(It’s been three weeks since you’ve updated us. Where are you on the bike course???)

9:15 a.m. (+2 hour, 5 minutes) mile 10

The road flattened out…

(…temporarily)

I had made it past the first challenge of the ride. My resting heart rate is 43, but as I crested the last 20 minutes of riding my heart shot up to 180. I wanted to take in calories, but I had to wait for my breathing to calm down.

(Nothing like aspirating while cycling)

You mean choking.

(Aspiration is the entry of substances (like your bike nutrition) into the lungs.

Choking is a mechanical obstruction of your airway)

Fortunately, it only took about a minute for my breathing to normalize after I crested the top of the monster hill.

I slurped my gel…

(Consistency of waffle syrup)

…& washing it down with my Blue Raspberry Gatorade just in time to start climbing another hill.

It was going to be a very, long, day…& I was only 10 miles into 112 miles of riding. Now I had another climb, but this was a hill that felt like a hill. I crested it with a minimal amount of pedaling & enjoyed a descent for a change.

(& at the bottom of that…)

…I had another climb.

(Do you ever do flat races?)

I have. Half Ironman Maine & Half Ironman Atlantic City were both flat. So was Ironman Cozumel. Why?

(Well, for the last 3 editions of the Jewish Link you have been telling us how much you hate hills. I was wondering if you hate yourself)

I’ve been wondering about that since mile 5 of this bike ride.

(What took you so long?)

I’m a slow learner. When I first realized back in July the intensity of these climbs, I freaked myself out. After speaking with my friend Shlomo about how if I slogged up the climbs on the first 40 miles, I could make it down the other side of the mountain.

(What was Shlomo’s response to your plan?)

“It could work”

(He actually said that???)

Word for word.

(Really reassuring)

You don’t ask an engineer for guarantees. You ask for probability.

9:20 a.m. (+2 hour, 10 minutes) mile 11

I climbed to the top of the “hill” & I finally got to enjoy a downhill for a change. I knew the monster climb I had been dreading was approaching at mile 29.

9:59 a.m. (+2 hours, 49 minutes) mile 16

I had calculated my arrival here in 45 minutes. It was now 75 minutes. No time to think about it, I was on a descent & my speed increased to 20 mph.

(Buy back some of the time you lost on those climbs?)

Absolutely…& gave my legs a rest. I reminded myself to hydrate again.

The map had the climb starting at mile 31, so I relaxed & enjoyed the wind in my face as the miles clicked away 25, 26, 27…& out of nowhere the climb began.

(This wasn’t supposed to be here)

10:30 a.m. (+3 hour, 20 minutes) mile 27

I was 1 hour & 45 minutes into the ride…except according to the map that climb starts at mile 31. I now had 2.5 hours to reach the top to avoid disqualification…

(EXCEPT!)

…by my estimates, I needed to be there by 12 noon to make it to the end of the bike course by the 5:30 cut off.

(Could you bike 13 miles straight up at an average 5% climb?)

That was my hope…except every estimate so far was wrong.

(How wrong?)

Twice as steep as I had expected. & now I wondered,

“What if those 4 & 5 % climbs in front of me were really 7 and 9% climbs?”

(This is what we trained for; our moment of truth begins now!)

I felt like my whole life had brought me to this moment.

(Are we finally going to hear about this 13-mile climb that you have been fearing since you realized what you signed up for?)

Yes! It was time to face my fears….& then my speed dropped from 18 mph to zero.

David Roher is a USAT certified triathlon and marathon coach. He is a multi-Ironman finisher and veteran special education teacher. He is on Instagram @David Roher140.6. He can be reached at TriCoachDavid@gmail.com.