Du it, man: Webster Duathlon #3 Race Review

This was my first duathlon: a 2 mile run, 12 mile flat bike, and a 2 mile run. I won the entry back in February and have been looking forward to this race ever since. I've also been mentally preparing to get my butt handed to me; duathlons aren't as popular as tris, but the folks who do them are way faster. After racing I decided that duathlon folks are simply tougher-- even the sprint du's are not for the faint of heart.

Anyway, Craig came with me to this race. He's not a fan of idiotic tri cheering and I'm not a fan of someone coming along with me who doesn't race, so it was his first non-IM race. I thought he'd like it better because du's are supposed to be different-- most folks don't bring a cheering squad and the races are pretty small. We showed up about an hour before the start, got my packet, put my bike in transition, and just hung out. I thought there seemed to be more people than I'd expected, and there were; this was the biggest du of the series with 160 folks coming out. Crap! How was I supposed to place in my age group if more people showed up?!

After a .5 mile jog warmup and some stretching I headed to the line. Dude in charge told us about the course-- out-and-back run, two loop bike, and out-and-back run-- then just said "go" and started us off. It doesn’t get more low-key than that I guess!

Run 1: My goal was to run 8:30-8:45 miles. Starting out going fast is hard! Swimming is a way easier way to start a race. I was ready to start walking within 3 minutes, but naturally didn't. A few folks passed me on the way out, but for the most part it appeared I started in the right part of the pack. I also saw a few HRTCers (naturally ahead of me), so that was nice. At the turnaround I grabbed some water and went to pass some guy about my age. He refused to let me pass him, so I was forced to run with him the entire mile back to T1. Men-- such jerks! Anyway, I soon forgot him when I got to T1-- I've never been so happy to get on the bike!
Run 1 time: 16:41 (8:21 pace)
Run 1 pic: Do I look happy?

T1: My transitions were more about fashion: T1 was headband to bike helmet, and T2 would be bike helmet to hat. It's important to look your best at every opportunity. Anyway, I grabbed another water and walked to my bike. I was spent after the run and needed a rest. Still, I owned T1 because I switched my pedals (a nice lend from a friend also racing) to cages so I could wear my running shoes the whole time; I was in and out in 0:37. Woo!

The bike: two loops of fun. My goal was again 19 mph pace. On the way out we had a tailwind, and the way back was naturally a headwind. I passed a surprising number of people, so that was cool. I also got passed by a few, maybe about 5-- some who'd passed me on the run and would again pass me on the second run, but whose transitions were slow on account of the shoe issue. Suckers! Anyway, the bike was pretty, you know, bike-like. The only problem was my tummy was bothering me a lot so I couldn't eat or drink anything after about 15 minutes. My stomach has been going haywire recently (it's where I store my stress-- lots of room around there!), so I don't want to blame it on my new Accelerade nutrition plan. Maybe I had too much Accelerade before the race? Perhaps my race breakfast is incompatible with it? Anything is possible. The thing is I've never had Accelerade except for post-workout recovery/hydration until this race; more experimentation is definitely needed. That's about it for the bike except that I kept going back and forth with some stupid 14 year old kid. He was annoying the crap out of me because the first time I passed him he was drafting off his dad. Then 3 minutes later he and his dad completely blew by me-- what the crap? I caught the kid again on the second loop, and near the end he passed me... and then kept looking behind him to see where I was, swerving into the middle of the lane. I was annoyed and didn't want to get passed on the bike by some chump kid, so I surged on the street before T2 to beat him. A note to all you 14 year olds out there: don’t f*ck with me. (See? Edited for children!)
Bike pace: 18.6 mph Better than the week before, especially since I wasn't in cycling shoes/clips. Woo!
Bike pic: Nice pedals newbie!

T2: I took off my helmet and put on a hat. Nice, huh? :) Out in 0:27.

Run 2: My goal was +20 sec of run 1 pace, so 8:50-9:05 pace. Oof! Can I walk this? Of course the second run was worse than the first. I saw Lisa, cage pedal lender, at the half mile point and she told me they had cold towels at the turnaround. Booya! My goal at this point in the race was to come in under 1:15 (I came out of T2 at 56:xx) and pass three people. By the turnaround I'd caught two, but I ran a 9:14 mile. Crap! I had to get going to make my goal! After a towel and yet another water (don't judge-- it's hot here) I busted my hiney as much as I could to get in by 1:14:something, passing a third guy in the process. My last mile was 8:57, enough to get me in at 1:14:41, 1:14:38 watch time. Celebration!
Run 2 time: 18:11 (9:06 pace)
Run 2 pic: I'm about 400m from finishing, so I eeked out a solitary smile. Courageous I know.

Afterward there were breakfast tacos, beer, soda, and bananas-- a decent spread! I could only handle water a banana, and a diet Coke. Craig and I hung around with some club members, waiting for results. Normally, there's one girl in my age group at these races. She runs sub-7 minute miles both times (or close to it) and bikes at 20+ mph. Of course I had no chance of winning my age group while she was breathing, but 2nd of 2 was good enough for me-- that was my plan. Well, we were in for a huge surprise when results were posted: there were 6 girls in my age group. Dammit!

And at the top of that list: MisheleK. I won my age group and there were actually other girls in it! Sweet! I won a pint glass and a 700 tube, which I gave to Lisa (who came in second in her AG) since I ride 650s and her gracious pedals lend shaved some serious time.

I will definitely start doing dus-- I like tough stuff, and I really want to get better at these. The atmosphere is also a little more my style, so that's cool. I realize now that +20 seconds for the second run is very unrealistic; still, I want to get my run 1 time down a little faster. Maybe a longer warmup would help? I'll try that next time. And that nutrition issue I need to get ironed out before my last tri of the year: River Cities next weekend.

One other slightly related thing I've noticed in my past two races-- there are "real" triathletes at sprints, perhaps more real than ironmen. They're the folks who race, year in and year out, train every week, each season. It's not that one IM they've done that defines them because they're more than that after a decade of races and, perhaps more importantly, gallons of post-race beers. They don't get their panties in a twist over tri technology, and they don't buy a new bike every other year. They're there to race, to live the life. I want to be like that. But it's not going long that can do it-- it's local races, olys and sprints and HIMs, ties to a real racing community instead of a faceless racing giant running faraway events. The truth is that it's excruciating to go fast for any length of time-- I think it's harder than going steady for an IM. I want to do more sprints next year, even with Louisville looming, because they test your mettle in ways a day-long race simply cannot. They make you real. Besides, I know I've got the mental hardware to go long-- but can I go hard? I'm starting to wonder. And I'm going to find out.