But I had to get up that early. The race (the Dash Pedal Dash put on by the Schaumburg Park District) started at 6:30 A.M., which was good since it was already 70 degrees and muggy when I walked out of my house to leave at 4:15 A.M. I made it to the race about an hour early, which was plenty of time to get out my bike and my gear and head on over to the transition area. Once there, I was confronted with this:
You see, in my first duathlon there were no bike racks. But here there were, obviously. And me, with two college degrees, couldn't figure out how to put the damn bike on the rack for about 5 minutes. Talk about my education not being applicable to real life.
After getting my bike on the rack (and then getting it on the proper rack) and setting up my area, I then checked in and got some neat-oh body marking:
I also got marked on both arms. And then I found out that duathlon participants didn't need body marking. Guess I'll be wearing sleeves and pants to work for a while.
Anyway, this duathlon had a 12.8 mile bike ride sandwiched in-between two 5K runs. Here's the race breakdown:
Run #1: Attack of Coughing Guy
The run was through a nice residential part of Schaumburg, and had two main loops. I wasn't really interested in bursting a lung on this race, mainly because my legs were still recovering from the 18 miler I did two days ago. My goal was to run an 8:30 pace to not only save my legs but also to save some for the bike and the last run. And I was meeting that goal when I came upon Coughing Guy.
It was about half way through the first run when I heard him. I actually thought he was sneezing his way through the course when I came up behind him, and felt bad for his alleged allergies at first. But then I started pacing him, and realized after he let loose a cough-hack-spit combo that he was coughing.
And coughing and coughing and coughing.
I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just really sick when he decided to run this race. But I really couldn't take pacing him for more than 3 nanoseconds, so this forced me to speed up and run the rest of the race a little faster than I wanted to do (at about an 8:19 pace). With the mugginess of the morning and the slightly faster speed, I was extremely happy to get to my bike and hop on.
12.8 mile bike ride: Pass me, huh?
This was a nice ride. The course was well marked, there were volunteers everywhere, there were enough hills and turns to keep your mind occupied, and I really appreciated the breeze I was getting on the bike. My average speed was around 17 miles per hour, and I was happy with that. Just like with the run, I wasn't interested in going all out--I was interested in going as fast as possible without pushing my legs to the brink of collapse.
I did get passed by a lot of people with some serious-looking bikes, but they were mainly in the triathlon that was occurring at the same time, so I wasn't really worried. I only got all competitive when I noticed some duathlon participants--some that I had passed in the run--were passing me in mile 9 or 10 or so of the bike.
Pass me, will you? We'll see about that.
Run #2: Return of Coughing Guy and..well...the guy who sounded like he was REALLY happy to be running.
One of the bike riders who passed me was Coughing Guy. I quickly caught up to him and passed him, the sounds of his cough-hack-spits ringing in my ears long after I passed him. After that, I gradually picked off every single person who passed me at the end of that bike ride. I was feeling pretty good about that...until I came across a runner who seemed REALLY happy. Too happy.
This runner was an older gentlemen, and with every exhale he was letting loose a sound that can best be described as "climactic." Scratch that-it can best be described as "someone having a good time but that good time should not be seen in public especially on a running course." It was hard for me not to completely lose it and start laughing, mainly because I was still running an 8:19 pace and my lungs wouldn't allow it. But hey, to each his own-we all have our own running styles and rhythms...and sounds.
My overall time was 1:41:49. I am actually pretty pleased with this, because I initially expected it would take me 2 hours to finish. However, one thing I will have to work on is my transitions. They were both two minutes long, which is about one minute too long for each of them. I think it's because I walked in my bike shoes during both of them; I'm going to have to practice getting my shoes off after my bike dismount so I can just high-tail it in my socks to my transition area.
But that time was good enough to take first in my age group:
I would love to show you some awesome photos of me during the race, but my race photographer decided 3:30 A.M. was too early to get up and stayed in bed this morning. So I had to resort to taking a race selfie in the bathroom:
I know. The depths to which I will sink just to get a race photo.
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