Apple Duathlon - DuathlonStandard

Felt good throughout the run, stayed aerobic and came into T1 feeling good.

Nothing for this portion.

Sucked down a second gel and some water.

Nothing.

I liked the first 10 miles of the course immenesely. Lots of hills (which I don't mind), and low wind. The last 10 miles sucked, I'm not too great on flats and the wind was gusting 20-30 mph into our faces. I had to push alot harder than I wanted to on the second half of the bike--it had ramifications on the second run.
Also ran out of water at the 12 mile mark. Not horrible, but I had wished for more at the time.
At a little past mile 15, a chunk of sand flew in my eye. For some reason, I didn't wear my sunglasses today, that was a mistake. Tried blinking it out for a while, but that only made it worse. Had to stop to rub it out...

Also, I guess I got a 2 minute penalty for drafting. I don't remember when that happened, but I'll keep my mind on that from now on.

Practice more riding hard on flats into a headwind.
Fill aerodrink higher.
Always wear sunglasses.

Once I got off the bike I realized the extra pushing on the bike had caused some problems for me. Running my bike into T2, I became aware of some very painful cramps in my glutes. So painful in fact, that I was forced to sit down at my transition zone... it hurt badly to stand. After few seconds I forced myself up (painfully) and staggered into the run.

Not get ITB 3 weeks before a race and cut my running volume.

After I got going on this run for a while, it became easier to run. The pain didn't really subside much in my glutes, but I wasn't completely gassed, so it wasn't miserable. I stopped at the 2 mile mark to stretch my glutes quickly (about 5 seconds per leg), and then ran on to the finish.
Looking back at my run pace... that's pretty slow. Hopefully in the future I won't have these cramping issues (but at least this time it was confined to my glutes, and not my entire leg). I know I can go faster!

Practice more intense Brick workouts with headwinds.

Cramping in the glutes.


Good race overall, despite the performance limiters. I even won a stack of trainer DVDs!