This is not my my finest hour, but I refuse to apologize.     

For those of you not following my injury saga (and let's face is, why would anyone want to?), I have had mystery groin pain for 15 months that won't heal.  When I run, I start to get pain that I liken to someone stabbing me with a knife in my groin after a few miles.  Some days are better/worse than other, but I'm not exactly running much these days.  I can, however, bike.  To try and fill the void from not running, I started bike commuting to work this summer.  It's a 33 mile round trip, so it's a decent workout.  And it apparently addles my brain to google races involving bikes.

Enter the duathlon.  2 mile run - 21 mile bike - 2 mile run.  I don't know how I came up with this crazy idea.  I don't own a fancy racing bike.  I don't even own a road bike.  I own a low end mountain bike that weighs 33 pounds.  I can run it over curbs, roots, rocks and anything else I so chose.  It's not exactly a speedster.  See evidence below:

But whatever.  Sign me up.  Why not?  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  I'm sure I'll fit in just fine with everyone and their $5,000 bikes and neon kits.  I felt like a n00b at the race, and I'm sure I looked it as well.  I mean, just look at this guy!  Where was I?  What was I thinking?  Quick, someone send me back to the land of packs and burritos at aid stations and trekking poles!

The weather was crappy, rainy, and cold.  I have somehow convinced my friend to do this with me in solidarity.  This is the before photo.  There is no turning back.  I am about to sell my trail running soul.  At least it's not a triathlon.

Run 1:

We start off running across a grassy field that leads into a neighborhood.  I'M TRAIL RUNNING, I'M TRAIL RUNNING!  The grass is wet from rain this morning and my shoes are soon soaked.  Off the grass and onto the roads through a quiet residential neighborhood.  I plod along at a comfortable pace.  Many people pass me.  I don't care.  We're back to the start in no time.  Huh, this is way easier than ultra running.

Time: 20:18

T1:

I jog into the transition area and almost all the bikes are gone already.  I take my arm sleeves off (mistake #1), put on a 1/2 zip long sleeve top instead of my jacket (mistake #2), and decide to leave my gloves (mistake #3.)  Visor off, helmet on, and I take my bike off the rack and walk it out of the transition area.

Time: 2:31

Bike:

I'm a moron.  I am cold almost instantly as soon as my warm running glow wears off.  It's 52 degrees outside and now raining again.  Well, this is going to be to fun.  I leap frog with an older woman on a nice bike in the beginning.  I catch her on the hills and she passes me on the flats.  Eventually we hit a longer flat section and she drops me completely.  Then running61 (he doesn't check in here much, but some of you from RWOL may remember him) zooms by me.  These two are the only ones who pass me on the bike course.   I set to catching as many people as I can.  Most of them are on hybrids or mountain bikes like myself, but every now and again I pass someone on a road bike.  I'm cold.  Really cold.  The volunteers look cold.  I thank them for being there.  The volunteers have been stellar all race.  My hands are numb at this point and I thoroughly soaked from the rain, but it's just pedal pedal pedal.  There are some hills and I enjoy them.  Coming from a running perspective, biking is weird.  I think I could bike for a very long time if I didn't get so uncomfortable from being in the same position for so long.  It's not very difficult cardio wise, even when I am pushing.  I wound up averaging around 16mph, which isn't fast by any means, but considering what I was riding, I figured I did okay.

Time: 1:18:19

T2:

Back in the transition area again and I can't figure out how to get my bike back on the rack, so I just sort of wind up propping it against one of the poles.  My friend's boyfriend (an Ironman) is spectating and jokes about me taking my sweet time as a wrestle with taking off my bike gloves.  (In hindsight, I saw a lot of people running with them on.  Oh, duh.)

Time: 2:30

Run 2:

My legs feel heavy from the bike and will remain that way for the entire 2 miles.  I suspect if the distance were longer, they might loosen up, but 2 miles is practically like nothing at all.  I pass a bunch of people on this run instead of getting passed.  I may be slow, but I still have some semblance of endurance.  I attempt to plod a little faster this time.  I wind up right behind a woman with the finish line in sight, but I decide it's a douche move to sprint past her since I'm just here for giggles anyway.  She has friends cheering her on, so I just jog it in behind her.

Time: 19:10

I wound up finishing the whole thing in around 2:04.  I will give these cyclists some credit -- they had french toast and hot coffee after the race.  Will I/would I do another one?  I'm not sure.  I will admit it was more fun than I expected it to be, but I sure do miss my ultras and trails.  I hope by the time another duathlon pops onto my radar, I'll be running again.  This fall I'll head back to the doctor for a second MRI and hopefully some answers.  Madison also has a few shorter distance trail races in October that I've considered.  It's tough to swallow your pride sometimes, but at this point I am just happy for any time that I get to spend outside before winter blows in.

Was that dude wearing a costume or he just a wicked badass?

 

Wicked bad ass.  Wicked DB.  You decide.  I didn't see anyone in costume.  Clearly duathletes are VERY SERIOUS.  (See photo of aero helmet again.)

MadisonMandy, welcome to our trail forum and thanks for sharing your race report with us. It sounds like you had a good time out there.

Don't be a stranger.

Who are you and what have you done with our Mandy?

Seriously though, it is something and you had fun.  You were smiling before the race and coming into the finish so that counts for a lot!

I have considered dualthons myself from time to time.  Then reailty hits me.  I too have a crappy bike.  I would be too ashamed to show up with it.  You obviously were not.  Congrats!

When are you coming to PA again?

I don't care what you were doing, I'm just happy to see you are smiling.  

You should look for an Off-Road Duathlon.  You will see entirely different people at the off-road events compared to the road ones.  I did both road and off-road tri's and the off-road tri community is very similar to trail running community.

 

Lace - thanks for the warm welcome.  How's the management around here?

 

We pretty much do whatever the fuck we want!

"... I wind up right behind a woman with the finish line in sight, but I decide it's a douche move to sprint past her ..."

Nice to see that you haven't lost your Ultra vibe yet.    It is great to see you smile, I for one don't care if you submit motocross reports (as long as there is some dirt involved).  Hope that injury just f'ing gets better already.

But, I think we'll have to ask our deadbeat moderator if it's Ok that you hang around.

Thanks for posting. Someday I'd like to do some of these as well as a tri. From the picture showing all the bikes it looks like it was a pretty large event.

The important thing is that you were out being active and having fun, not sitting on the couch getting fat.

Do you have any idea where the guy in the aero helmet finished? Sometimes those people are all show and no go. When I was hanging out on some of the biking forums the general consensus was that if you showed up at a race with something like that you better be a pro or one of the best in the area, otherwise there would be a lot of snickering behind the wearers back.