Last year,
I did my first Duathlon with Esprit de She short course, 2mile run before and
after 9 mile ride. (blog here) I was
pleasantly surprised I was not the last and I passed a lot of people on
bike. With encouragement of Brad Ellis,
I made the long course, 5K run before and after 18 mile ride, “A” race for
2014. What I
remembered from last year: 1) cold, 2) I had to pass a lot of people on bike,
3) I don’t enjoy girly chat.
Training
for the long course meant keeping up with time trial training on bike, but a
lot more running. During 2013, my runs are limited to 5K at a time. Being able to do long course meant running
10K. I hired Coach Todd starting January
through March to help me mostly with running with initial goal race of 10K in
Cowtown in February. I did another 10K
in June and mostly ran in the dark early morning during summer months. I also started Runervals IronGirl version,
the easiest. The day before the race, on
Saturday, I used the Du checklist from last year and did transition
practice. This time, I added mount/dismount
practice at nearby apartment complex. My
beginner running book says, if it is over 80 degrees, it is not a good idea to
run. However unlike last year, the days
leading up to the race were warm fall weather.
At pre-race, I am not a really good company. I start getting nervous the night before,
worrying about GI issues next morning about what to eat for dinner and going
through how things flow at the transition and all.
Poor Sherpa
Tony has to put up with nervous Keiko and also has to get up early on race
day. Last year, we arrived just when the
transition opened and found out the rack was all marked with numbers. Still I wanted to avoid the long bike check/body
marking line, so trusty Chofer Tony got me at the transition right when they
started. This year, the timing chip is
already on the bib and to my surprise, the rack was loosely marked with which
distance/relay only. From previous
experience, when I get to T1, it is not that difficult to spot my bike since
most of them are already gone (meaning slow first run), but I got virtually the
best spot possible. While Tony catches a
precious nap, I walked around, did active warm up, ran hard a little bit, ran
long a little bit to make sure my GI issues won’t surface during the race. I watched USAT video for beginner Du race and
it said, you should come in from run in with preferably race intensity and make
sure you know your spot. I spent a long
time coming from both directions and rehearsed what to do.
The
announcement said they are going to have a group warm up and Tony set up his
hybrid bike and we headed to the start line.
Thanks to Chofer, we have a perfect parking spot right behind the bike
in and out. Since this is put together
by Lifetime Fitness, an instructor was doing dance warm up. I got on the rear end of the group and the
music started. I see some girls moving,
but I could not see the instructor.
Besides the reason I got into cycling for aerobic exercise in the first
place is that I cannot follow any choreography.
When that is done, MC started count down for short course for their 8:30
start, but then they were made to wait to make sure the intersections are safe
to start the race. They took off around
8:40 and long course girls had to wait 5 more minutes. This wait felt very long. When Coach Troy came to Flower Mound to shoot
LTF workouts, I could not get in the shoot, but he had me on spin bike and
coached me for 30 second sprint and made a cute video. The music that was used for historical fun
video came on and I had to think, this had to be a sign of good luck.
Finally
short course girls started
and long
course girls followed.
My goal for
the 1st run was to make sure I start with easy intensity and not
panicking if I am the last person to go to transition. Even for 5K course, they had water stations 4
times, which was very nice. Because we
waited so long, I felt already dehydrated at 0.5 miles. It was OK in the shade, but I felt the run warm. I saw 2 mile turn off, the same
as last year, but I had to move on to the little park area. There were lots of volunteers and officers
and I thanked them all. To my surprise,
I probably passed one or two girls on the returning round.
My bike was
easily spotted and I changed for bike.
Thanks to yesterday’s practice and morning’s preparation, the pedal was
at a very good angle and I mounted with relative ease. Once I am on the bike, this is my
element. People were not riding three
abreast like last year. Until we get to
Airport road, it is going through downtown streets with residential area and
the police was stopping the traffic. I
made sure to be careful, but I got in the aero position immediately. I passed girls ahead of me one by one. At the entire bike leg, I don’t think I was passed
by a single rider! THANKS to Spinervals,
I was feeling like Tony Martin, mouth wide open time trialing. It was probably SE wind and I was glad I had
aero bars. From last year, I remembered
I went too fast and little hill coming back felt like huge climb. Just before that, I was feeling chest tight,
early sign of exercise induced asthma.
So I eased up a little bit and took a drink from Camelbak. Around this time, I was pretty convinced I
had a flat on rear. The bike was
reflecting every single concrete groove.
For one time, I thought maybe I should follow Brad Ellis and Tony’s
advice and get nice race tires. There
were a couple of girls walking with bike, too and dropping the race crossed my
mind. I just thought I would stay aero
as much as I can to relieve the pressure on the rear and decide what to do for
the 2nd loop. Luckily once I
get into downtown area, it didn’t feel the same, so I kept on. I did a lousy turn around, but I went on the
second loop. Short course people didn’t
do the second loop, so the field was quieter.
It also meant the police officers have fewer people to stop the traffic
for. I thought I understood what Gogo,
Universal Sports commentator, said about how you feel during time trial. You are trying to keep an eye on the road for
safety, but you are riding such a high intensity and your eyes are blurry. In the end, I passed whole bunch of girls and
came back to the transition.
I didn’t do
bricks enough, especially hard ride to run bricks and I was feeling wobbly
getting out to run. It was going to be a
hot run. Tony followed me around and
cheered and took this historical, dangerously attempted video while riding.
The run
felt long, but I took advantage of four water stations and drank plenty and
poured over my head occasionally.
A bunch of
girls passed me on the second run, but that is what is expected. I felt slow, but I heard all the cheering
people are doing from Spienrvals team and kept going. I finished and got the medal. YEY!
I was
pleasantly surprised that my second run was tiny bit faster than first and the
overall time. The official data will be
added more, so I will update as I receive.
So far here is my data below.
THANK YOU, Tony for being a super husband and thank you all for
cheering!
Official
results
The data includes DNF, but here is what I figured from split data and removing extremely short data (e.g. 6 seconds on bike leg)
Run 1: 117th out of 146
Bike: 16th out of 139
Run 2: 87th out of 129
Overall 77th out of 146
Garmin data
1st run
ride
2nd run
Strava
1 Comments:
Great JOB! You Rock! I had the Best Time and will come back Again next year.
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