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Yesterday morning was the second of the Chilly Cheeks Winter Duathlon Series. I arrived just about an hour before race time and man was it COLD. The forecast was for a high of 60, so for some reason I thought it would be much warmer than it actually was at race time. After standing around and freezing for a good 15-20 minutes debating if I should change, I decided to put on warmer clothes. Duh. My friend Amy showed up to cheer me on, and kept me company until the race started. I was in wave A, so there wasn't much time to putter around. Before I knew it, we were off!

This was a really unique race. The distance for all three races in the series is about the same, 4 mile run and 10-ish on the bike, but each is in a different format. This particular race is a 1.5 mile run, 3.6 mile bike, 2.5 mile run, 2 more laps on the bike (7-ish miles), rack your bike and run across the finish line. It's a little crazy but fun! I tried to be really conscious about not taking it out too fast in the first run, even though it was tempting. I caught myself dipping below 9 minute pace a couple of times and really had to concentrate not to blow it all out too early. That's normally a decent goal pace for me, but I'm nowhere near back to that level yet since my surgery. My breathing started going downhill pretty quickly, because I was going way too fast. There was a girl about 25 or 30 feet ahead of me that I was trying to keep in my sights. I couldn't quite seem to catch up to her, but I just wanted to stick with her. Every 3 minutes (the time between waves), a bunch of guys and some fast girls would go flying by!

I came into transition, changed into my bike shoes, grabbed my helmet, and headed out. It was kind of cool that they actually let us ride our bikes in transition (usually a big no-no), as long as we weren't "racing" in transition. Out for one loop of the bike course. There's a pretty big hill straight out of transition, so that was rough. I got passed on that hill by the girl I had been eyeing on the run (I beat her out of transition), and we passed each other another two or three times in the three miles. I ended up passing her for good, but she beat me out of the transition onto the run, and I could see her just up ahead.

The second run was tough. For some reason, I always think that Cherry Creek State Park is pretty flat and it is SO NOT FLAT. Not huge hills, but pretty big for me since I usually run flat. I caught and passed the girl I had been racing with around 3/4 of a mile in, and I was really afraid she was going to catch me. I was still trying to maintain a reasonable pace without killing myself. I glanced at my Garmin occasionally, but wasn't really trying to pace myself based on anything besides my breathing. If it started getting too rough, I would back down a little. I hit the turn-around and started looking for "the girl". I was really surprised that I didn't see her. She was probably a tenth of a mile or so behind me at that point and didn't look like she was going to catch up. The way back in was a little easier, just knowing that most of the running was done. I caught some people walking and just going generally slow, and was determined that *I* was NOT going to walk.

Back into transition, switched my shoes again, and out for two laps on the bike course this time. The hardest thing ever is having to keep going after the first lap, especially when other people are finishing. Man, did I want to turn in instead of going straight! The second lap was tough, my knee was starting to get a little irritated. And I had taken my windbreaker off during the second run, and it was a little chilly on the downhill sections of the bike. But I just kept telling myself that it was almost over. Soon enough, I was cruising into transition. I got my shoes off while still on the bike and ran across the finish line in my socks and bike helmet!

My overall time was 1:26:46, and both run paces were under 11 min, so I'm THRILLED with that. In fact, the second (longer) run was 10:19 pace! My bike times were slow (15 mph) but that's to be expected, hopefully I can start building them up soon!

I feel pretty good today, just really tired. I got some ice on my knee as soon as I got home, and it seems to be ok. I think it's just not quite up to race speed yet, and the pain that I'm feeling is in a different spot than my pre-op pain, so I'm not too worried about it. And I've got a month till the next race to keep getting back into shape and stronger and faster!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the funny part about the girl that I was racing with for the first half of the race. There is a friend of a friend that found my blog a while back and we've been chatting in comments, and then she friended me on Facebook last week. I knew she was going to be at the race, but wasn't able to figure out who she was before it started. After the race, I was standing there talking to my friend, and she found me. Yep, it was "the girl". :-) (Hi, Laurie!)

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