Quad Burners - Duathlon Bay St. Louis, Ms 2-20-16

Ah .....yes my FIRST Duathlon!

I was excited all week leading up to the race.  It was going to be great.  My friend who is also training with me for the Augusta Ironman 70.3 was doing the race.  She had been telling me for months how much fun the race was in the past and she also forced me to do a couple practice runs to be ready for race day.  See until you actual get off a bike and then run you don't realize how your legs feel like sheer noodles.  It takes several minutes for your legs to adjust after being on a bike.  I knew that this duathlon would also help me down the road for the ironman so I was pumped and ready.  Well, during the week I developed a bad cough.  It kind of started Sunday night after coming home from the Double Bridge run.  Maybe it was sitting out in that cold wind for so many hours.  By Friday I felt very icky.  My nose was either stopped up or flowing like a river.  When I laid down Friday night I actually considered texting my friends and telling them I just wasn't going to go to the race.  But something in the back of my head kept telling me if you don't have fever it's ok to exercise.  Sometimes it even makes you feel better (or it does for me).

So Saturday morning I was up at 4:15am getting ready.  I meet Frank at 5am in town and rode with him to the race.  There was no need in both of us riding alone so we car pooled.  He's a really good friend who always looks out for several of us.  He may be 65 but he's one tough cookie.  He runs and bikes almost every day.  He says it keeps him young. :<>)  It was very foggy on our drive and even sprinkled a little.  I started to get a little worried about the wet road.  See this would also be my first race with my new clip in pedals on my bike.  So I had a lot of things going on in my head along with all the sinus mess that was in there with one of my ears now bothering me.  Once we arrived at the race site it was an absolutely beautiful morning.  The race was called the "frosted fanny" duathlon but it was definitely not frosty! It was 65 degrees and getting warmer by the minute.  The race didn't start till 9am so I knew by then it was going to be warm.

Frank, Katherine, Me, Kathy & Byron ready to start the race.

I can always tell when Kathy is ready to rumble.  She's got her game face on is what I thought when I spotted her.  She said she had decided not to switch shoes between the run and bike.  That meant she was not going to use her clip on shoes for the bike... which also meant less transition time between the run and bike.  I did not have that option.  My new pedals are very small and only have the round object which clicks into your bike shoes.  Therefore, I would need to change shoes.  So you know by now what I'm thinking don't ya??  How the heck am I going to keep up with her.  LOL  I don't know why we do that inside our heads but lets face it .. most of us do.  We tend to know our competition and try to hang with them if at all possible.

So first we were to run 2 miles then bike 11 miles and finish the race with a 2 mile run.  That's how this duathlon worked.  We lined up and awaited the start signal.  Kathy and I took off fairly fast right out of the gate.  I looked down and we were running below an 8 min pace.  My head started saying slow down and pace ya self.  hee hee   We ran neck to neck the whole 2 miles.  We averaged an 8:27 pace overall.  I haven't ran that fast in a long time.  Ever since I basically quit doing 5Ks and only doing long distance my pace time has slowed so for me to run a 8:27 for two solid miles was awesome sauce!  Now we are running into the transition area and all I could think of was the fact that I had to change shoes.  Crazy, right?! I quickly changed shoes and hoped on my bike realizing that I could see Kathy just exiting the area.  She was not far ahead of me so I begin to push hard to try to catch up.  Well, the road had these dang bump things like every 5 feet that as I went over them one after another my phone which was velcro onto the bar on my bike begin to loosen and at mile 3 I saw it out of the corner of my eye falling to the ground.  I wanted to cry.  I knew I had to stop and get my phone and that meant that Kathy would move on ahead of me.  I quickly grabbed my phone and then decided not to take time to put it back on.  I started pedaling hard again.  I could see Kathy in the distance and I really wanted to catch her.  However, I couldn't control my bike well with me holding a  iPhone 6 Plus in one hand!  So I finally decided to slow way down and try to strap it back on while still moving even if it was at a turtles pace.  It was tricky and I was off balance.  I'm so glad the good Lord decided to not let me wreck cause there were some very close calls before I finally got that darn phone strapped back on.  Then I pushed and pushed trying to catch that speed demon Kathy.  Now as I as coming back in on the home stretch I could see her.  She was only maybe a 1/2 mile ahead of me.   Oh and BTW... this whole time my nose is like a running faucet!

Now I could see the turn into the park where the transition area was to drop our bikes off and then that's when I also saw this crazy car that had went in between the red cones on the road and was right in the middle of our bike path.  A guy was trying to flag the girl to move out of the way but she was just sitting there like she was clueless.  Three of us bikers coming up to the turn had to come to a complete stop and wait on her to move the car so we could turn in.  Boy I was hot now!  I was thinking to myself...why me LORD.  First I'm crazy out here feeling icky, then I'm crazy trying to keep up with my friend, then I'm crazy taking my iPhone on the bike and now I'm having to wait on a crazy lady to move her car.  You know how it is when things don't go exactly like you'd plan.  You begin to run all kinds of things through your head.  This is often when I have to remind myself that I need to leave it all in God's hands (trust and have faith).

Bike Area

I finally got my bike in, changed shoes again and was off for the final 2 mile run.  Boy my legs felt like I wasn't even running.  They were like noodles.  I soon noticed that I was passing people as I was running and the people I was passing were huffing and puffing pretty hard.  My breathing was normal.  I was not out of breath.  Yes, my legs were tired and burning but I wasn't out of breath.  I'm beginning to notice this more and more lately in my races.  I truly believe it's all the swimming I'm doing lately.  It took me months to learn to swim the correct way and the breathing was the hardest thing.   I use to swim one lap down the pool and have to stop and breath forever to catch my breath before I could do another lap.  Now I can do 20 laps regularly without stopping and Monday I did 35 without stopping (1 mile baby).  I had done that before the holidays and then didn't swim for a couple weeks so it's like running... you have to build back up to that longer distance.  Just keep pushing...... Keep moving forward!

Kathy & I after we finished

Well guess what? I finished 12 female overall and only 2 minutes behind Kathy. :<>)  I was beyond thrilled.   There is a lot of competition down on the coast with some fast women my age.  The age group we were in was 40-49 and I was the oldest one in the group.  Kathy was like 2 seconds behind 3rd place in our age group! If the race had been a couple months later (after my bday),  I would have been in the 50-59 group..guess what?? I would have won my age group.  I beat most of the women in the 50-59 age group by 2-5 minutes so yes I as pumped.

We hung around a little while, ate some food and then headed on back home.  I grabbed a picture of me, Kathy and Sonya before we left.  I actually brought my bike from Sonya.  She's more of a bike rider than a runner.  She got her an all carbon bike and I was fortunate enough to buy her trek.  I love it.  It's been just what I needed to start out with.  Yes, one day I want to get a much lighter bike but for now this is all I need.

Kathy, Byron, Frank & Me chilling after race.

Sonya, Kathy & Me

So my first Duathlon wasn't that bad even if I didn't feel 100% that day.  I love the medals and if you do all the races in their series you get this medal holder in which they all fit.  It's pretty cool.  I've already looked at my race schedule to see if I can make at least 4 out of the 5 that they offer.  Right now it looks like a good possibility.   YIPPIE.

Medals and Medal holder for the series.

Well, that's a wrap for the past weekend.  Now to get ready for R&R NOLA half marathon this weekend.  I'll be racing for several weekends until May so stay tuned.

Happy Training!

"Anything is possible if a person believes." Mark 9:23