I didn't really intend to race two weekends in a row, but after I signed up for Frost Yer Fanny and Tough Cookies, they moved the date for FYF to a week before Tough Cookies. Oh well!
I couldn't pass up the Tough Cookies race, it's one of my favorites. It's a women's only duathlon (not many of those around!) in Copperas Cove, about an hour north of Austin. It's mostly a beginners race, and has a great vibe. It's impressive to see every shape & size woman out there, on everything from tri/road bikes to mountain bikes & cruisers.
This was a cherry picked race for sure, but even though I knew it wasn't going to have heavy competition, I still wanted to race hard. I'd looked at the past results, and the course record for the 1.5 mile run, 10 mile bike, 1.5 mile run was 51 minutes. So I thought a good goal would be to see if I could if I could beat that, and maybe even go under 50 minutes.
My strategy was to try to do the runs at around 6:40 pace, or 10 minutes each, then bike as much over 20 mph as I could, to make up the extra time. 20 mins for the runs + <30 on the bike, and a couple transitions, and it'd be close but doable to break 50.
The weather forecast had said rain, but when I checked the night before it looked like it would hold off til noon. It was dry and cloudy all the way up on the drive to Copperas Cove, until about 5 minutes outside of town. Then it started drizzling, and the roads were all wet :( Another rainy bike ride was in store for me!
They had a great turnout for the race, 150 registered and around 125 raced. I got set up in transition, then ran the 1.5 mile out & back as a warmup. Right before we lined up at the start, I did a few strides to get my heart rate up.
I lined up right on the start line, since I thought I'd be towards the lead, fairly soon. But you never can know who else is there, so I wasn't sure if someone else would drop a crazy fast first run.
After the national anthem, off we went! A couple girls went out pretty strong, but as I hit my pace I pulled ahead after the first quarter mile. It was cool to be the race leader so early!
The run went out .75 miles, then turned around and came back along the same path. I was a little slow on the outbound part, about 6:45, but realized later it was slightly uphill. On the way back I picked it up, and came up to transition almost exactly at 10 minutes. I thought the closest person behind me was a minute or so back.
I had a quick transition (29 seconds) and got out to start the bike. A little glitch as I hadn't set up my pedals like I normally do (just forgot), so it took me a second to get started. I took it slow out of the parking lot, since the roads were quite slick. After a couple turns we got on the main highway, and it went straight out for about 5 miles. I was glad there weren't any more major turns!
I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see they had a pace car head of me on the bike, to keep the road clear. I'd never done that in a race before! I guess in most du's or tri's the pace car is up with the lead men.
The bike course was hillier than I remembered. And we had a headwind the whole way out. I thought if I could average 20mph going out, with the tailwind on the way back I'd be able to make up some time.
I warmed up well, although was slower up the hills than I hoped. And the wind was gusty, really blowing me around the road. I'm glad I didn't race with my rear disc wheel, I might have been blown into the ditch.
The other hazard I didn't expect was the pace car. A couple times on the out section he slowed down suddenly, to either say something to volunteers he passed or who knows what. Unfortunately, both times were coming down a hill. I'm going 30mph with hardly any brakes (since they were wet), and was scared to death the first time I saw his brake lights and came up within 20-30 feet of him. Luckily he noticed and sped up again, or I'd have had to try to swerve around.
It seemed like farther than 5 miles, but I finally hit the turnaround. Another near run in with the pace car as I started back (I don't think he expected me to pick up so much speed with the tailwind).
Coming back was wonderful. I averaged around 24mph, giving me a total average of 22 as I came up to the couple turns back into the parking lot. Again I slowed way down, and took it easy. After surviving the wet course, pace car, and gusty winds, I was glad to get off the bike.
I figured I'd increased my lead by at least 3-4 minutes, and thought I had a good shot the 50 minute goal with a strong second run.
Concentrating on fast turnover, I was doing a pretty steady 6:45 the first half mile. At the turnaround I started watching for the other runners, to see how far back they were. By the end of the first mile, there was still no one. The next quarter mile went by, and I was approaching the home stretch. I still didn't see a runner coming out.
Finally I rounded some trees so I could see the finish. A couple hundred yards from the finish, the path split, one way going to the finish, the other towards transition. At that point I saw someone running out of transition. Wow, I didn't realize I'd put that much time on the lead during the bike!
I came up to the finish, and could just make out the clock in the distance, 48:40! I eased off a little and ran it in, finishing in 49:13. I'd run nearly identical splits, 10:00 for the first & second runs.
They had bagels and Ghirradeli chocolate at the finish- my kind of post race food! I cheered for the other finishers for a while, then checked the results when they posted them. I'd won by 10 minutes! I knew this was a cherry picked race, but still that was pretty cool. And a new course record!
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