Race report from Aurora, Colorado
Today (Sunday, here in the USA) I competed in the Colorado Wild Women duathlon. It was a 5km run, a 12 mile ride and then the 5km run again. The main thing is that I finished it. I guess there shouldn't have been much doubt about that, though I was a bit worried about how much harder it might feel because of the effects of altitude. They were noticeable but not too extreme.
Overall, it went pretty well. I did learn one important lesson: don't do things differently in a race than you do in training because it might save time. At the start of the ride, when I went to mount my bike, my left pedal was closer to the ground so I clipped my left foot in first rather than spin the pedals around 180 degrees to put my right foot in first as I ALWAYS do. When I went to take off, I guess I was leaning slightly to the left, as I would normally do, and I toppled over. Anyway, with a grazed knee and a grazed elbow, I got up and took off. It was then I realised that my bike seat had been knocked out of alignment and my bike computer sensor had been knocked away from the wheel. I was able to fix the seat a bit, but I wasn't game to try and fix the sensor next to my front wheel lest I lose fingers in the spokes. So I rode the whole way with a slightly skewed seat (more uncomfortable than usual) and with no indication of speed or distance. At least my brakes weren't knocked because I would have had to stop and fix them if they'd been rubbing on my wheels.
Other than that, the ride went well. I overtook quite a number of people and not many people overtook me. I even overtook people going up hills, which I was pretty proud of.
The second run, of course, felt a lot harder than the first, but I ran the whole way. My overall time was 1:43:03 (a bit better than I expected) and I came 7th out of 14 in my age group.
The highlight of the race had to be the food afterwards. I've never seen (or heard of) such a post race spread: bagels (a variety of flavours with a variety of spreads available), grapes (green and rad), bananas, cookies (again, a variety) and drinks. The only thing missing in my opinion was ice cream, but I got myself some of that when I got back to my hotel :)
Overall, it went pretty well. I did learn one important lesson: don't do things differently in a race than you do in training because it might save time. At the start of the ride, when I went to mount my bike, my left pedal was closer to the ground so I clipped my left foot in first rather than spin the pedals around 180 degrees to put my right foot in first as I ALWAYS do. When I went to take off, I guess I was leaning slightly to the left, as I would normally do, and I toppled over. Anyway, with a grazed knee and a grazed elbow, I got up and took off. It was then I realised that my bike seat had been knocked out of alignment and my bike computer sensor had been knocked away from the wheel. I was able to fix the seat a bit, but I wasn't game to try and fix the sensor next to my front wheel lest I lose fingers in the spokes. So I rode the whole way with a slightly skewed seat (more uncomfortable than usual) and with no indication of speed or distance. At least my brakes weren't knocked because I would have had to stop and fix them if they'd been rubbing on my wheels.
Other than that, the ride went well. I overtook quite a number of people and not many people overtook me. I even overtook people going up hills, which I was pretty proud of.
The second run, of course, felt a lot harder than the first, but I ran the whole way. My overall time was 1:43:03 (a bit better than I expected) and I came 7th out of 14 in my age group.
The highlight of the race had to be the food afterwards. I've never seen (or heard of) such a post race spread: bagels (a variety of flavours with a variety of spreads available), grapes (green and rad), bananas, cookies (again, a variety) and drinks. The only thing missing in my opinion was ice cream, but I got myself some of that when I got back to my hotel :)
Labels: duathlon
