Well, here is my recap of the relay.
Miles 1-15: Steady as she goes. Watts are in range, temperature is great, wind is noticeable yet not strong, Bob is way out of sight and consequently out of mind.
Miles 16-50: Settling into pace as get caught by Felt-Guy, S5 kid, Peter Kotland. Form a "group" of sorts. Pace yo-yos a bit. Two of those guys commit many drafting violations and neither were (ever) penalized. We catch Mark Carey, S5 kid slams into a cone on interstate and goes down 20 yards in front of me; I narrowly avoid him. Finish up with 421 and turn off into the country.
Miles 51-70: Turn left onto small road and into a headwind for a while. I go to the front as I seem to be the only one willing to hold a steady pace. Maybe it's because me and S5 kid (who had caught back up, much to my surprise and relief, I felt incredibly guilty after he crashed for riding onwards; it's not like I was "racing" and I should've stopped to make sure he was ok) were the only ones riding with powermeters, but everyone else was very surge-tastic. I felt good through this section but it was here where I ran out of calories. Like an idiot, I had told myself "It's only a 4ish hour ride..." But then I thought to myself: "IT'S A FOUR PLUS HOUR RIDE AT 24ish MPH YOU MORON!!! WTF WERE YOU THINKING?!" Due to the long spacing between aid stations, I didn't grab anything other than water because I wasn't thinking about bonking.
Miles 71-90: Finally at mile 90 I grabbed something, but it was too late at this point. I was done. I had made feeble attempts at sustaining watts and we had basically caught Patrick at this point but he (and everyone else still in the group), Peter and S5 subsequently rode away from me. The pace had dropped Mark and Felt-Guy. At mile 90ish aid station I was stopped and grabbing clif bars and pretzels when Felt Guy caught back up to me. He also then proceeded to ride away from me.
Miles 91-112: The longest 21 miles EVER! The stretch coming back in on the highway was absolutely miserable. Seriously. I was glad to be done when transition finally arrived. I was sad to have performed so (relatively) poorly compared to my expectations (and perceived abilities?) but ultimately this relay was just for run.
112 miles in ~4:56
The winning team of studs went 8:14 and change, which is amazing. I'm happy with our team's performance though because it was composed of three friends who could all have done the race themselves and come in near the top of the field. Triathletes are versatile. I dig it. The end result was 9:20 or so with Behme stoically running a 3:3X. Having not run much recently, it was pretty darn impressive. This was the result:
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