Big Sky Duathlon - DuathlonOther

As I was stretching before the start the thought just popped into my head that I felt really good so I decided to push it here. About 1/4 mile into the race the course moves onto a short stretch of double track dirt path. We were still bunched up at this point so there was a lot of jostling. Still I managed to pass several people here. Saw that my first mile split was 7:09. Second mile was only several seconds slower. I was pleased with this because I haven't been running a lot recently.

Nothing.

Still getting used to the Crank Bros. Quattro pedals and I'm still not good at getting clipped into them and I haven't had a chance to practice the shoes on the bike thing. This didn't really affect my T1 time since it occured after crossing the timing mats.

Practice more?

See comments about getting clipped in above.

I was doing pretty well on the way out even with a quartering headwind, passing more people than passed me. But then...

There should be choices of "awful" for Turns and Cornering because "bad" just doesn't cover it here. The course was out and back along a tow lane road with no shoulder. The turn around was at the bottom of a small hill. I slowed down in advance but about 1/2 way around I realzed that I was turning too wide. I tried to unclip but couldn't do it so I fell over.

This is only the second time ever that I have fallen because of not being able to unclip fast enough. Banged my left elbow pretty hard and scraped my hand a bit. Had a really hard time getting clipped back in. 3 or 4 people that I had passed earlier passed me while I was struggling with this.

Becuase my elbow was bruised right where I would normally have it resting on my aerobars I had to adjust my position a bit and so moved my left arm back a bit. This caused my left knee to bump against my elbow, so I also had to turn my left elbow out a little and try to keep my knee in a little. Kind of felt like I was playing Twister on my bike!

It took a bit to get settled mentally onc I was going again, especially with the altered position. I did manage to pass 3 people who had gone by me while I was getting back on my bike, and two of them looked kind of dosgruntled when I did, which was gratifying.

Slowed down and unclipped early coming into T2!!

1) Get better with getting in and out of my pedals so I don't fall
2) I still need to work on mental and physical effort on the bike. I seem to get into a comfortable zone but never really feel like I'm pushing all that hard.

Did't try to push it here as I was still mentally/physically unsettled.

Felt better on the 2nd run in this race than I did on the 2nd run in the Barkin' Dog Du several weeks ago.

2 guys that I passed toward the end of the bike passed me in either T2 or early in this run, but I didn't let them get very far away and ended up passing them both by the end of the first lap.

Nothing

Walked around, stretched, ate, drank.


1)Incompetence with my pedals
2)Ability to push myself mentally/physically on the bike.


This is the second race in the Mile High Du series. It was much better organized than the first one back in May. It was kind of cool to have this race in a town that doesn't see a lot of this kind of activity (Bennett is a small farming town ~25 miles east of Denver).