2013 South Bay Duathlon Race Report

Wow! Time is flying by. Some how I managed to miss a couple of weeks of blogs. Just going to dive right into the race report.

Last Sunday, the South Bay Duathlon race was held. This is a nicely organized race held in Morgan Hill (approximately 25 minutes south of San Jose). Morgan Hill is a smaller community separated from San Jose by the "Green Belt". To the east and west are hills that are beautifully green this time of year. The weather forecast for the day was mid-60's and blue sky.

There were two distances offered. I chose to do the 2 mile run/10 mile bike/2 mile run. Due to the longer distance running first, I decided to be at the site and set up before the first race went off. I'm very glad I did. I got there about 7:15am and snagged a good rack space with my tri club. Now, I had to hang around for a couple of hours. Luckily, there were some friends waiting too.

All of a sudden, it was time to warm up! Doing the 5ks at the end of last year, I really learned the importance of warming up. Getting the legs moving, the heart pumping, and the blood flowing. 10 minutes of kicking out the cob webs and a few minutes building. It was time to get to the start line.

The under 40 women went off first. Once they were off, the 40+ women stepped up. Another tri club was out in force and those women are FAST! So, I lined up right behind them. When the gun went off, I watched my age group run off (*sigh* some day I'll be with them).

Run #1 was pretty much the same as last year's race - trying not to go out too fast while every one else passed me. But then, something different happened. I started to pass people. Not a lot, but some.

Coming from the first run

My goal was to not go out too fast and use this first run as a continued warm up. I also wanted to run strong.

Run #1: 20:49

Now into T1. I ran to the speed bump that marked my rack and found the bike no problem. Slipped my shoes on and grabbed my helmet. Off I went.

T1: 1:07

I had a little trouble clipping in but, I finally got on my way. I had wattage I was supposed to keep but, stupid battery in the cpu unit had died while sitting on the rack. So, I was riding this blind. No idea what the watts were. No idea how fast I was going. I tried to dial in a certain level of pain and stayed with it. It was crowded at the beginning so, I was passing quite a few people. People rode 3 abreast at times.  It started to thin out as we reached the hill. Funny, it seemed steeper than last year. The first part of the hill isn't too bad and I was able to pass a few people. The final 15 yards of the hill gets steeper so, a couple of those people passed me. But, I barreled passed them on the way down the hill.

First loop done, let's go again.

The second loop went faster. There were fewer people on the course by now. I was able to keep that special kind of pain all the way through. Coming down the final stretch, the road was very washboard and I was shaking violently on the bike. Luckily, the road smoothed out about the point I wanted to take my feet out. For the first time EVER, I managed to get my right foot completely out AND loosen my left foot so I could just slip it out when I got off the bike.

Bike: 34:22

Running into transition, I was so distracted by running in socks I lost track of where I was running. When I realized I'd gone too far, I was 2 racks beyond. Rack the bike, take off the helmet, slip on my shoes, grab my water bottle, and snatch my visor as I ran out.

T2: 1:01

 I didn't realize I was smiling at this point. My legs felt great. The plan was to go as fast as I could. The first mile was solid. I began passing people.

Let's go!

 At about 1.5 miles, I started to struggle. My stomach hurt. I backed off a little to let it stop hurting. A few steps later, I pressed on. A quarter mile later, I figured that I only needed to run another 5 minutes... I can do this for 5 more minutes. I turned the corner and could see mile marker 2. I could do this until I got there. Finally, I was back to transition where we had to run through to get to the finish line. Push!

Run #2: 21:41

Overall: 1:19:00 (5:53 PR)

HUGE progress! I'm trying to not get ahead of myself and take each race as it comes....