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.

So proud of my wife

My Friend Corey and I

My wife got me a pre-race present, with a bike picture frame with my girls pictures in it,
and a biking magazine. She's the best.

My bike in transition

My farthest run ever

My farthest run ever.

Yesterday was my 10k race, and it was great. Races are always great. You feel rejuvenated, confident and excited after a race, like you have actual done something. Leading up to the race on the other hand is a different story.

I don't know why this always happens, but every race I have run I have never actually trained or prepped for. I always slack off, and then race day comes, I race (probably not as well as I could if I would have trained), and then I am encouraged and then I do really good for a while afterwards; maybe I just need race more! This week training went ok, I had a wonderful 5.3 mike run where I crushed all off my PR times. I still didn't eat right or train as much, but things are changing. I have to get ready for my main race of the year, the duathlon, my first multisport race. So nutrition is picking up and has a plan, and training is kicking into high gear.

Anyway back to the race. The race was fun, like every race, and odd, let me explain. First of all the race had a start time of 8:15 pm, a night race. It felt really weird waiting around all day for a race. Usually you wake up early and race, and you feel great the rest of the day, yesterday I didn't know what to do with myself. But eventually when ended up leaving about 6pm and headed to Joplin. An hour there and we are ready to go. We drive through these tiny streets in this neighborhood until we drive up on a bunch of cars parked all the way up and down the street and we figure, "this must be the place." We find a spot, go get our registration packets, pin on our numbers, take a couple pictures and start getting warmed up.

A little before race start we find our spot near the start, the gun sounds and off we go with only one goal, keep the feet moving until we cross the finish line. The 10k racers started a little before the 5kers and at the beginning we crammed 60 people and a 5 foot wide gravel path. After a couple hundred yards it widened a little and the field stated to disperse, and we started to get comfortable. Mile one was great, mile 2 was good, and then mile 3 for me seemed to go on, and on, and on. It was about this time it started getting really dark with the trees hanging overhead. You started to lose sight of the ground and just kept running, waiting and looking in the distance for the turn around. I knew once I reached the turn around I would be on my way back, and nothing could stop me then.

We hit the turn around and reached mile 4, and then it started getting pitch black. The only thing you could see where the little glow stick lanterns on the ground and the ones on my wrist, but we kept moving forward. It was around 4.5 miles my wife told me her knees were hurting pretty bad and asked if we could walk for a second, I said of course, and we walked for about 2 seconds until she said, "well that isn't making them feel any better, we might as well be running!" I was very proud of her for pushing through the pain and running her best and farthest race.

We continued on and at about mile 5.5 you could tell our legs were tired. We were swerving all over the track in the pitch black, but we knew the end was just up the road and this was the farthest we had ever run. We came up on the finish and were cheered on by some glow stick covered people as we ran across the finish line. What an accomplishment. We finished with a time of 1:10:17, without taking a break or walking. 2 years ago I thought running 3 miles was the most ridiculous thing ever, and now a half marathon doesn't seem so bad.

A few things I learned from this run.
-I don't like waiting all day for a race
-don't wear Nike frees on a gravel trail (I didn't, my wife did)
-your body can do way more than your mind thinks it can
- always thank God for when he brings in cool weather and it's not 106 degrees

At the finish line with my best friend, training partner, and wife

Some get beer after a race, I get ice cream