#10. Mantras, lessons and luck: the bike leg of the 70.3 Victoria Ironman

To read about the full Victoria 70.3 in order, start with #1 (about the race start), then read #9 (about the swim).

I was so happy having finished the swim that I started the bike leg feeling unexpectedly good—nervous for all the miles ahead of course, but also grateful that it wasn’t raining or terribly windy.

The first ten miles, I told myself, was all about simply warming up —and after about 45 minutes, not forgetting to eat (fig bars, Gu packets, banana) and drink (water and Gatorade).

Just as I’d seen people having trouble on the swim, now I saw the first folks with flats. Inevitably, they had much fancier bikes than mine, and they probably had more experience too; I couldn’t understand why they weren’t fixing their flats, only waiting around. I passed them, afraid of jinxing myself even by thinking about a flat.

Would I wait for a mechanic? Almost certainly. I’d paid for a two-hour private session with my bike mechanic, trying to learn the basics, but I didn’t trust myself to manage a repair under stress. Just let me get by this one time, I prayed to the cycling gods. I’ll become more self-sufficient after this race, I swear!

Each time I passed someone having trouble, I thought about how much of this event boiled down to luck. Certainly, preparation was needed—I’d spent close to 180 hours of training. But no matter your fitness, there was no controlling the weather or mechanical issues.

At all the race intersections, it was heartening to see clear markings on the pavement, telling us which way to go, and one or more people controlling traffic, allowing the cyclists to zip through without stopping. Cycling was so much easier without standing at stoplights or worrying about getting lost or hit by a car.  

Some people complain about registration fees. Not me. The day had barely begun and I already felt certain my race fee was well spent. Especially on the bike leg, there was the sense of a massive team of people making the course as fast and safe as possible.

Even so, some freak accidents were unavoidable. Far ahead of me, a woman would suffer a bloody crash when a squirrel darted out in front of her bike. Even injured, she would still manage to finish the race, with ten stitches to follow.

In other domains, like my writing life, I have resisted attributing success to luck. I even remember being offended when, during an interview, a reporter asked me about the “luck” I’d supposedly had as a debut novelist, because that seemed like a refusal to admit all the work I’d done, the risks I’d taken, and the cheap Ramen meals I’d eaten along the way.

Here on the 70.3 course, I was learning how it felt to have done lots of work while knowing that work isn’t enough. So yes, I needed luck. Maybe in every domain of life. It felt good to admit it and to let go of years of unnecessary hubris. Yes, I’d been lucky many times—lucky to be healthy more often than not, and to have a career I loved, and to bask in the love of friends and family. There! I’d said it. Luck luck luck! And I wanted more of it, today! No potholes; no kamikaze squirrels; no crashes, please!

Photo by Luca J on Unsplash. (Not from the Victoria 70.3. I was too busy pedaling and besides, participants are prohibited from bringing phones or cameras!

As I eased past the first hour, my pace was slightly better than necessary, but I was also aware that the scary big hills were coming in the second half. Time in the bank, I kept telling myself as I pushed hard—but not too hard.

The pacing was tricky, given that I’d only pedaled 56 miles once, in training, along most of this route, three weeks before the race. I’d had to do the recon trip twice. The first time, for Mother’s Day—my choice of a “fun outing”—I went on a day trip with my husband by car, planning to drive the whole route, especially the parts that were confusing, and after that, to bike at least a portion.

None of it went to plan. The day had been stormy, gray, and cold. Even in a car, the route seemed to take forever, which fostered no confidence. When, mid-loop, I went to take my bike out of the back, I realized I’d left my helmet back at home, four hours behind us. I’d made the error of letting Brian load my bike into the car, which stopped me from realizing what bike-related accessories should also get loaded. It was a lesson I’d never forget. Be in charge of your own gear.

The Mother’s Day recon was so disappointing that, despite our limited budget and anxiety about wasting work days, I made the decision to go back to the Saanich Peninsula just two days later, alone, and pay for an Air-Bnb on top of it all. That way I could fully fit in a four-hour bike with time left over for half of the running route—a true rehearsal—and then overnight properly rather than worry about how I’d make the last ferry home.

That second, solo recon trip was the best decision I made in my entire seven months of training. Another lesson. Do what you need to do. Recon every mile you can. Don’t cut corners.

Previewing and practicing the route had led up to this moment, now, as I enjoyed passing pretty neighborhoods, quiet farms, open coastline, and shadowy stretches of fir and cedar forest. Mile after mile, the scenery was just familiar enough to be reassuring but still novel enough to be entertaining. This could almost be a pleasant bicycling vacation, if I wasn’t so worried about my time!

Even when my bladder was once again bursting, I didn’t feel I could spare the minutes to pause at a roadside outhouse. I passed some aid stations, grabbing a new Gatorade only when necessary. My friends didn’t believe me when I said I was cycling at the edge of my ability. On my Mother’s Day recon, I had finished in exactly the maximum time I had—to the minute—according to event rules.

I had gotten some racing mantra ideas, both wise and funny, from two friends. From Jamey I took, “You are stronger than you think.” From Lucie I kept hearing, “Suck it up, Buttercup.”

Surprisingly, though, it wasn’t the prepared quotes that came to mind most often. Instead, new mantras welled up in my brain spontaneously. Be Here Now was the one that became an earworm I couldn’t shake.

It was trite. It was simple. But it was true.

Be Here Now. (As long as you are pedaling nearly as fast as you can, of course—which for me, was a humble average 14 mph.)

To get some variety from the repetitive Be Here Now playing in my head like a creepy music-box tune, I portioned out additional thoughts in 10-mile sections.

On the first leg, I focused only on warming up, with an emphasis on avoiding early judgment. Just a warm-up. Getting comfortable.

On the second, from mile 10 to 20, I told myself Trust Your Training, because I’d done rides in this range seven times.

From mile 20 onward, a range I’d cycled a grand total of four times, I told myself This is Where You Learn About Yourself. What was I learning? Lots of things, including the fact that my brain wanted to fixate unproductively on what was coming next—a single huge hill that I’d reconned and knew without a doubt to be nearly—just nearly— uncyclable for a person of my fitness level.

But I wasn’t there yet. That, in itself was the main lesson. Be Here Now. (Shoot, I was back to that one again.)

From mile 30-40, I told myself, This is the Mental Part. My body truly wasn’t trained to sit and pedal this hard for this long, yet I knew from my reading and from my gut that I could push hard without breaking. It was all just mind over matter.  

But the real test would come past mile 40, at which point I would have no new mantras left.

About an hour shy of the end of the bike leg, I had arrived at the steepest part of the course.

Willis Point Road seemed to be a sadistic add-on—an agonizingly long, steep hill to a turnaround near a dump in the middle of nowhere, added for no other reason than to make the day harder. It was the only place I saw a couple of riders dismount and push their bikes up the steep grade.

It was also the only place I saw a participant being rude to other racers. A man, clearly feeling full of himself as he descended at breakneck speed, yelled at a woman headed the other way, pushing her bike up the hill—taunting her for having dismounted. What a jerk! But a rare exception. A one-or-two-in-2000 jerk ratio wasn’t too bad.

My goal was to avoid dismounting and to resist crashing on the descent as well. I succeeded in both efforts. Once I’d embarked upon the hill climb, exchanging the preliminary worry for sheer mindless effort, I actually enjoyed it, in a way I tend to enjoy suffering that is extremely specific, known, and finite.

The last part of the biking route felt like 10 percent more than I needed or wanted—sheer redundant toil, time slowing down in one sense (Would this ever be over?) and speeding up in another (Shoot, I’ve gotta keep my speed up to make the cutoff!)

To pass the time, I thought about my late grandfather, “Papa Coach,” a career gymnast and active cyclist into his late seventies. I thought about my late mother, with whom I’d enjoyed a few long rides in my late adolescence, including a night-time “Insomnia Cycle” in Chicago. In my physically depleted state, it felt easier to summon memories and dangerously easy to indulge them for too long. My eyes, already bleary from wind and sun, started welling with tears. How quickly defenses fall when you are feeling exhausted! 

Every turn felt like it should be the last one. One more. One more. Wait—another hill? I thought those were behind us.

And then I was done. Oh, to get off that bike! Just as I’d felt so grateful to come ashore after the swim, I felt deliriously happy to enter T2, the second transition zone, accidentally unsnapping my helmet a moment too soon.

“Don’t do that!” a volunteer called out. “You can be disqualified!” Not sure whether I’d already crossed the magic line, I stopped in my tracks, apologizing while I re-snapped. She smiled at me. Either I’d heard her just in time or she wasn’t going to be a control-crazy stickler. Phew. More luck.

Five minutes later, with lots of clothing layers gladly left behind, even running didn’t seem like a hardship—not at first!—because it was so blessedly different than biking.

The last part of the triathlon was underway and for the first time, I felt genuine confidence stirring. On top of it, the clouds had cleared, the sun was shining, the lake sparkled, and the forested trail along its edges welcomed runners with soothing dappled shadows. What a gorgeous afternoon. I could do this. I just had to stay on my feet. It was the easiest assignment I’d had all day.