IronMan Me: What A-Race

One hour and twenty six minutes on the clock and I'm tired, exhausted searching for breathe and my calves were locking up. I tried to stretch them out but nothing would help. Time to push through or time to give up. That moment is what you train for, what you wait for, what you desire. The point where you test whether you can push yourself beyond where you have gone before.

My A-race of the year was last Saturday. It was my biggest race, my entry into multi-sport, my first duathlon. I was looking forward to this race more than I have any other. I had been training (although not as well as I could) for this and the day before I had no nerves, no excitement, not much of anything. I was calm and ready, until night came. That night I had to pack up everything for the race. A few days earlier the weather had taken a drastic u-turn and instead of being 72 and sunny it was going to be 43 and rainy. I hadn't prepared for this, I hadn't even ridden in this. I didn't know what to take or what to wear. The stress started creeping in as I packed my transition bag, but no matter what the morning was coming.

Early race morning my wife and I got up and start getting ready. We got dressed in our warm clothes and made sure we had everything. I started loading up the bike as my wife started to put on her shoes and she got a text from a friend. Her friend was asking why we weren't there yet and she said it was about to start. The questions starting running through our heads; "Did I read the time wrong?" "Are we an hour off?" "Can we still make it?". So we jumped in the car and drove off as fast as we could, and then we got another text confirming she was the one that was off on the time.....wow that was stressful, but we were on our way.

We arrived at the race and KC went and picked up our packets as I went and put my bike in transition. It was calming seeing a friend running my first ever transition. It was cold, but the rain was holding off. You could feel the excitement from everyone, the way it usually feels before a race. We put on our race numbers, aired up the tires and did a final check of everything. Just a few more minutes it was pre-race meeting and race time.

After some waiting we were in the group and the gun had fired. We were off. The race was a sprint duathlon with a 5k race, 14 mile bike, and then another 1 mile run. There was also a 5k race going on at the same time. My wife was running the 5k, but this was the first time in a race we weren't running together. It was a strange feeling, but I kept on moving to beat my total time of 1:45:00.

The first mile of the run I felt like I wanted to reserve a lot of energy for the bike, and so I wasn't going all out. I got to the turn around and glanced at my clock, it was at 14 minutes and something. I did the math and figured I would come in from the 5k at around 29 minutes and something. That wasn't exactly what I wanted but maybe it would help reserve some energy. Soon after I saw my wife and she stopped to take a picture :) I started to pick it up a little, and as I came close to transition I looked at the clock and did a little double take. It was at 26:40 and I was ecstatic. It wasn't a PR but less than a minute off.

I ran into transition and switched my iPhone over to my bike. I took a long drink, put on my gloves and my helmet and took off. I wasn't feeling as confident about the bike portion. People had been talking about how the hills were pretty killer, and so I started going hesitantly to see what was ahead. I made notes in my head as I hit the first downhill, "This is not going to be fun to come back up". That first big downhill my chain came off and so it eliminated my speed going down as I had to stop. It was hard putting it back on with my gloves, but 20 seconds later and I was back up.

Five miles into the bike ride I was going harder. I wasn't hesitant anymore I was just pushing hard enjoying the ride, until I came to this massive winding hill. As I approached I saw three or for people walking up with their bikes. I went into it hard and soon switched to my low gears. I was going slow but in my head I kept repeating "do not get off this bike". I finally made it to the top and it was great finally seeing a little bit of flat straightish land. I kept riding hard and saw some friends cruise by on the other side of the road and knew the turn around must be coming up.

I hit the turn around and pushed hard. Up every hill and down the others I was cruising. I knew I had more to give and so I did. I passed some people and then came to the hill from early on. It was time to go back up, but I knew compared to that other one, this was nothing. I looked down at my clock and realized I had 20 minutes until my goal time. I didn't know exactly how far away I was, but it was really go time now. I hit the hill with no problem and made quick work of it. I started to come around a curve and saw the orange tape and my beautiful wife there all bundled up ready to take more pictures.

I rushed into transition threw off my gloves, left my phone on my bike and started running. I heard my wife's name over the speakers, and 2nd place following it. So I raised up my hands to cheer. In transition I took off, against my better judgement, without stretching my calves. I had done only one brick workout (going straight from a bike to a run) in training for this and that was the one thing I learned, but I felt good....for a minute. Then my calves started locking up, and I couldn't stretch them out. So I decided, "what the heck, only a mile, run it out in the pain". By the half mile mark I was feeling good again and a sprinted back to the finish. As I approached, there it was 1:34:15.

Crossing the finish line I grabbed some water, took off my timing chip and hugged my wife. What A race! All in all it was amazing. My calves were sore for a couple days, but I finished 3rd in my age and received my first race medal.