Virginia Duathlon - Duathlon

Well, the rain had turned to sleet. A mile in I wanted to quit, standard fare for the first race of the season. But laughing at the alternatives of sitting by the side of the road and pouting or hiding in the car like a wimp with the heater on until my S/O finished, I put my head down and grinned and tried to up the pace.

Not much.

Folks need to learn to run with their bikes out of transition. I passed at least 3 other ladies.

Change my last name so I didn't get put at the far end of the transition area when they assign us alphabetically?

We'd ridden the bike route the day before, when the weather was decent and that really helped knowing about how far I had to go. Also, since folks seemed to be dying on the vine, I got to pass a lot of people, which encouraged me to keep up the pace. I kept some guy in yellow in sight and he had a steady pace. Decent new tires gave me fair confidence.

Ah, maybe something so my amber lensed glasses didn't fog. I ended up taking them off so I could see and the sleet stung a bit, but it was better than not noticing issues with the road.

I wasn't sure how my legs would work with no feeling in them from the knees down, but as there were no bodies keeled over by the side of transition, I didn't figure I'd be the first. Figuring that the feeling would come back sometime, I was hopeful that my shoes were on more or less correctly.

Not much. A decent attitude and a sense of humor are about the best ways through stuff like this.

Starting the run, my feet were like ice blocks and I debated about permanent damage, but again, no bodies by the side of the run route, so I figured I'd be okay. It did take a mile to feel much and my poor numb legs which had been functioning well as pistons on the bike did their automated run thing too. I thought this was pretty cool.

Try to smile more. I really was having an interesting time seeing what my body would do in the not-quite-perfect conditions.

Get the bike from transition (always rescue drenched equipment first) and then hugged S/O & put on dry clothing. As someone else noted, we weren't being open nudists, but the number of fogged windows on cars from people losing sodden outfits for anything dry was up there.


Same as every one, the wind & sleet. I think I did okay, probably because we life farther north and had been riding in 40ish weather (though dry). Also helping to mitigate the weather was the ultra group I hang with. They'll run half a day in anything, snow, sleet, ice, etc. All I had to do is tool around on flat roads in a bit of sleet for 2 hours.


The venue was just beautiful the day before, and the race folks very polite and even apologetic for weather that wasn't their faults. Transition was well set up, the run was as simple as could be. I don't eat meat but everyone says the pork bbq was tasty. Oh, best of all, the trophies, herons for larger prizes & ducks for A/G were neat and unique. I took first Master and got a heron, and just knowing that the ducks were there helped me to focus on trying to get an A/G placing.