Notes
the bike leg was a mental battle. i left t1 and immediately passed another rider going up the first hill. i've been pretty much in the same positition every week going into the bike, about 4th or 5th. i usually catch at least one or two riders before the bike finish. not tonight. i didn't see another soul out on the bike course for the entire two loops. oy. this was a solo battle to keep myself in the race. plus, i knew mike was hammering away at his 15 sec lead ,and had at least len and joe to contend with to keep him pushing even harder. i saw fil and dan, doing their run, partway through my first loop and they showed 4 fingers. i was in 4th. i came flying through the first loop and onto the downhill straightaway hoping to catch sight of somebody. nobody. then out of the corner of my eye, i saw a rider down on the ground with people around him. i original thought it was mark, but then realized that mark was behind me after the swim. it was mike! i slowed down and quickly looked over and mike told me to just keep racing. i saw him nursing his arm and really bad road rash on his shoulder. mike has pretty damn good bike handling skills, so i was trying to think what could have happened. must have been something with the intersection near where he went down. no cars were around him though. hit and run? possibly. damn. i turned my attention back to the race. with mike out of the race, i now stood a better chance of taking first again, but what a sucky way to win. the 2nd loop was just as mentally draining, plus now i had mike's crash on my mind. i hope he's ok. i got into t2 and julie asked if i had seen mike. i told her i saw him on the ground, but conscious. surprisingly, i ended up with the fastest bike split again, but only by a few seconds over len. competition is getting tough! joe and len were in a dead heat after t2 (35 flat). i was 1:24 behind both of them going into the 2 mile run. here we go again.