Camarillo Duathlon #1 Race Report

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and drove 30 minutes north to do my first ever duathlon.

I signed up months ago because it seemed like a good idea, and a great alternative to triathlons, since I hate/suck at swimming.

India and laziness threw a wrench in my training plans.  But I signed up for a duathlon series, so I knew I'd have two more races to make up any shit performance I threw out for the first one.

This duathlon was tiny.  60 people were doing the olympic length with me.

3 mile run / 19.5 mile bike / 3 mile run

Cake.

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Splits:

Run 1: 
time:  21:20
rank:  2nd woman (about a minute behind woman1)

T1:
time:  0:27
rank:  1st (this is the beauty of not wearing clip in shoes.  Grab bike.  grab helmet.  Exit.)

Bike:  
time:  1:08:53 (16.9mph)
rank:  8th

T2:
time:  0:21
rank:  1st

Run 2:
time: 22:50
rank:  3rd woman (2nd woman was less than a second faster.  Oof)

Total:
time:  1:53:51
rank:  6th woman

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This was the first duathlon in a series of three, all using the exact same course.  I have two months before I need to take on #2.

My runs were solid.  Yes, they could have been faster, especially the second one.  And they will be faster, not only because I will know how much harder I can push myself, but *I* will be faster.

But the bike.  Oh.  Ouch.  As exhilarating as it was to pass so many people on Run1, it was equally defeating to watch every single one of them speed past me on the bike section.

I could not blame it on the terrain or the wind, because everyone else was dealing with the same terrain and wind.  They probably trained in situations that involved terrain and wind, while I sat on my bike trainer watching The Bachelor and patting myself on the back for my awesome speeds.

Yeah.

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After the race I packed myself and drove home.  After a wonderful, glorious shower I did what I usually do post-race:  gathered a variety of shitty foods, the tv remove, and my laptop, and nested on the couch for hours.

I uploaded pictures and my Garmin data.  And I wrote a few notes to myself for the next two races.

Notes:
-get better at biking.  Conditions are never an excuse, because everyone has those conditions.
-learn to strap your race number to your bike so it doesn't flap against your calf the entire fucking bike ride.
-make sure your rear wheel is attached to your bike
-make sure your tires are properly inflated.
-Run harder.  It won't make the bike harder (first leg) and it's over too fast (second leg) so speed it up.
-Post-bike run will feel slow as fuck, but will not be slow as fun.  Lean into it and just PUSH.
-Don't try to count women to see what your standing is.  You are terrible at it, or half the top women racing look like men.
-Just because the girl racked next to you talks about "leading the pack" at a previous tri, and seems to know what she's doing, doesn't mean she will kick your ass. 

What the fuck?

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The photographer for the race is fucking awesome.  They are giving every contestant 2 free pictures (you get to pick which ones).  And not just the digital copy, but real, in your hand prints, mailed to you.  Whut?  Who does that?  Small, awesome races do that, apparently.

Which is why I'm not stealing any of their watermarked pictures.  Even though there's a fantastic one from the second bike loop, before I realized the camera man was there, just me, looking and feeling utterly dejected.  Not a picture worth picking as one of my free ones, but a good example of "rose sucks balls at biking outside."

The difference a split second makes in a good race picture versus a shitty race picture:

Good Rose // Bad Rose

 ==================

 So, game plan.

Get my fucking ass on my fucking bike outside of my fucking living room.  That's it.  The more I ride outside the better I'll be at riding outside.  I already plan on adding some bike speed work in.  And I spent a good amount of time "in the saddle."  I just need to be in the saddle ON THE ROAD.

Yes.  I keep mentioning that.  Because it was stupid of me to do otherwise.  To be fair, I didn't start training for anything until a couple of weeks ago, so I can't be too harsh on myself.  But I am very resistant to biking outside.  I have a number of people willing to do so with me.  It just feels like it takes so much more effort.  I don't know.  Even now, typing this out, I'm trying to justify my hesitance.  "It takes so much time."  "I'd have to drive 3 miles away to be able to bike uninterrupted."  How is that a fucking excuse?  It's not.

I'm not afraid I'm going to get hit by a car or fall over or anything.  I just...don't want to bike outside.  I don't know.  Biking doesn't come as easily to me as other things do, so I'm sure that factors in some.  The people I can ride with who are closest to me physically are people I don't know as well, so I have to step outside my comfort zone to ask them to ride with me.  Maybe (and I'm unraveling this as I type) it's that I view biking as more social?  Because in thinking about this, if my EMTs asked me to do some crazy distance bike ride with them this weekend, I'd jump at it.  That sounds fucking awesome.  But laying down even 15 miles at the park loop by my house sounds awful.  Whereas running 15 miles at the park loop by my house sounds kind of awesome.

biking outside alone, or asking people I'm not super close with to bike with me = oh god no
biking stupid distances I'm ill prepared for with people I fucking love = sign me up for that class

Okay, so I can recognize my limitations.  Now what?

I have three options:

1.  Actively pursue more rides with the EMTs or my brother
2.  Push my comfort zone and pursue riding with people closer to me physically, but further out in my circle of friends
3.  Nut up and ride on my own

Though, I suppose, the best option is some combination of the three.  Which seems obvious now, but still requires the forethought and and intention to follow through.

But, looking at two more of these duathlons down the line, I would like to improve.  I want to give my best effort on the bike, and I wasn't doing that.  I was tolerating the bike ride in an effort to get back to the run, which is stupid, and pointless.  The run was hard, but it was a satisfying kind of hard.  The bike ride made me not want to ride bikes anymore.  Stupid.

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Regardless of all that textual diarrhea, I had a great time.  The race was well run, and the people were friendly.  I look forward to doing it all over again.