Striders Duathlon

Wow, what a way to start my season. No easy non-competitive race to warm up for me, I jumped in with USAT South-Midwest Regional Championship at Strider's Short Course Du. Out in San Angelo, in the heart of west Texas.

I drove up from Austin yesterday, and have to say there is a certain charm to the west Texas country. The sky seems to go forever, since it's fairly flat. But the wind also seems to go forever, since there is nothing to stop it :) I drove the bike course and it didn't look too bad, an out and back with only a couple minor hills. We'd have a headwind out the first 9 miles though, then tailwind coming home.

I was only doing the "short course", which was a 5K run, 18.6 mile bike, 5K run. There was a long course (5 mile run, 45 mile bike, 5 mile run) but that didn't sound fun at all :) I was pretty nervous, since even though the turnout for the race was a little lower than normal (only about 70 people doing the short course), there were a lot of fast women. To put it in perspective, last year the winning female time was 1:41:38. This year, the top five women were all 1:40 or less!

I hooked up with Shellon McCallie, a fellow austin duathlete and very accomplished masters competitor and we scoped out the competition. She knows everyone on the circuit pretty well, so it was nice to get an idea of who else was there. I've never beat Shellon in a race, so my goal was to just keep her in sight if possible.

GIven this was the first race of the year, and duathlons have such variable distances, it was hard to set a time goal. I decided to aim for a sub 1:45, and hopefully closer to 1:42. That would be a good start to the season.

This morning I woke up at 5am, since I couldn't sleep, and headed out to the race site. Got everything set up and then had an hour+ to kill (the race started at 8). It was chilly, low 60's and windy (10-15 mph from the south, gusts to 20+). I went back to the car for a while and just tried to zone out. Eventually it was time to do a warmup run, which was OK, not great. Then we all went over to the start line. They started the long course people, then 5 minutes later we were off.

I wanted to go out on the first 5K around 7 minute miles. I hoped that was conservative enough to leave something in the tank for the bike & second run. As we took off, I could see about 5-6 women, including Shellon, in a pack ahead of me. I settled in behind them and tried to find a groove. We took off too fast, with about a 6:45 first mile, but when the route moved from pavement to a dirt road things slowed down to a more reasonable 7 minute mile. The run course wound around through a park, about 2/3rds on dirt/sandy roads. I felt pretty good, and just kept the lead group in sight. Eventually three of us - Shellon, myself and a woman in a blue/green top settled out, with a couple other women ahead of us. The blue/green girl (I'll call her BGG from here on :) ) was also in the masters age group, so I did my best to keep near her too. The three of us were destined to spend most of the race together.

We motored into the transition all within a few seconds of each other, with BGG first, then me, then Shellon. My first 5K pace was 6:59, so right according to plan! I had a little trouble in transition, but still only took 41 seconds, so not bad. Interestingly, our group of three completely mixed up order going out on the bike. First Shellon, then me, then BGG.

The first few miles of the bike went up and down some small hills and lots of curves through the park. Our little trio played leapfrog, each of us passing the other, then being passed, until we hit the main road out of the park. This is where we turned to the south, and would start hitting the headwind. At first it really didn't seem too bad, I was cruising along at about 18-19 mph and not pushing horribly. We became a little strung out over about a quarter mile, with BGG leading and Shellon and I behind.

Just as I was thinking that the wind wouldn't be killer, we took a slight turn and it hit us full in the face. Suddenly we dropped to 14-15 mph and just keeping that was hard! I'd been telling myself to go easy on the way out, not to fight the wind, and save something for the tailwind. But getting caught up in the chase of BGG with Shellon had me pushing a little harder that that.

Eventually we hit the turnaround, and had 9 miles of nice fast roads on the way back. It felt great to drop into my fastest gear and just be humming along at 30+mph! Eventually that excitement wore off, but I still had a good 24-26 mph average for about a 6 mile stretch! But no matter how much I was pushing, I couldn't get closer than about 100 yards to BGG. I passed Shellon somewhere along in here, and just concentrated on keeping the other girl in view.

The great tailwind had to come to an end, and we turned back into the park. Some cross & headwinds made it a bit hard, but I actually was making up ground on BGG. I decided to just keep it close and hopefully catch her on the run.

Into transition, I took my shoes off on the bike and neither lost a shoe nor fell off the bike :) I had hoped to average around 20 mph, and was pleasantly surprised to see I'd done 21.0! My second transition went quickly and I was off on the dirt road run.

Starting the run I was only about a second or two behind BGG. She was running a nice steady pace that was quick but not super-hard, so I just settled in and chased her. I wasn't sure where we were in the overall standings, but didn't think there could be more than one or two women ahead of us. After the first mile, I started to feel pretty good, and felt like the pace I was running was actually letting me recover a little (even though it was still hard). And that was with a 7:24 first mile, which was great (anything under 30 seconds/mile slower than the first 5K is always good).

As we approached the halfway turnaround, I kept an eye out for other women running back. About a minute from the turn I saw one other woman, and that was it. Aha! So BGG and I were battling for second overall and top masters! After we turned I saw Shellon about 30 seconds back, but running pretty well. I didn't know if I could hold her off, but figured I'd just concentrate on the girl ahead of me. I knew once we hit about 2.5 miles we'd be back on pavement to the end, so I decided that's where I'd make my move. I'd been running behind BGG only about 10 feet the entire second run.

We hit the pavement and I started to pick up the pace. I was surprised that I actually had something left in the tank! I passed by BGG and concentrated on running fast and strong. I knew I had to leave everything on the course if I was going to keep her from catching me.

As I came down the last quarter mile, I could hear her right behind me, starting to kick. I knew I could run 30-40 seconds all out no matter what, and dropped the hammer. Everything got a little fuzzy and I all I could see was the finish line ahead. I had no idea how close the other girl was behind me. As I sprinted the last few yards I realized I'd done it! I held her off (by about 5 seconds in turns out) and took second female overall and first place Masters! Wooooot!

My total time was 1:38:47, well under my 1:42 goal. The strong bike really helped me, and I think let me feel better on the second run. I'd averaged 7:17 on the second 5K!

After I was done I congratulated BGG (her name was actually Barbara) for setting such a strong pace. What a great race day.

ps. It wasn't until I talked to Panther on the cell afterwards that I realized (when he told me) that I was now the 2008 Female Masters Regional Champion. Wow! What a way to start the season.

Comments

[Rachel]

Congrats Glenda! Awesome race.

[Wiley]

Nicely done!

[Dionn Schaffner]

YOU ROCK!