This morning was the USA Triathlon South Midwest regional championship duathlon race, Frost Yer Fanny, in Houston. It's a big points race for the rankings, and generally attracts some pretty good competition.
Luckily it fit into my training schedule well, so I gave myself a bit of an easy week leading up to it. It was a little hectic with a lot of family in town over this weekend (including granddaughter Maeve!), but I was able to sneak down to Houston on Saturday night and get back home Sunday afternoon.
The race was a 3 mile run, 15 mile bike, 3 mile run, all within a nice park in Katy. The only downside to the location & course was the bike course had lots of turns (it was a 3 loop course), so it was hard to get into a groove on the bike.
The weather cooperated pretty well, early in the week the forecast was for rain, but when race morning arrived it was sunny and clear, although cold (39 around 7am). At least the sun helped warm things up as we raced.
I did my normal setup, ran into a couple people from Austin, and tried to keep warm for the start. Did a short warmup run, then back to the starting line. They started us in 4 waves- 39 & under men, 39 & under women, masters men, and finally masters women (save the best for last!). The waves were started every 2 minutes, so at least we weren't waiting around forever.
I had a pretty standard du race plan (for me anyway!)- go a little conservative on the first run, push the bike but not hammer, then let loose on the second run.
At the start, about 4 women took off like a shot. This seems to happen at every du. I can never tell if they are just really fast runners, and 6 minute miles are a good pace for them, or if they are going out too fast and will blow up. It takes a lot of discipline, but I just concentrate on my pace, and let them go.
I wanted to do around a 6:55-7:00 min/mile pace for the first run, and while I was hitting right around 7, I felt kind of jumpy and not in sync. I don't know what it is about the first run of a du, but it's really hard for me to get in a zone. Maybe I was keeping too close an eye on those 4 rabbits that took off early.
As we hit the turnaround I passed one of the women, and was making up ground on two of the others. The third mile finally seemed to move along fairly smoothly, and I caught up to within a couple seconds to the two middle girls (the leader wasn't in sight). I had been pretty much on pace, a 6:56 average.
I ran into transition and got my bike helmet on, always an adventure buckling it with two pairs of gloves (my hands get cold!). After a couple tries, I got it on and ran my bike out to the road. I'd driven the course the night before, and it was nearly pancake flat. But there were a couple stretches of potholes/cracks, and some bumps to watch out for.
On the first loop I wanted to ride a little easier, and not completely hammer. It worked out well, because there were a few spots on the course that were tricky, that I hadn't noticed in the car. And I also could tell where you could push harder and where to ease off.
The course was getting pretty congested, with people of all speeds doing one of their 3 loops. Mostly this was only a problem on turns, when you just couldn't be sure who was going to speed up/slow down, or turn sharp or wide.
The second loop I picked up my speed, and got in a fairly good rhythm. I was only passed once, by a guy, and was passing quite a few others. At this point I had no idea where the 3 other masters women who had finished the run ahead of me were. I thought I'd beat one through transition, and maybe passed another on the first loop.
The third loop came up quickly, and I had my only scare on the bike, with about a mile to go. The bike course split a road with the run course for about a quarter mile, so we had a pretty narrow lane. There was a slower guy riding pretty far left, and I had to go around a cone to pass him. As I accelerated around him, I hit a bump, and my front wheel jumped about a foot to the side. Somehow I stayed in control and came down safely. It definitely made me take it a little more conservative to the finish of the bike though! No point in crashing this close to the end.
I averaged 22.1 mph on the bike, which was not bad. I might have liked to push a little harder, but there were just too many turns that ate up my speed.
I rolled into transition, racked my bike, and decided I no longer needed my two pairs of gloves or arm warmers for the second run. Stripped that all off, changed shoes, and picked up a quick run pace heading out.
For the second run I didn't look at my watch at all, just concentrated on fast turnover and strong strides. I couldn't see any women ahead of me, which meant I probably had passed the other masters women on the bike. I was feeling great, and running smooth.
About a half mile into the run I looked down and noticed I'd only taken both gloves off one hand. I still had my thin inner glove on the other hand! I wondered what the spectators were thinking, if I was crazy or maybe it was a tribute to Michael Jackson to just run with one glove :) Ooops. I decided to just go with it, although eventually I took off the other glove and just carried it the rest of the way.
As I approached the 1.5 mile turnaround, I saw the lead woman coming back. She had a 4 minute headstart on me (starting 2 waves earlier), but I guessed she was more than 4 minutes faster, so I probably didn't have a shot at catching her time. But you never know, so I kept pushing hard.
Around the turn I only counted one other woman, so I knew I was in 3rd place overall, and the first masters. The next masters runners I recognized as I was coming back looked to be a couple minutes behind, so I hoped they couldn't catch me.
Coming up the last mile I ran as strong as I could, trying to make up as much time as I could on the leaders. I hit the finish line in 1:23:14, and averaged 6:44 for the second run! I'm glad I didn't chase the rabbits too much the first run, it felt good to finish strong.
When official results were posted, I was the overall female masters winner, and 2nd overall woman (I'd caught the second place girl in time, just about 20 seconds faster, but never saw her because of her earlier wave start). What a way to really kick off du season!
Here's a pic from after the awards ceremony:
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