Chilly Cheeks Duathlon, Race #2

This past Saturday I raced in the second race of the Chilly Cheeks Duathlon series. This race was vastly different than the first one which was a 4 mile run followed by a 10 mile bike. This particular race was a 1.5 mile run, 3.6 mile bike, 2.5 mile run, 7.2 mile bike, 50 meter run, very odd distances but it was a blast!

At the first race I entered the “fat tire” division and decided to stick with that division because I figured I ride my tri bike about 99% of the time so why not have some fun and ride my mtn bike. The first race in this series had the roads partially covered in snow and ice where this race was pretty clear except for the run course which was on trails. Since it was so clear the race attracted a lot more people and a lot more people with road bikes.

Even though it was so nice I was determined to stay in the fat tire division and use my mtn bike; I didn’t want to change divisions and I certainly was not going to cheat and use a road bike in the fat tire division. Unfortunately other people weren’t so honest. There were numerous people using their road/tri bikes in the fat tire division!!! How not nice!!! I was/am so angry with this. I mean if you look at the results I would like to know how ANYONE can ride a fat tired mtn bike on a relatively hilly course holding an 18mph pace! YEA RIGHT!!! Most of the people in the open division couldn’t hold that pace!!! I actually had a lady tell me that she was blatantly cheating and using a road bike in the fat tire division because “the roads are just so nice and it’s not a big deal to not change divisions”. Yea guess who was one of the 6 that beat me??...grrr. Oh well enough ranting I’ll get back to the race.

The first run I did awesome I really put my all into the whole mile and half and surprisingly my efforts paid off I finished the run in 10:02 and second OA. Not bad, not bad. I was happy with this because, doing the math that is a 6:41 /mile pace!!! I have not been able to get under a 7 min mile (7:30 in reality) pace since I moved to CO...not sure if altitude has something to do with that, but I’m gonna blame it on the high altitude ; )

After an embarrassingly slow transition (I couldn’t get my helmet clipped) I hopped onto my bike and began the second leg which started with a nice three quarter of a mile climb. This is definitely where riding a mtn bike sucks! I was very jealous of all that road/tri bikes effortlessly zooming up the hill. Oh well head down and pedal pedal pedal. I finished the first segment of the bike at a 15.4 mph pace, which in my opinion is awesome for a mtn bike.

Another embarrassingly slow transition (no excuse here) and I was off onto the second run which was 2.5 miles of hills. Obviously my pace went down significantly from the first run but I was still at about an 8:30 pace. Again not bad for an uphill 2.5 mile run.

Yet again, another embarrassingly slow transition (see a pattern here) and onto the bike again for 7.2 miles of mtn biking fun! I felt slower on this leg and in fact I was, I averaged about 15.2 mph, still not bad for the equipment being used. But again, I was getting passed by numerous people on road/tri bikes, which was a little disheartening. HOWEVER, I did manage to pass about 8 people on road/tri bikes, WOAH!! (thus going back to the aforementioned women doing 18.4mph on a mtn bike, yea right!).

Coming into transition I felt ok, and knew I only had 50 meters of running left so I wracked my bike and ran barefoot across the line in 1 hour 15 mins!! I was VERY pleased with this time for two reasons 1) I knew I had pushed as hard as I could throughout the race (well set aside the transitions) and 2) I was 7 mins faster and this race was a mile longer than the first race in the series, not to mention having to do 3 additional transitions! DAMN! That makes me one happy lady.

Overall it was a great race, beyond the cheating that was going on, and I finished 7th overall female and 3rd in my age group. My placing was worse than the first race but I can hold my head high knowing that I did the best I could and I ran an honest race. So suck it, you cheaters!!! Tehe ; )

The third and final race of this series is February 20th and again I plan on riding my mtn bike, no matter the conditions and again, running a hard and honest race. Hey maybe I can knock another 7 mins off my time! (Dreaming BIG)