Partially because not a whole lot has been going on, but.... mostly laziness.
Sportspectrum's annual Dustbuster Duathlon was a week or so ago and true to form it was stinkin' cold out there! But what do you expect from a race that's held in early January, right? Last year a front blew in as we were waiting for the race to start, we had wind, and rain, and freezing temperatures. This year no rain (thank goodness) but it was in the low 40's and we had a north wind at about 18 mph. Last year's Race Report.
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| Warm Up Run |
The bike course was two out and back loops of 4 miles each so half of our ride was directly into the north wind... ah... but that means that the other half was with an amazing tail wind!! Averaged 18.8 or so, but maxed at 28.5 mph, not bad considering that I haven't been on the bike hardly at all (last year my average was 17.3 - bleh horrible).
Run 2 was another out and back but into the wind for the first half. Some kids had fun the night before on the grass with their ATVs and made a mess out of a little section of the run, making the path muddy, and dirty, and slippery - had to watch your footing over that little part. Averaged 7:55 by my Garmin on the second run - 12:09, course is a tad long so online results show it a little slower (last year 12:28 - but had extremely frozen feet from them being wet). My goal was to have my two run splits about with no more than :30 seconds per mile pace difference. Came pretty close. Looking over the results I can see a lot of people who either took out the first run too hard, weren't prepared for the bike (lack of winter training?), or went too hard on the bike. Many of the run comparisons were over a minute difference in pace per mile.
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| 1st and 2nd Overall Females COBB MOBB and Sunrise Tri Club! |
Long, long ago I won overall female once before at a duathlon. It was the Strutters Duathlon 5K/30K/5K in San Angelo, TX. I dug around and found this online! 1991 - 23 years ago - I was 30!
Race Hints:
I put hand warmers under my toe covers to keep my feet warmer, this especially helps for the second run. Getting off the bike and having blocks of ice for feet makes for a very uncomfortable second run. I had a thought day before yesterday about my hands. I was in the car with my husband and we were talking about the heated steering wheel on his Jeep. I mentioned how it would be neat to have heated handlebars. A friend of mine in North Carolina posted a picture on FB the other day of the 4 layers of clothing he used for a ride, it included 3 pair of gloves.
So... what about this idea - taping a couple hand warmers to the inside of your aerobars up toward the shifters?? I'm going to give it a try!! When I did the TriTyler triathlon last year I suffered some minor frostbite on a couple fingers of my left hand from the temperatures, this little hand-warmer trick may just work! I think it will also be good for winter rides. I put hand-warmers in my gloves but it's my fingers that really get uncomfortable.
The other good news:
Won the Sunrise Triathlon Club Female Athlete of the Year!
Picked up for a second year by the Cobb Mobb Triathlon Team, and chosen to be a Captain!
Made USAT All American again!
Serving as Director of Publicity and Public Relations for The Sunrise Triathlon Club!
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| 2015 Sunrise Tri Club Officers |
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