TheBeckmans.com

Last Saturday was the third and final installment of the Chilly Cheeks Winter Duathlon Series. I was NOT motivated at all for this race. I've been fighting off upper respiratory crud since oh....December. I finally gave in and went to the doctor on Friday, where I literally got smacked upside the head for waiting so long to come in! I got some antibiotics and was feeling slightly better Saturday morning, but was still ridiculously tired and snotty and coughing, although at least the sinus pain had gone away. I got to the race site and it was COLD. As in, freezing my a$$ off cold.  The actual temperature wasn't too bad and the sun felt good, but there was a brutal arctic-feeling wind that just was not fun. So I stood around questioning my sanity and waiting for the race to start because I was too cranky and miserable to go warm up. Just before race start, my friend Becky and her son Andrew showed up to cheer me on, yay for fans!

This was the last race of the series, and it's designed to be the most like a triathlon with bike first followed by run. It was a 10.8 mile bike (wave start in groups of 10-12) and a 4 mile run. I was in wave O (they went A-Y) so I had a while to wait. Soon enough, we were off and my legs were screaming at me that I haven't been spending enough time on the bike lately! The first four miles were absolutely miserable. The arctic wind was giving a nice stiff headwind and my hands were in so much pain it was ridiculous, even with gloves on. Once we made the turn out of the headwind, it wasn't so bad and my hands actually warmed up just a bit. My knee did NOT enjoy the bike, which is not a good thing. Same pain as before my surgery. It wasn't awful and I was able to push through for the most part, but I'm not happy about it at all. Thanks to the wave start, it was a fairly even mix of getting passed and passing people. I was pretty happy that I was able to pace myself fairly well so that I had the energy to pass back some of the people who flew by me early on. At one point a GIRL on a mountain bike tried to pass me and I just thought NO WAY am I letting her do that and picked it up a little. It's one thing to get passed by a GUY on a mtb (not that I like it, but still) but I refuse to get passed by a girl on a mtb!

I came into transition, ditched my windbreaker and helmet and changed my shoes. As I went to put my running shoes on, I realized that both of my feet were completely frozen. Could not feel a thing. Fun! There was a long run out of transition, at least a tenth of a mile, and then a nice uphill to start the run off. I could not feel my feet at all until almost two miles in. At which point, the feeling started returning and I could feel all the little stones that I had apparently picked up with my socks while changing shoes. Lovely. About the same time, I really got into my running groove and started feeling comfortable. I wasn't really trying for a certain pace, just hoping to be around 10:30 average and wanting to run just fast enough to be comfortably pushing myself (if that makes any sense...). With about a mile to go, I got passed by about three girls who all kept needing to stop and walk. They'd pass me, then walk and I'd pass them back. I was determined that they weren't going to beat me, and eventually I started putting enough distance on them during their walks that they couldn't catch me when they ran again. I ran the last mile at 9 minute pace!

I'm pretty happy with how I did. These races are really low-key and fun, but they're mostly VERY serious people (with aero everything and tri/TT bikes) because, honestly? Who else but serious (and crazy!) people are going to get up on a Saturday morning in the middle of winter to freeze their butts off running and biking! In this same race last year, I was only 3 minutes faster (a minute on the bike and two on the run), so I'm definitely getting back to my old form. Yay!

So I finished 178/205 in the open division (everyone except mountain bikes/hybrids/etc). 43:39 on the bike for a 14.8 mph average (sloooow), 3:20 transition (also sloooow but need to remember that long run out of transition counts here), and 39:47 on the run for a 9:57 (!!!) average. Not bad, definitely a lot of room for improvement, but it's starting to come back a little!