The picture below does a pretty good job of expressing my approach toward the second day of the Ultra 520 K. I knew from the very outset that it would be a challenging day in ways that I could not imagine and time did not really matter that much. The day featured a 275 kilometre bike ride through the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys. Although in training, I had done rides of almost nine hours, those rides were not after a previous ten hour day of swimming and riding. I was going to be as cautious, smart, and gentle as possible on the bike, to preserve my soul for the double-marathon the following day. What you see in the picture is me at about the three hour mark, rolling out my back and hips on a yoga mat.
It seemed to work wonders for me and although that whole stop (just before the WALL in Okanagan Falls) took me about ten minutes, I think it was time well spent. In retrospect, looking at this picture makes me respect my competitors even more, and here’s why. Although every person doing the race had a crew to help them through the event, I was truly blessed to have the support that I had. I had an official crew of four, plus on this day I had an additional five people for emotional support.
My team catered to my every need. If I wanted perogies instead of gel, they were there, waiting for me at the next stop. If I didn’t like the tilt of my aero bars, I had a replacement bike ready to go. If my private parts started to get unhappy, I knew Chamois Butter was only twenty minutes away. If I got sick of F2C, I had a choice of green tea, Red Bull, or Coke at my “bicycle-buffet” as you can see here. 
I’m quite sure that I had the best support out of all the racers out there.
But in spite of all the niceties afforded me, I still had to go the distance and for me that took almost eleven hours. In that amount of time a lot can happen to a person’s mind and body. I remember doing the long and lonely climb to the Twin Lakes Golf Course feeling just hopeless. Ninety minutes later, I was still in a funk. I guess emotional peaks and valleys are a lot longer on bike rides lasting just as long as some of my entire Ironman races!
One of the things that sustained me (or distracted me) was the thought of folks like Craig Premack doing sixteen and twenty hour rides and Geo Wade doing eight and ten hours swims. Another, very tangible thing that helped me get through the day was the gearing on my bicycles. Even though my motivation and energy levels waivered a lot through the day, it was pretty much impossible NOT to keep going with a bike that had 12/32 gearing. They also gave me the opportunity to SPIN up all of the nasty hills that the course threw at me.
The two main things that I learned from Day Two of the Ultra 520 K were that even though you think you may be fully prepared to take on the challenges of a super long event, there are going to be things that may happen along the way that you will not necessarily be fully prepared for and this is part of the appeal. The second thing is much more pragmatic – comfort trumps aero on long distance bikes. Even though I thought my bike positions were optimized, my mind and body after seven hours seem to say otherwise. Perhaps a less aggressive position on the bikes would have lessened the suffering. Or maybe it is just that this princess just needs to 
toughen up!