Yesterday I did the Charlotte Duathlon. I had a nasty cold but I did the race anyway, finishing 5th of 14 guys in my age group. I guess you could say this shows that I'm tough ... but maybe don't have enough sense to skip a race when I'm sick!

The race venue was really nice. It's a man-made whitewater kayaking center located quite a ways outside of Charlotte. The venue also has mountain bike trails and outdoor rock climbing walls, so it's a place I'd like to visit again some time when I'm not racing.

I did the first run in a fairly fast pace for me, considering that I was sick and that about half of the run was on trails. The bike ride was mostly non-eventful, although I did drop my chain on a climb and had to get off my bike to fix it. Then I turned left at one point where I was supposed to go straight, but figured out the error right away and got back on course without losing too much time.

The second run hurt like hell, and my greatly slowed down pace demonstrates that. My second run was about six minutes slower than the first, and my per mile pace was about a minute and a half slower.

So, all things considered, I'm glad I did the race. Now, if I could just get over this damn cold ...