Last Sunday I completed my first duathlon. I decided to try a duathlon on Bill’s suggestion. Duathlon are run-bike-run events, instead of the swim-bike-run of a triathlon. Since the swim is the hard part for me in the triathlon, the duathlon sounded like a good option.
I found one in Callaway Gardens that looked good—a 5k run-30k bike-5k run. I trained for this events since the half marathon (which I have yet to blog about and probably will not really blog) I ran in late March and a bit before too. This was one of my most important races of the year (which given the number I have or plan to run this year is actually saying a lot). In addition, I had never been to Callaway Gardens and it looked like a very nice place to visit.
On to the race: We got really bad storms from about 3:15 am - 6:30 am and they delayed the 8 am start an hour. The roads were really wet–puddles, mud in places, and very slick. The bike course had some really sharp downhill turns, which under those conditions were pretty deadly. I had gotten little sleep the night before, and also missed lunch, had managed to get myself rather dehydrated, and sun burnt in places (chest and feet) the day before, so I was not really in any condition to do the race. I was quite nauseous, shaking, dizzy, and the whole bit. But I did it anyway. It was probably the second worse race I have ever done–with that disastrous water problem in my first triathlon the worse. I felt sick the whole time, came close to puking several times, and almost fell off my bike (on straight stretches) because I was dizzy. But I did it, and even finished under my “slowest” time goal. I had three goals: 2 hours (my fast goal), under 2:30 (my slow goal—actually my “just finish” easy time goal—I knew I could do that no problem), and that I didn’t finish last in my age group. Sadly I both did and didn’t make that last goal. I was third in my age group, and also last. Under better conditions, I could have easily been second, and possibly first, which make me pretty sad.
Bill, who was doing an Olympic distance triathlon the next week, did the duathlon as his long workout for this week and took it light and slow as part of his pre-race taper. So he stayed with me, which was really wonderful. We actually expected that we’d run the 1st 5 k together and then I’d kick his ass on the bike portion (since I would be going all out and he would be taking it easy) and then he might catch up with me on the run. We were quite curious to see if he would catch me or not. But I was in such bad condition for the bike that I took it much slower then even I have during previous rides on the Silver Comet–not a “race pace”. The conditions did not help, but mostly it was just my psychical condition. Bill and I stayed pretty even, with me beating him on the flat stretches and him beating me on the hills (both up and down, since I was being wimpy).
Oddly, although I felt awful and walked more than normal, the last 5k may have been my fastest 5 k since high school. I ran it in just under 29 minutes. I wouldn’t believe it if my watch didn’t tell me. So I am rather proud of that and of the fact I did finish and didn’t do so very badly.
One really nice part of the race was that some friends came down and cheered. Due to the way the course was designed they found a location where they go to see us several times. Only a few times before have I had fans besides Bill and never so frequently did I see the fans during the race. It really kept me going at times when I was my worse. I wasn’t a very good racer to be a fan of though—I nodded and grimaced and waved the few times I could—but mostly was trying not to throw up on them or near them (not good fan treatment at all).
The nausea and dizziness stayed with me throughout the day and the nausea until Tuesday. I also was shaking quite a bit for the few hours after the race. When we visited the butterfly gardens I had to sit down most of the time as I couldn’t really stand for more than a few minutes at a time. I also had to rush my luggage down to the car because I thought I was going to throw up. Due to the race delay we were leaving our room after checkout and I decided it would be best to throw up in their lobby bathroom and not our bathroom post check out time. Luckily a few minutes sitting in the lobby helped quite a bit, and I was up shortly to check out.
I did learn some good things about doing duathlon:
- Obviously don’t be dumb the day before.
- Before taper get in a long run exceeding the time I expect the duathlon to last, so I have recently exercised for longer and my body is better prepared for the time.
- Work on my hills—both up and down—on biking.
- Work on sharp turns biking, especially downhill ones.
- Try biking without my gloves. I did try to put them on and in my awful state it was hard to do that and bike at the same time. I ended up with two fingers in one finger hole and the was no way I could fix it.
- Work more on drinking and doing other such stuff on the bike. My state made this harder, but I should be generally more comfortable like this. I should also be able to take Gu on my bike and I couldn’t.