Chilly Willy Duathlon '11

Love this race! It's become the traditional start to the multisport season here on the Gulf Coast and, in recent years, has brought in a lot of really competitive athletes! This year was no different. I did not get to race last year due to injury and as a previous overall women's winner of this race, I was amped to race again. I know I'm in decent run shape but my bike fitness is really lacking as I really just started back on the bike in the past couple weeks. I've found that having missed the better part of last year with any quality riding, I've lost a lot of strength. Unfortunately, good run strength/fitness doesn't crossover to the bike very well. Oh well, it's only February and a long triathlon season awaits. This morning was chilly as usual and the wind always seems to find us at Fort Desoto! This year, due to a higher number of entrants, the race was split into two waves - under 40 went five minutes ahead of the over-40 year olds. Didn't care for the separate waves as it's hard to race for the overall when you cannot go head to head with everyone but such is life and I don't think it was a factor for me personally. The run is half on pavement, half on sand. Went out really good on the first 5K run, sub-6 minutes through the first mile and getting dropped by another gal in my wave. Whoa! Didn't dare try and speed up for fear of completely blowing up later....and, I couldn't! Just focused on my own race and got to the bike with a pretty quick first 5K in the low 19's. After a pathetically slow transition, I was off on the bike. It was windy and chilly for sure. Had a lot of traffic to ride through from the early wave and was getting passed by a bunch of guys in my wave. Really felt dead in the legs and had a hard time keeping the pace up. Ick. The ride is only 10 miles but deceptively hard after a fast 5K. Finally, off the bike and onto the second 5K and was still running good...until the last mile. I was really dying in the sand! Finished in a respectable third overall (women) and second in my age group! Good note is that I PR'd for this course. Pretty happy about that and with a few weeks of working on the bike, I should get some big improvement. We did sign up for Miami Int'l Triathlon which is 3/20/11, first race of the new 5150 series so gotta HTFU and get in shape! Goal there is just to go hard and qualify for Hy-Vee which is the 5150 US Championship later in the summer (that requires a top 10 finish in the AG). We are running a 5K next Saturday evening just for fun/speed work but I will be on my bike more in the next several weeks. The swimming is coming along - I'm not setting any records but will be where I need to be when the races start. The Dane won his AG in dominating fashion, crushing the bike to get it done. Wish osmosis worked!
Cheers