This past Saturday I raced the 4th and final race in the Inside Out Sports 4 City Duathlon Series, the Cary Duathlon.

I had a very good race, finishing #22 overall of all finishers, #19 of the men and #5 of 13 in my age group. But what was most memorable to me in this race were the two women who passed me and finished ahead of me.

In the first run, I finished ahead of both of these women, although one of them at one point was running even with me. Then, near the end of the bike ride, a woman wearing a red kit passed me and stayed ahead for a short while before I passed her. I finished the bike ride ahead of her by a few seconds, but she had a blazing fast transition and started the run about 10 or 15 seconds ahead of me. I never caught her again. In fact, she passed the women's leader during the second run and ended up winning the women's race.

Then as I was in the middle of the second run, the woman who had run even with me earlier caught me from behind, passed me, and stayed in front of me for the rest of the race. She ended up finishing 3rd overall among the women.

My hat is off to both of these ladies! They have taught me a valuable lesson: That I need to work on keeping my pace up in the second run. My pace was considerably slower in the second run than my pace in the first run, whereas both of these women managed to keep their pace in the second run almost as fast as their pace in the first run.

Now I'm waiting to see how I will fare when the overall series standings are updated. Going into this race, I was listed as the #13 male overall in the series and #4 among men 40 and older. I'm not sure how that might change after the results of the Cary race are factored in. There was some very tough competition in that race. For example, the guy who finished 3rd overall is in my age group. Guess I better keep my fingers crossed ...