Duathlon, Duath-What?

Greetings friends!  Yesterday was the  Columbus Duathlon.  A duathlon  is difficult to spell (shouldn’t there be an extra vowel in there?  Duath-A-Lon?  Duath-O-Lon?  ANYONE?), and certainly a challenge to complete as well.  A duathlon consists of a run, a bike, and a run.  There are sprint distances, olympic distances and half-ironman distances.  The races I have participated are sprint duathlons and are pretty close to:   2 miles run, 10-15 miles bike, 2 miles run.

Bridget and I have both had the opportunity to complete one.  The first one for both of us (and Bridget’s hubby) was the 2009 Papillion Duathlon.  We left the duathlon exhausted, proud of our accomplishment and with a new understanding of why everyone had towels at their transition area (umm, you sweat ALOT in a duathlon, not to mention it was a VERY humid Nebraska day). 

The Omaha/Eastern Nebraska area has three duathlons that I have competed in:  Papillion Duathlon (June), Fremont Duathlon (July), and Columbus Duathlon (August).    Last year when I was in super-shape, I completed all three.  This year due to a busy summer travel schedule  I completed my first duathlon today.

Race recap:

1st Run:  I started off feeling pretty good.  The sun was starting to come out and it was going to be a hot one!  I wear a watch when I run, but I hate “running for numbers,” so I don’t always look at it.  I decided to go hard and if I needed to shuffle along the second run so be it.  I finished the first two miles in 17:15.

Bike:  Transition is tough!  Given the opportunity, I would gladly stop the clock, sit down on the grass, wipe my brow, and sip my water bottle while I put my bike gear on.  Well-not so much.  Getting bike shoes on, halo headband adjusted, helmet and sunglasses on while balancing on one shoeless foot is a better representation of what really happens. 

I typically think of the bike leg as my weakness, but I felt strong!  We faced a fairly strong headwind but the course was pretty flat.  The best part was when my friend passed me on the bike portion.  Talk about motivation!  He’s a strong biker, so I vowed to catch him on the run.  My bike time was 42:00.

2nd Run:    While my legs felt like they were filled with lead when I first started, I made good on my goal and caught  up with my friend.  He tried to hold me back (literally) but I made it through!  There were no headphones allowed during the race, but I had the Black Eyed Peas song “I got a feeling” stuck in my head.  It kept me going and I had more power so that I didn’t have to just shuffle across the finish line.

When I do races, I like to have a goal in mind.  Sometimes I don’t always share that goal, but it’s at least in the back of my mind.  In most instances, I have a time that I want to beat.  Since I haven’t been working out consistently, my goal yesterday was just to complete the race with a performance I could be proud of.  I finished the duathlon in 1:21:00 (including transitions) and was still able to walk afterwards, so I deem that a success!