Mytilus californianus readily adhere to many types of materials such as rocks, metals, and wood despite hostile environmental conditions in the intertidal zone. The mussel can achieve this through the byssus, a collection of energy dissipative threads and adhesive plaques. In this work we focus in the byssal threads distal region where we seek to understand their viscoelastic properties. The distal region exhibits the unique combination of being stiff and yet extensible, making it capable of dissipating large amounts of mechanical energy. Initial findings demonstrate the distal region of the byssus stress relaxes under constant strain, but it is unclear what components permit this energy dissipation. Understanding the relaxation properties will further our understanding of the byssal self-repair process, which may lead to better design principles for synthetic materials. Tensile testing was performed in order to characterize mechanical properties such as elastic modulus and stress relaxation. Our results indicate that byssal threads experience treatment dependent relaxation. For example, a native thread relaxes at approximately 40% while a thread that has been treated with pH 5.5 relaxes approximately 60%. In order to connect bulk material properties, such relaxation %, to the molecular level, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) was implemented. From the SAXS experiments it was observed that when byssal threads are strained to 10%, the molecular strain is equivalent. This result demonstrates the non-crystaline components in the thread must deform at the same length as the bulk and that the crystalline components do not experience deformation. These results have helped understand the healing process in the distal region as well characterize viscoelastic properties that could be implemented into synthetic materials.