Yesterday I raced the Wilmington Duathlon, which in nice weather would be a fun little race, but we did it in a cold rain, with air temps somewhere around 40 degrees. So, the race conditions were miserable. After I finished the first run, I had trouble getting the chin strap snapped on my cycling helmet, because I'm not using to performing that simple task with long fingered gloves on. Then, as I started to ride, I could barely see because of the rain drops that had collected on the lenses of my cycling glasses. That was something I got used to after the first mile or two. Because of the rain, I chose to ride my road bike instead of my tri bike, to save wear and tear on the newer bike. Not having aero bars didn't seem to be much of a probem -- I passed some people who were using aero bars -- and in any event, I didn't care! For me this race was all about just getting out and doing it in spite of the miserable weather; I had no great expectations for my performance. T2 was even more problematic than T1, because by this time both my hands and my feet were ice cold. I had great difficulty getting my running shoes on, and I as I ran out of the transition area I said out loud, to no one in particular, "That was the worst transition of my life!" The second run went fairly well -- I passed one guy in particular that I had played leap frog with on the bike and who had finished ahead of me on the bike -- and then I finished the second run ahead of him. My finishing time was 01:13:00, which was good enough for second place in my age group. And, a friend of mine that I car pooled to the race with finished several minutes ahead of me and won the women's race. So, all things considered, I'll mark this one down as a good race! |
