Disco Duathlon - Duathlon

Pretty much everyone in my wave took off like they were running from the cops, so I let them do their thing and I kept to my pace. Eventually some of them started to fall back when they realized just how f*cking fast they were going. All I wanted to do was run about a 9 minute/mile for the first run, and I just about hit that on the nose.

Run faster, gain 15 lb. of muscle, have a threesome with Scarlet Johannsen and Jessica Biel. One of those three is reasonably attainable.

It went fine, the lock laces definitely save me some time. I should consider getting some bike shoes that are a little more "transition-friendly" though.

Run faster, gain 15 lb. of musc-oh wait, I said that already. Then nothing.

Overall this went well. I tried to throttle back the last couple miles to give my legs a little chance to recover, but I should have done that earlier. I still can never just give 70-80% on the bike. I tell myself I'm going to pace myself, but the second I start passing people I turn on the jets and blow it out. I have a feeling this is never going to change, and I don't care. Riding fast is the most fun part of any tri for me, consequences be damned.

At about the 8 mile mark I noticed Clint was off changing his tire, but he seemed like he was making progress so I headed on. When I was on my way back from the first turnaround I saw he was still working on it so I asked if he needed anything. Apparently he didn't have any CO2, so I looped back around, handed him a tube and my inflater, and took off again. Other than that, the ride was pretty non-descript. A few hills, a little wind(but not bad at all), and some rough roads once in awhile(but mostly it was fine). Oh yea, when we hit FM 3002 again there were cars backed up waiting for us to cross - mainly because there was a sheriff forcing them to wait - and as I went by one jackass in a white sedan about 4 cars back was laying on his horn non-stop...as if that's helping the situation. I don't understand why people use horns in those situations; it isn't helping anyone and all you're doing is pissing everyone else off. Lay off, you're not going anywhere. The church will be there even if you're 10 minutes late.

If I trained more consistently on the bike, I probably could have cracked 19+ without a lot of effort.

I never remember to take the helmet off until I get to my rack.

Nothing.

I knew this was going to be rough, but damn. My ideal goal was to keep a 10 minute mile, but realistically I was shooting for a sub-11 mile. It was apparent very early on that I was going to have trouble in the run as I had more than just jelly legs. I made a deal with myself that I'd walk for a minute after each mile as a way to mitigate problems, but after a couple miles that wasn't going to be possible anymore. Right at the 2.5 mile mark my inner quads and left hamstring cramped up on me badly, and from that point on I was only able to run in short spurts(no more than 2-3 minutes at a time usually). I wasn't dehydrated really, I think I was low on sodium and my legs were tighter than normal. I was getting overheated too; again, not because of dehydration(that's about the only part I did right) but over-exertion and the heat/humidity combo sapped my strength. For the last couple miles I was doing a 1 minute jog/1 minute walk combination to make it back. About half a mile from the end, this guy in front of me just dropped to the ground screaming. Both his calves were cramping up something fierce, so I helped him stretch out his calves for a bit before he said he was OK, then I took off again. Given how much I walked - and if you look at the graph on my Garmin the last 2.5 miles look like a roller coaster - this time isn't too bad.

Training more would help, plus figure out how to get more sodium into my nutrition.

After I crossed the finish line, I downed approximately 143 cups of Accelerade and ate some watermelon. I had no desire to eat pizza or cheese nachos.


It really boils down to a lack of training. I haven't been able to find the time to really train since I got the new job a couple months ago, and it shows in my results.

I'll fill out the AG ranks when DA posts the race results. These numbers are all the numbers off my Garmin.


Where to start? The run course was designed by someone who either is an Ironman and doesn't understand that it's possible to suffer on a run under 20 miles, or by someone with no heat receptors on their skin. Also, they must work for TXDOT because the traffic interchange at the 1st aid station looks like a high school cafeteria right after they announce they're running out of frito pie. In other words, it was chaos. Everyone was supposed to turn left, which wasn't a problem except that it meant you were crossing the stream of people already coming back from the left turn and subsequent turnaround. Additionally, the aid station was put on the right side of the road so you have people crossing both directions of foot traffic trying to get a drink. Then there's the olympic part of the run course, where they baked you for the better part of 2 miles *each way* on FM 3002 without an aid station until the turnaround. If you were on the sprint 5k you had essentially 3 aid stations; if you were on the olympic 10k you only got 1 more aid station. Then there was the bathroom situation, where they had 10 of them for everyone; the line got so long that they had to delay the start of the race to wait for people to get done using the bathroom.

Listen, DA has been through hell this week trying to pull this race off, and they did the best they could given the weather. I don't know how differently things would have been designed if weather wasn't a factor, and it's a valid consideration. Still, there was a lot to be desired with the race coordination here. If TexasMan is anything like this setup(it's in the same location), I'll skip it this year and hit another race instead. I hate to say that because I like the DA people and I know they're trying, but it really was a badly designed run course and they didn't have the little things done that you would see taken care of at an Ironhead race(like organized bike racks & more bathrooms, for example). Hopefully they'll make some adjustments before TM.