chimera
<font color=deeppink>WISH Racing Team Member<br><f
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2004
- Messages
- 3,448
I did my first duathlon today, the 25th Annual Siesta Key Triathlon/Duathlon. It was a sprint distance with a 2 mile run, 21K bike, then 5K run. This was actually the same place I did the first race of my running career, a 1 mile fun run back in March 2005. I think my finish time was 16 something 
Jeff offered to come with me, though Kaley was not enamored with the early start and stayed home with Lenna. Race start was at 7:30am so we left the house at 6:00am to be sure to get there an hour ahead of time to get ready for everything. It is a lot different than a running race...basically, for those I just show up, go through the potty line several times. For this, there's unloading the bike, getting all the gear together, picking up the chip and ankle strap, getting marked, then putting the bike and gear in the transition area. I was assigned a pretty decent spot in transition. I got the end of the transition area where you leave and come in for the bike leg.
Before the race:
The guy in the orange cap is my neighbor who was doing the tri:
At the start. #527 is one of Jeff's employees and the overall winner of the duathlon. He finished in 1:08 something which was nearly my bike time 8[
I was pretty excited about the wave placing. They started the duathlon with the first wave of tri swimmers. The last wave started at 7:45 so I knew I had a 15 minute cushion between me and DLF. I think we ended up starting a little late. The duathlon field was small. Some age groups you pretty much won an award just for being there. I think the tri had 500 or so competitors.
Here's the entire duathlon group:
I had a pretty good run for me. I stuck with R4/W1 so as not to wear out my legs for the rest of the race. My first mile split was 10:35 which is fabulous for me! But the field was waaaaay ahead of me. I was DLF on the first leg, even though my time was 22:26. I was hoping for under 25 min so that was great. I flubbed the Garmin transition change, but other than that, transition went well. It's kinda nice to not have all the fancy gear. I just swapped my visor for my bike helmet and was on my way! T1 time was 52 sec.
The bike was pretty good, we rode out to one end of the island, then turned and rode to the other end of the island, then back. I got passed a LOT! I did manage to pass 3 people, but they were on the sidewalk on beach cruiser bikes
Most of my mile splits were around 4:45 which is good for me. I was surprised by how encouraging the faster bikers were. Several shouted out as they went by. There are some really wild lookin' bikes out there! I did get tired about mile 10...and I still have problems with butt numbness that might take a real road bike that I can have fitted to fix. Bike time was 1:05:47, better than the 1:15 I was worried about, but one of the slowest of the day.
Back for T2 which I took my time. I took a gel as I walked through so my time was 1:06 which is still pretty good. I got out of transition for the final leg, the 5K through the woods then down the beach and back. I was planning to R3/W2, but my legs were gone. Not just wobbly from the bike, but gone. So I just settled into R1/W4 to keep pace above a 15 min mile. One guy passed me in the woods going back to transition because he'd forgotten his number
I didn't do anything fancy, just kept plugging along. There were a lot more beach walkers and runners not associated with the race to work around, but I was just focusing on finishing.
For those of you not familiar with our Gulf beaches, they are famous for sugar sand...this white, fluffy powdery stuff that's really nice to walk on...when your legs are not dead. The hard pack near the water was good for the 5K but then we had to go back up to the parking lot for the finish. The last bit through the dry sand was like running through molasses! I just walked it until I got to the parking lot and turned for the finish. I did run it in with a 5K time of 42:36, better than I expected with the walking.
Photo finish...time 2:12:45.
I always check previous results before I register for a race so I knew I was likely to be DLF for the entire race. The wave start helped. I was only DLF for the first running leg...plenty of people finished behind me though looking at the results, only one person in the duathlon had a time slower than mine. I definitely need to spend some more time on the bike for next year. I only had about 7 weeks to train and was coming nearly from zero on the bike. And I would like to be under 2 hours for next year. Besides, I now have a title to defend. I registered in the Athena division for women over 145 lbs. You may all now refer to me as DuaMel, Champion of the Athena division for women 40+. That's right...I won an AG award!!!! Of course, I was the only one to register in the Athena division for the duathlon but hey, it's still an award. And since there were no finisher medals, it was the only way to get some bling:
Jeff offered to come with me, though Kaley was not enamored with the early start and stayed home with Lenna. Race start was at 7:30am so we left the house at 6:00am to be sure to get there an hour ahead of time to get ready for everything. It is a lot different than a running race...basically, for those I just show up, go through the potty line several times. For this, there's unloading the bike, getting all the gear together, picking up the chip and ankle strap, getting marked, then putting the bike and gear in the transition area. I was assigned a pretty decent spot in transition. I got the end of the transition area where you leave and come in for the bike leg.
Before the race:
The guy in the orange cap is my neighbor who was doing the tri:
At the start. #527 is one of Jeff's employees and the overall winner of the duathlon. He finished in 1:08 something which was nearly my bike time 8[
I was pretty excited about the wave placing. They started the duathlon with the first wave of tri swimmers. The last wave started at 7:45 so I knew I had a 15 minute cushion between me and DLF. I think we ended up starting a little late. The duathlon field was small. Some age groups you pretty much won an award just for being there. I think the tri had 500 or so competitors.
Here's the entire duathlon group:
I had a pretty good run for me. I stuck with R4/W1 so as not to wear out my legs for the rest of the race. My first mile split was 10:35 which is fabulous for me! But the field was waaaaay ahead of me. I was DLF on the first leg, even though my time was 22:26. I was hoping for under 25 min so that was great. I flubbed the Garmin transition change, but other than that, transition went well. It's kinda nice to not have all the fancy gear. I just swapped my visor for my bike helmet and was on my way! T1 time was 52 sec.
The bike was pretty good, we rode out to one end of the island, then turned and rode to the other end of the island, then back. I got passed a LOT! I did manage to pass 3 people, but they were on the sidewalk on beach cruiser bikes
Most of my mile splits were around 4:45 which is good for me. I was surprised by how encouraging the faster bikers were. Several shouted out as they went by. There are some really wild lookin' bikes out there! I did get tired about mile 10...and I still have problems with butt numbness that might take a real road bike that I can have fitted to fix. Bike time was 1:05:47, better than the 1:15 I was worried about, but one of the slowest of the day.Back for T2 which I took my time. I took a gel as I walked through so my time was 1:06 which is still pretty good. I got out of transition for the final leg, the 5K through the woods then down the beach and back. I was planning to R3/W2, but my legs were gone. Not just wobbly from the bike, but gone. So I just settled into R1/W4 to keep pace above a 15 min mile. One guy passed me in the woods going back to transition because he'd forgotten his number
I didn't do anything fancy, just kept plugging along. There were a lot more beach walkers and runners not associated with the race to work around, but I was just focusing on finishing. For those of you not familiar with our Gulf beaches, they are famous for sugar sand...this white, fluffy powdery stuff that's really nice to walk on...when your legs are not dead. The hard pack near the water was good for the 5K but then we had to go back up to the parking lot for the finish. The last bit through the dry sand was like running through molasses! I just walked it until I got to the parking lot and turned for the finish. I did run it in with a 5K time of 42:36, better than I expected with the walking.
Photo finish...time 2:12:45.
I always check previous results before I register for a race so I knew I was likely to be DLF for the entire race. The wave start helped. I was only DLF for the first running leg...plenty of people finished behind me though looking at the results, only one person in the duathlon had a time slower than mine. I definitely need to spend some more time on the bike for next year. I only had about 7 weeks to train and was coming nearly from zero on the bike. And I would like to be under 2 hours for next year. Besides, I now have a title to defend. I registered in the Athena division for women over 145 lbs. You may all now refer to me as DuaMel, Champion of the Athena division for women 40+.
That's right...I won an AG award!!!! Of course, I was the only one to register in the Athena division for the duathlon but hey, it's still an award. And since there were no finisher medals, it was the only way to get some bling:
I think it's terrific that you even did the duathlon, let alone finished - I'm in awe of all of you who are trying duathlons and triathlons. Time to get a real bike fitting and get ready to defend your title! 
Great Job!
Congratulations on the bling too!
