3:55 p.m. (+7 hour, 15 minutes) Mile 80

“Hang on Wilson!!!” was what I called out as I went screaming down the mountain at 37 miles per hour. Wilson was the rubber chicken that had been zip tied to my bike in 2022 & had never left me… until we arrived in Nice. When I first unpacked the bike I discovered that Wilson was gone.

(Skyjacking the baggage compartment of the plane?)

“You can’t lose something in a finite area.” I kept telling myself. He was at the bottom of the case the bike travels in, so at the hotel I squoze him back into the zip tie…

(You “squeezed” him)

Excuse me?

(The past tense of squeeze is “squeezed,” not squoze)

Fine, back at the hotel I squeezed him back into the zip tie, but now I was worried. Had I done enough to secure this chicken?

(Enough about the chicken. The clock was ticking & you had get off this mountain)

I had slowed to 25 mph in the hairpin turns of the mountain, but the curves of the mountain flattened out & I was now traveling at 37 mph. At that speed, there was no reason to pedal. It was all about focus.

(& we know about you & “focus”)

Like many with ADD/ADHD, when I need to, I can shut out the world around me & become hyper focused on the task at hand.

(& at that moment, your task was the road)

4:30 pm. (+7 hour, 50 minutes) Mile 100

I was at the bottom of the mountain & riding towards town.

(& we are backed to pedaling again)

It was time to drop the hammer & fly. I heard a “clank” as I shifted into my heaviest gear, the small silver dollar sized cog that my chain was now spinning around at 100 rpm per minute. I was traveling at 20 mph & I was determined to keep everyone I had passed back there behind me. My quads were screaming at me to take it easy, but I didn’t care, I pushed on…

4:45 p.m. (+8 hour, 5 minutes) Mile 105

I turned onto the Riviera, the final stretch. The crowd was lining the road on both sides. Spectators were waving at me, smiling at me, & cheering for me. I was going to have to get off my bike soon & start a new pain fest, a 26.2-mile marathon, but for this brief moment I smiled & enjoyed my victory over the mountains of Nice, France.

4:55 p.m. (+8 hour, 10 minutes) Mile 110

I looked for my family as I went flying past my hotel, but they were not outside watching. I was sure my wife was tracking me on her phone inside the hotel.

(You had no idea just how much she had been tracking you)

Apparently, she had been tracking me the whole time…but more on that later.

5:06 p.m. (+8 hour, 21 minutes) Mile 112

I rolled towards the “dismount line” with my feet on top of my cycling shoes. I opened the Velcro straps and slipped my feet out a mile back there. The shoes were still clipped onto the bike. In a move I had practiced for years, I threw one leg over the bike while balancing on the other foot that was still on top of the shoe.

(Kinda like riding side saddle, on a horse?)

Yes. I held tight to the handlebars as I rolled up to a bike check-in volunteer. I hopped off & handed the bike to a volunteer, just like the pro athletes. At an Ironman one of two things happen at the end of the bike course, they either take your bike for you or they take your timing chip…because you ran out of time.

I was now in t2. I was “transitioning” from bike to run. The first thing I noticed was that the ground was really hot in my sock-covered feet. I had been on the bike for 8 hours, 21 minutes & 55 seconds. I had averaged 13.4 mph.

(What had you predicted for this ride, back in August?)

That night when I became so terrified that I couldn’t sleep, I worked out the numbers to avoid taking so long to finish the bike that I would be over the 10.5 hour limit. I came up with a bike average speed of no slower than 13.2 mph for 8 hours, 40 minutes, but I didn’t think I could do it faster than 8 hours 20 minutes.

(Ok, great, you predicted your own success. Why was the ground hot at 5:06 p.m.?)

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.