Anyway, this past Saturday, we did our second technical and first actual duathlon - the second in the Chilly Cheeks Duathlon series. The weather was tons better than our first race in the series which made us very happy, as this was the one race of the three that we were looking forward to the most.
While this was a multisport race, I'm not going to go about this recap the way I normally would for a multisport race ... because this race had two runs, two bikes and three transitions. Plus a T4/sprint to the finish. I'll just recap the thing and then do the numbers.
Race morning, we woke up trying to decide if we wanted to do a short warm-up run with the Saturday BRC-DTC crew. We debated back and forth on it, but ultimately decided that we're not strong enough athletes to do that right now. We decided to head on over to say hi to the store owner, Pete, though, given that Brandon was in town and he usually can't do the Saturday runs due to his job.
After saying hi to Pete, we moseyed on back home, cooked breakfast and packed up our transition bags - a very weird thing given that the last time we had to do so was waaaaay back in September.
Given the short distance of the race, we decided to forgo our aero bottles and just go with a regular old bike bottle. We also decided to layer quite a bit for even though it wasn't snowy, it was still pretty chilly (mid-40s by race start). Silly winter.
We ended up running kinda late, getting to Cherry Creek State Park a lot later than we normally would for a race. However, if we had ran that late living back at my old house, we would have been screwed. MAJOR perk to living in the new place.
In any case, we got to CCSP, unloaded the Rav, picked up our packets (and sweatpants!) and set up transition. We couldn't find places together on the same rack, but close enough:
See?
We set up, feeling kind of weird given that we didn't have that whole pesky swim portion to worry about. And we started off running. My trans towel looked all empty.
I took a gamble with this race - I don't typically wear socks with my bike shoes and didn't want to waste a lot of time taking socks on and off for each leg. Soooo ... I just decided not to wear socks. I figured the runs were short enough so I just decided to BodyGlide the crap out of my feet and go with it.
Run #1 was a short loop - 1.5 miles - and I think we pushed it way too hard. Brandon held the pace for that one - Mr. SpeedyPants lately - and it was a rough go for me. And fast. Way faster than I've been running lately.
(13:02; 9:19/mi, 172nd overall)
T1 was longer than most of my tri transitions, but Brandon and I ran this race together. Plus I needed to ditch a layer and deal with my falling apart bike shoes. Stupid shoes.
(2:23)
Bike #1 was a simple 3.6 mile loop - uphill to start, down a nice hill, slightly up another, around a loop, down a slight hill, uphill into the wind to trans. Felt a lot longer than said time indicates.
(12:19, 17.5 mph, 151st overall)
T2 was similar to T1. Weeeee.
(2:26)
Run #2 was a whole hell of a lot slower than run #1. It was a 2.5 mile out-and-back and omg slow. Here was when we realized we need to learn duathlon pacing, for it is a lot different than triathlon pacing, particularly with the format of the race. Still, we plodded along, walking some, running some, passing a few people and not getting passed by anyone we didn't already pass before (that is, working our way up the standings). The lack of running/run fitness came out here.
(28:38, 11:27/mi, 173rd overall)
T3 was long since Brandon had to do a port-o-potty stop at the end of the run. Since we were doing the race together, I waited for him to come into transition so we could go off together. It was also good because I had to fiddle with my dang bike shoe to get it to cooperate so I could put it on my foot.
(4:17)
Bike #2 was two loops of the same course as bike #1 (so 7.2 miles?). We took the first lap easy and pushed it on the second ... with the wind picking up on the windy parts. Boo to that. On lap one, I experienced one of my major race pet peeves. The road wasn't closed to outside cars. The race people did a GREAT job of traffic management and not a lot of people were coming into the park, but still, as cyclists on an open course, we're supposed to stay to the right. Safer and it makes passing easier. This one woman, however, was riding basically in the middle of the road. Sorry honey, but I shouldn't have to go into the OPPOSITE LANE to pass your ass. Safety first, sweetiepoo.
(25:20, 17.1 mph, 155th overall)
T4/50-yd sprint was done barefoot. A gamble to be sure, but I wasn't clomping across in my crappy bike shoes. Plus it made me very focused on doing that mid-foot strike. I wasn't able to quite do my customary sprint, but close enough.
(:41)
Overall Results:
1:29:03
177/244 overall
75/94 females
19/21 division (F29&UND)
Final Thoughts:
This duathlon thing is kind of fun. Definitely a nice change of pace from triathlon ... though I'd really like to do the (what I consider) more typical du format of run/bike/run. CC#3 is a bike/run which should be fine (as long as it doesn't snow like crazy and make us switch to the 4mi run-only again). My desire to do the r/b/r format is the reason why I have Barkin' Dog on our 2012 tentative race schedule.
I just need to learn how to pace myself for this type of race by then.
HOWEVER! I will have new bike shoes. As you can see here,
... my shoes are kind of dead. I have new ones, but I need to make sure they fit before I start using them/put my cleats on them. TriSports visit in a week for that. :)
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