Daffodil Super Sprint Du

A little birdie chirped in my ear that this might be a nice short distance duathlon for me to get my feet wet. Sure, why not? I'll have two weeks after my half marathon to throw in some brick workouts to make sure I can actually run off of the bike. Oh and maybe get some more time on the new bike as well.

A couple of months ago I bought a Felt road bike. I fell in love with it immediately. It was a 2009 that had been sitting in inventory so I got a great price on it and it was cute! After all, it's all about the cuteness factor! I promised myself if I ever bought a road bike that I would get clipless pedals and would learn how to ride with them and not be afraid of falling over. With half training most of the bonding with my new bike came on the trainer. I had only 4 actual road rides under my belt before today. So my two goals for the race today were to a. finish and b. not crash on the bike.

This was an inaugural event with a very small field, 160 racers total for both distances. I did the Super Sprint which was a 1 mile run, 7 mile bike and 2 mile run. I arrived bright and early (literally I was the first participant there) to find that transition wasn't even set up yet. Better to be early than late, right? Once Mary Sue arrived we headed over to transition to set up our bikes. Having never done an event before I wasn't sure what would be an ideal spot for me. We decided on the last rack very close to the "bike out".

My purdy bike! 

A very nice woman came up with a TT bike and FMRC kit and told us we would be better off to turn our bikes around. She had lots of great info for us and was very helpful, she also dropped several times that she was an Ironman finisher. I suppose if I had completed an Ironman I would look for ways to casually drop that into a conversation as well. It was going to be another hot day. I've been wondering lately who I am, doing all these races in hot weather!

After we felt confident in our transition set-up we headed to the start line. The Sprint went off first at 8am with 2 waves and we went off at 20 minutes later. It honestly was the smallest start I have ever seen. After the first group went off I took the time to do my PT stretches and I even did a short warm-up run on the advice of my "coach".

With no messing around and no recorded versions of the star bangle banner we were off! I had set my watch to run with intervals, but honestly, once I got out there I didn't need it for the first run. I was in transition before I even knew what had happened. My Garmin 610 isn't exactly a multi-sport watch but I can use it for biking and running. It's just a little extra work. As I hit the transition 1 mat I ended my run and switched over to cycling. I took off my shoes and visor and put on my helmet and cycling cleats. I have to admit, it felt kind of bad ass to be running through transition with my bike! Lucky for us the bike mount area was down on the street and it was flat. It took me some extra time to get that first foot clipped in but not as bad as some of my training rides. Wheeee, I was off on the bike! There was a very sweet 9 year old racing with us. I had passed her on the run and she passed me as I was trying to clip in (lucky girl was riding in tennis shoes!) I passed her on the bike before we got out of the park and I thought, "at least I passed someone!" (Okay, I know she's 9 but lets be honest, I've had plenty of 9 year old's beat me in races!) As I got comfortable on the bike I took in some Cytomax and remembered the honey stingers in my back pocket. Right, take in some nutrition. I popped a couple of those bad boys and proceeded on. The first 3 miles on the bike seemed to take forever! Probably because I was just trying to get comfortable and to lower my heart rate a little. This course was awesome, and I heard several people comment on what a great course it was. For me, being such a newbie cyclist this course really gave me the opportunity to just bond with my bike. A mostly closed course and even the parts that had traffic on it were super minimal. It really gave me the opportunity to just get some nice uninterrupted riding in. I even managed to pass 3 other people (yes, adults!). Coming back into the park on the bike never felt so good. I successfully dismounted and made my way through transition. I was secretly really worried about heading out on the run with my bike helmet, thankfully that was not an issue. I grabbed a cup of water as I headed out of transition on the run. The only difficult part about this course is that the first part of each run is on a rocky dirt path. It's really difficult to try and navigate through without rolling your ankle all while trying to pass other runners. I felt a huge sense of relief once I was back on pavement. It was hot, hot, hot. I managed to pass a few people on the way out, although I had no idea if they were Sprint or Super Sprint participants. As we approached the aid station and turn around I grabbed a cup of water to drink and dump down the back of my shirt. Did I mention it was hot? While I took a moment to think about how I felt physically, I realized that my legs felt awesome, it was really my lungs that were killing me. The past couple of days had been hard on  me allergy wise, and all the dirt and brush was not helping me much. But if felt like such a victory for my legs to be feeling so awesome. On the way back in I had my eyes set on one more person to pass. Just on the  pace I was running I was getting ready to pass her, but she sensed me coming up on her and she picked up her speed. I maintained my speed because I felt it was a mistake to race her at this point, I'd get her closer to the finish line. As we rounded up the dirt mound to make the final sprint to the finish line I picked up my pace and and so did she. We were stride for stride and I really thought we would finish that way. My competitive side kicked in and I overtook her. I actually heard her grunt in frustration and defeat as I pulled away from her. I crossed the finish line at a 6:10 pace, in fact I had to go back and get my water because I ran through so fast I couldn't stop in time. Then there was the moment of "holy hell, I'm going to puke!" Thankfully, I did not.

I am thankful to the woman that raced me at the end, I've never had anyone fight me that hard at the finish and while it hurt it was kind of fun.(By the way, she was 22.)

Trying to maintain an even pace before sprinting to the finish

This when I kicked it into high gear and passed her. I'm surprised they even got a photo, because I think we took the photographer by surprise with our sprint.

Done!

I'm not going to lie, I felt like a badass after completing my first multi-sport event. So much fun to put yourself out there and try something new. I'm hopeful to get one more duathlon in this year as I prep for my first triathlon in 2013.

Race Stats:
Run 1: 9:35
T1: 1:26
Bike: 32:41
T2: 1:35
Run 2: 19:11

Overall Finish: 1:04:30