Esprit de She 10/26/13

I just wanted to put a quick race recap for the day.  I will go into details of how I ended up starting my “racing career” in 2013 at a later post.

Tony found this event called Esprit de She Duathlon inMcKinney.  We often ride through and participate in ride events in McKinney, so I went with a short course; 9-mile ride sandwiched between 2-mile run.

Although this is my first Du, but  it is also happening in the middle of the semester,  I was really not putting ideal Du training and towards the end, the training became more that I should get maximum rest for the race day.  I picked up the race packet on Thursday sneaking out oral exams and on Friday I was too tired to go out driving to McKinney.  At the same time, good news was that I am not too worried and nervous about my very first Du.  I managed to wake up early enough to finally put together several maps to figure out the run and bike course on the maps and from memories of the past events.

Team Flores Director Sportif, Tony specifically assigned run stretches as I was very slowly coming back to running.

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I was told that my timing chip would automatically post on my Facebook timeline, but that never happened.  So Kudos to Team Sherpa Tony to keep my friends updated on the Internet.  So at 8:35 am, the second wave for the short course started.

I have no shame in admitting that I am still a super slow runner.  The run training so far was to make it through 5K without hurting any body parts.  My Polar was displaying my heart rate to be about maximum and I could never decide if it was something wrong with the gadget or it was for real and happening because of race adrenaline.  Either way, I was waiting for my heart rate to be at least tempo range for the ride, around 150 and I just kept my pace and let everybody pass.  There must be groups of girls who trained together and good friends.  They were talking girly stuff and I was thinking, golly, maybe I would not do girls only event that involves run anymore.  At least on TT race, nobody would be talking and I don’t have to listen to girly conversation.  I partook some water at aid station half way and thanked all the volunteers and officers on course when I could.  Tony cheered me on the hybrid and I kept reporting on how my heart rate is acting up.  One time, he was riding on the grass and soft-landed.  Girls around me were saying, “Oh, no was he clipped on?” so I turned around and said, “Nah, he is up.  He is OK.”  Then one giggled, “Is that your husband?” Cute moment of the day.

Once I get on the bike, I am on my element.  My heart rate was still way over threshold.  The event did a good job on managing the streets, but there is not really whole lot of width and there were a lot of people on cruiser or mountain bikes.  And sometimes they are still talking side by side.  Most of the time I had to yell way ahead “On your left!” because I knew I was coming up fairly quickly.  I didn’t go in aero position until I got to Airport Road because the road was still busy and there were downtown streets.  As soon as we get to the T-road on to making a right to Airport Road, the police was stopping us to let the traffic go and I could hear some girls were upset.  I quietly waited and it was probably a good thing for heart rate.  And I could feel the head wind.  I mostly went down in aero and passed most people, some on road bikes.  I remember being passed, maybe less than 10 times.  Once we made a U-turn, the wind was on my back, so I was seeing over 20 miles per hour.  Then of course, we make a U-turn again and heading to the wind.  At this point, I was starting to feel exercise induced asthma, so I made sure sip from my Camelbak (yes, you can laugh, but it serves me well) and started to go easy.  There was a small hill and I could see some cruiser bike people were struggling.  Then I started to see the line of cars being stopped for the corner.  I was not going to go very fast on the series of cars with disgruntled drivers and waved as much as I can.  Once I made a corner to go back to downtown streets, I was not into riding aero because the streets were narrower and I had too many people around me.

On the second run, I actually started to pass people because a lot of them are walking.  When I made a turnaround point at 1 mile, I noticed that the first long course person was coming already!  WOW.  I over heard some girls commenting, they are so glad that they are not doing the long course.  I was thinking, I should do long course next time: my run should improve and 18 mile bike ride will only favor me in terms of results.  I was thinking you can only improve maybe 1-2 minutes, but if you get stronger on bike and maybe adding wind direction, you could improve race results easier.  There you go.  That is why Spinervals Team sees strong runners every year.  Even the course description says it is a flat course, maybe you should never believe it. :O There was a pretty good hill before the last turn and some people were walking on the first run,, but on the second run, it looked like most were walking.  Tony took my video and I yelled, “I am still running!”  I didn’t particularly NOT walking a goal, but I felt strong enough to keep going.  I heard Coach Troy’s comments, “Whoever finishes fastest slows down the least.”  I hear Tony yelling and all my virtual friends cheering. 

Once I made a turn after the big hill, I could see the finish line.  Tony was yelling behind me, probably catching up on the hybrid and I saw a couple of people in front of me.  THANK GOODNESS, these things are not that long.  I put together my last energy and passed one woman and saw 1:21 something on the clock.  I received a finisher medal and a volunteer promptly took my timing chip.  A few minutes later, the computer was showing my time.

As I expected, no hardware (in this case necklace), but I was happy I finished strong and in fact, I was not last!  My next Du is an USAT sanctioned event and I may not be so lucky.  But 18-mile ride sandwiched in 2-mile runs, on totally closed course.  So it will be a lot more like really TT. 

Thank you, my husband Tony,  for constant support and cheering,  all my friends and Coach Troy.  I finished my first Du!

Here is the stats of the race.  (No distance/pace on the run as I forgot GPS.)

run 1

bike Garmin
bike Strava

run2

finish line clip