Cape Henlopen Duathlon

Today was my first race since Ironman - the Cape Henlopen Duathlon.

The day started out cold, with me catching the alarm 2 minutes before it was to go off: 5:45am. Meyer went with me and we got to the site around 6:45 which meant I had plenty of time to rack my bike and warm up. There wasn't really any transition to set up since all I needed to do was throw off my running shoes and put my helmet on for T1 and just do the reverse for T2.

By the time the race started - 7:45 - the sun was starting to shine and it began to warm up. My pace on the first run was slower than I'd expected. I held back a bit, not wanting to burn up too early, but in retrospect I could have gone a little faster. First run leg: 1.5 miles, 11:16, 7:31 average pace.

T1 went well. I got through in 37 seconds, which was the second fastest individual T1. 2 relay teams were faster by a couple seconds, but since that's just a hand-off of the timing chip, I don't count it.

The bike started out bad. Before I even mounted, I had problems with one of my water bottle cages and dropped a bottle - twice! I finally took off, and settled into a good but challenging pace. At about mile 4 there were 3 speed bumps. Speed bumps?!?!? Well, I took the first one too fast and lost my water bottle, so no more water for the rest of the bike leg. The rest of the bike went well. Thank you to the state trooper who yelled at a car to get it to go (don't know what the driver was thinking) so I could miss hitting it by a couple feet instead of a couple inches. Bike leg: 14 miles, 41:26, 20.3 mph.

T2 went well too. I had a great dismount and only lost a second or two by a guy taking his time getting past my bike rack spot. I got the shoes on quickly and was off in 42 seconds - again, one of the fastest T2 times of the day.

The second run leg was tough at first. I didn't have the jelly legs that so many people get after the bike. I simply had tired legs. I was able to keep a decent pace, however, and actually pick it up for the last mile. I was definitely feeling the effects of not having that water on the bike. Second run leg: 3.1 miles, 22:12, 7:10 average pace.

My overall time was 1:16:11 which was good enough for 5th in my age group and 25th overall.

And as I always do, I came home after the race and took a nap.