Minneapolis Duathlon Race Recap

A little late but here it is…about a month ago, I completed the Minneapolis Duathlon. I can’t say that I raced it because I started the race with a friend and chatted through the first 5k, I was riding my road bike for the first time in a couple years and I my longest bike ride was 14 miles including 3 breaks to eat ice cream and taco (they way all bike rides should be). Hopefully, I remember the exciting things that happened during the race…actually, I don’t think anything exciting happened during the race.

1^st run leg – 5k

They had a bunch of heats for the race. It started at 8:00 and the final heat started at 10:30. I was happy to be in heat 5 which started at 8:20. They broke the heat up into groups of about 30 runners and started them every 2 minutes. When we finally started, my friend and I started were a little freaked out because we were leading our group. We kept thinking that people were going to be flying past us but that never happened on the first run. After about 4 min, we began passing some of the runners from the previous heat/group. The rest of the run was uneventful…we were just passing other runners and a few runner passed us. I was pushing my friends pace a little bit but it was probably good that she kept me from going to fast on the first leg of the duathlon. We got to the transition in 24:02. I had to change my shoes so my friend left me in the transition.

T1 - 1:36

Bike leg – 18 miles

The bike leg was pretty uneventful. I passed a bunch of people and a bunch of people passed me. I got passed by people on all sorts of bikes. After about 5 miles, I just wanted to get off the bike. It just seemed to drag on forever. I kept watch for the mile marker flags and they just couldn’t come fast enough. I finished the bike section in 59:08. I averaged just over 18 mph which I was happy with because of my lack of biking prior to the race.

T2 - 2:02

2^nd run leg – 5k

I was not sure what to expect from my legs. I had been racing for almost an hour and half which is longer than any training I had been doing. My legs were tired but it felt good to be running and passing other runners so I made the goal to not be passed by any women on this run. I accomplished that goal but just barely because a women came sprinting up behind me at the finish. 5k split was 23:31.

Overall time 1:50:17

Overall place 215/1385

Gender place 36/692

Age group place 7/127

I enjoyed the race. I would do it again except next time I would train for it. I think I could cut my bike time down a lot. I would like to average over 20 mph next year.

Oh yeah, It was the 4^th race in the Team Ortho Monster Series so I completed my giant metal. Awesome!

I'm Back

I didn't go anywhere but I am back from the land of preliminary exam. I passed by written exam about 1.5 weeks ago. It was a grueling 7 day exam. Yes, the exam lasted 7 days and I needed all 7 day to finish it. I was working all day everyday on it. No running, no bike commuting, no doing anything but writing. After I finished the exam I had 2 days to finish my proposal and send it to my committee. Then I had to make a presentation and study for my oral prelim. It has been challenging. I haven't more than once a week for the last month actually it has been longer than that since I have been injured. So anyway, I passed my oral prelim yesterday and go the okay to write my dissertation. I am officially a doctoral candidate! It is kind of crazy. It use to seem so far away but now it feels like I might actually graduate. Then I will be done with school forever...that is kind of a scary thought to me. I like school a lot.

Today my first day back running, I ran 5.4 miles with a friend. We ran faster than I would have run by myself. We averaged 7:38 per mile. I was done for by the end of the run but it felt great to be back out there running. My hip bothered me a little. I have to keep doing the PT exercises and hope that it helps.