CLYDESDALE RUNNING

I had to look back at last year’s race report to see if I explained it, which I did not, so to keep things clear I first wanted to note that this race involved neither cross-country skiing, or shooting a rifle. As the race director himself points out (on megaphone) prior to the race, the race itself (19th annual) predates the popularization of the term “duathlon”. So the term “biathlon” is not necessarily incorrect, just old.

It was a windy morning, but not too bad temp-wise, and usually sunny. The wind knocked me around and kicked my ass a little on the bike. I’m also clearly not in real good bike shape coming in, but the running has really picked up, which I thank half marathon training for. I fully expect to PR in more than one running distance yet again this summer/fall, but I need to start getting more time in the saddle. In fact, this was only the second time I’ve had the tri bike out. I’ve been all about the road bike this spring. The course was also modified a bit due to road construction, making the two runs combine for about an extra quarter mile, according the aforementioned director. So, at 1:07:13 I believe I finished 42^nd overall (still waiting for online results to confirm), which it better than last year, but slower, by a good amount. I’ll chalk that up to the course and wind, which I’m assuming affected everyone.

Jamie raced this year, and came in around 1:14, and even won her age group (20-29) by a slim margin of 3 seconds! She beat some pretty fit-looking ladies too, I would like to add. I think she’s a natural on the bike, because if we’re calculating it accurately (because the race does not provide splits), her bike split was only about 5-minutes slower than mine, which I would say is impressive for a lady who rarely rides. We’ll get her out there again in early September (Dousman Duathlon) and late September in a more casual 3-day fully-supported tour I’ve got us signed up for with a nice little luxury resort stay mixed in.

Next: 12-hours of Gears mountain bike relay race with Garrett, Noah, and Jin.
Goal: Have fun, don’t crash, drink some beer, and camp out for the first time in my life.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 5:52 pm and is filed under Race Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.