speedvegan

1 mile run – 10 mile bike – 2.5 mile run

Trophy.

Total Time: 1:02:03
Run 1: 7:54
T1: 0:45
Bike: 32:03
T2: 0:54
Run 2: 20:27
Overall Place: 65
Gender Place: 6
Category Place: 1

Today’s weather was perfect for racing. The morning was cool, almost chilly. I felt good. I did a long run on Friday, but took the day off yesterday, so my legs were fresh. I realized last night that I haven’t been on my bike in four weeks, which is a long time. All the traveling, being sick and catching up on sleep hasn’t been good for my bike training. This freaked me out a little, but then I remembered today’s race is the last multi-sport race of the season, which means biking will be taking the back seat anyway while I focus on running. Overall, I enjoyed the race. My runs were strong, even and faster than ever. I didn’t feel even the slightest bit of pain or discomfort. My transitions were fast too. though you won’t be able to tell since the timing system failed today and transition times weren’t recorded individually. The first run time includes T1 and the second run time includes T2. I didn’t time my transitions, but I can honestly tell you They were right up there with the faster times. Today’s major hiccup occurred during the bike leg, costing me some serious time. Even so, I surprisingly came in first in my age group.

UPDATE (10.20.08): Transition times were recovered.

Transition.

The first run was only a mile, which meant going all out. I was able to warm up this time, which made a big difference. I didn’t feel like I was going to die. I think my time was about seven minutes which is good enough for me. Transition was fast. The guy next to me this time was very nice. Sometimes karma works faster than we might expect it to. When I got to transition, he was already there. I changed my shoes, put on my helmet and took off. He was still there, so either he was very slow or I rocked the transition.

The bike leg was embarrassing. I pride myself in knowing a lot about bikes. I’m not one of those bike geeks that can’t talk about anything else, but I do know how to tell when there’s something wrong with my bike, if a part looks or sounds bad and I can fix some of it myself. Also, I always make sure to test my bike or at least look it over before heading off to a race. Imagine my surprise when I got on my bike this morning and heard a bizarre “whoosh whoosh” noise. I was perplexed. I’d never heard anything like it before. I slowed down, sped up. Still there. Finally, I made the dreadful decision to stop and check things out. I checked everything and lost a lot of time, but couldn’t find anything wrong. I figured I’d just get back on and test my luck. It was very windy this morning, which made it hard to tell exactly where the noise was coming from. At one point, we turned and got out of the wind for a while. I coasted. Silence. This narrowed the possibilities down a bit. Then I started pedaling again and that’s when it finally dawned on me. I was wearing my race belt since I was doing the duathlon and my race number was making that “whoosh whoosh” noise against my shorts. Big “DOH !” moment for Liz. At this point, I had already lost quite a bit of time and gaining it back was going to be impossible, but I had to try my best, so I kicked up the gear and cadence and whooshed all the way back to transition.

The second run was good. After another fast transition, I took off running, hoping for the best. My last few training runs have been great, but you never know how things are going to go down in a race. Fortunately, since my last race, I’ve been trying out different running styles, especially during my longer runs. I’ve worked on my posture and balance and I think that’s helped me out a lot, obviously ! I felt strong throughout the entire run, even at the end when I kicked it up a bit. I ran through the finish line eager to keep running, which means I could have probably gone a bit harder, but it’s better to keep it on the safe side.

Although I wish the bike “misunderstanding” hadn’t happened, all I can say now is that I handled it like a good cyclist (you should always stop and check your bike if you hear something funky) and I learned a valuable lesson which will come in handy in future events. Plus, I had a great time.