First up, Stirling Duathlon. I signed up for the standard distance this year, figuring I need time on bike & distance, so why not. It was hard going at times, but its a measure of how far I've come in the last 12 months that it (if memory serves me right) probably felt a little easier than doing the sprint last year.
Much respect to the organisers in Stirling coping with a heavy fog that just wasn't for thinning out at the Alva end of the bike loop - they delayed the start long enough for the Tullibody to Menstrie road to be clear, providing us with a safe route & 3 shorter laps rather than the 2 long ones planned.
The delay was a bit frustrating, but the weather is the weather & there's nowt you can do about it. Anything else would've been unsafe.
On to the race!
The first run is 4 x 2.5km loops, with a bitch of a short climb early on in the loop - this wasn't so bad on the first run, but its sore when running off the bike. I had a pace in mind to get me to do the 10k in 52 to 55 minutes, so I tried to ignore everyone else and just run my race, which can be quite hard when the front runners are lapping you, and the front runners from the sprint race (that started 5min before us, with a 5km run, 14k cycle, 5km run) started overtaking me on my 4th lap...! But nevertheless I managed to tune it out, focused on a comfortably fast pace (for me at least) that would leave my legs OK for the bike and brought rocked into T1 after 51:29. I've been practising mounting the bike with the shoes already in the pedals, but its still taking me too long to get my feet in and tightened up, particularly as I've got road shoes with ratchet straps, so I changed shoes there, giving me a rather slow T1 time of 1:10.
Out on the bike course, the sun had done a good job of clearing the mist, but it was still a bit parky. I started strong, catching up to and passing the nearest 2 other competitors before Tullibody. Dropping down to Menstrie, I tried to take a gel, but felt the boak coming on; stupidly I'd not had any water on the run & I only had an energy drink on the bike. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN COLM??!!?? Turning left onto the road through Menstrie I took a drink to rinse my mouth out & promptly dropped my bottle. D'oh. But I wasn't going back for it, I just wanted to keep moving. I actually felt pretty good all the way round the loop and came back into Menstrie again to find my bottle by the kerb, so figured I'd actually stop this time.
Heading out of Menstrie the 2nd time, I was starting to feel a few aches in places, most worryingly on the outside of my left quad, in an area that felt awffie close to the ITB, along with not being able to feel some of my toes that may or may not have been icicles at this point, but I was still holding up a good pace.
Closing in on the turn into the 3rd lap, I clocked 2 other riders not that far ahead of me, so I pulled closer, then coming off the roundabout I accelerated (I have no idea where it came from but I jumped from 30 to 36 km/hr!) and rocketed past them, and from there on it was all about staying steady and finishing the bike, coming in after 1:17:21 (av. 28km/hr roughly).
I had been wanting to do a dismount leaving both shoes in the pedals, but sadly with my cold hands I could only get one foot released in time, so ran into transition with the left one on the bike and the right one on my foot. 1:25 and I was back out and running.
My feet and calves felt like blocks of ice at this point, but there was enough feeling in my calves for them to feel like they were chock full of knots, but I manned up and ran (shuffled?) through it. The hill was absolute torture, though I refused to walk at any point. And the sun was out, making everything better. Round the first lap, an assortment of muscles tight from the bike loosened off, so I entered the final lap moving much more freely. All the way round I gave my thank yous to the marshalls that had done such a brilliant job, and took it on home for a 29:33 run split and 2:41:01 overall.
All that was left to do was hang out & watch the prize givings for the club members that had placed then head to the Parent's house for Sunday roast!!
Short reflection at 100
I started writing this blog as a way to track my progress, but its been much more useful to me than just that, as it has given me space to reflect on training and races to absorb what went right & what went wrong as well as being a place I can vent my frustrations to allow Mr Enthusiastic back out (like today: "every time you went past you were smiling" yep, cos I'm just glad to be here!). It also hopefully has entertained some of you & I know that it has encouraged some of you to get out and do more exercise and for me that is an amazing thing which really does make it all worth while.
Whatever your challenge is, I wish you all the best in it and I hope you keep enjoying these blogs.
Tonight's blog is brought to you by:
Lesbian - Loadbath
Devin Townsend - Earth Day
Russian Circles - Versus
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