried to big ring the hills and their cadence dropped real low and I listened to their breathing become ragged. I love hearing people suffer in a race. It somehow makes my position more bearable.

I am starting to feel a bit out of it and say hi to a guy sitting on the side of road. I do a double take and realise that I have just said hi to a stuffed gorilla sitting in a lawn chair. That makes me smile (along with the warning signs for drop bears). Non-aussies can buy me a beer, or two, and I will tell them the story of drop bears. It is a sad story of how man’s exploitation of the environment has transformed peace loving creatures into crazed beasts. Fortunately, we had our bike helmets to protect us.

At last I was on the final 20K, or so, back to town and it was time to get aero and focused. My back hurt but I was used to this from previous races and took the pain. It is not a gruelling sort of pain, rather a dull ache from being bent over for five hours or so. I make great time. Some of the guys that I pass try to strike up a friendly conversation but I am a little too focused to be friendly. I shift and drop them.

I arrive back in town and lose another bit of time trying to take my feet out of my shoes before T2. This whole manoeuvre turns into a disaster and I forget my watch on my bike.

Bike 112 miles: 5:23

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