Paper Discovery duathlon - Duathlon

went out a little fast; slowed it down to a comfortable pace for mile 2

not much; pretty happy with this run. Felt pretty strong; no nagging injury issues for the first race in over a year!

decided after my practice runs on Friday that I would put shoes on b4 getting on the bike. This worked out ok, but I slipped around a lot trying to get my cleats into the pedals on the other side of the mount line.

Need to do a lot of the "Cossack" drill on the new bike: practice slipping in and out of shoes, running with bike, get back on and puts hoes back on.

I love the new bike. I felt very comfortable and fast on it. I think I need to lengthen the straw on my aerodrink bottle, but other than that, I wouldn't change anything. It was really fun to be in the riack spot next to Lauren Jensen; I talked to her for a couple of minutes before the race and then we basically kept trading being a head of each other back and forth for the whole race. I went ahead on the long stretch by the highway (north on 41 I think it was), but then missed the turn south past the overpass and had to double back; she had passed me by that point and I was expending a lot of energy cursing myself for being so stupid to miss the turn sign. Accoring to the Garmin I only went 1/10 of a mile out of the way, but it cost me a lot in terms of focus.

I had read through the map and knew that that spot was a potential hazard; I should have paid more attention. Would have been nice for the volunteer to have steered me in the right direction, but course management is my responsibility more than it is his. I just blew right by the turn and paid for it. Still happy with the ride.

Comedy. Trying to rack my bike, I shook the rack and the guy's bike on the end of the rack slipped off. So I ran over and set his bike back up. Then my bike fell off the rack. By the time I was without helmet and shoed, I had lost a lot of time and Lauren Jensen was ahead of me by about 30 seconds.

Again, practice getting into and out of shoes more on the new bike. Still not a bad T2 in light of other competitor times.

this run hurt a lot. I could see Lauren Jensen ahead of me and was trying like heck to catch up to her. I was pecking away at her lead, but ran out of gas. She finished 1o seconds ahead of me. She is really tough.

more speed work on the run. But again, raced healthy and was really happy about it.

2 scoops of Recoverite. Various sandwich stuff from the race. Got a free massage - that's a cool perq of this race. Enjoyed that a lot. Looked at the race results, found out that the awards were at least an hour or so out, so had to pack up a nd leave to get home for son's baseball game. Made a quick sweep of the area looking for PJ Grande to say goodbye, but had to scoot. Made the 3 hour trek back to Northbrook.


bad course management on the bike; need more time in the saddle on the actual road (instead of CompuTrainer).


This race was so much better than last year, it doesn't even compare. It was a little shorter (2-mile runs instead of 5ks), but it was really well run and fun to participate in. I hope to do it next year if all works out OK schedule-wise. The only thing I think they should reevaluate is the number of porta-potty's there. They had 4 for 500+ participants and all spectators. Not a good ratio. Otherwise, great race.