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 ...

This is a bit of a departure from what I've written about on this blog thus far, but I feel a need to say something here about the recent death of my Uncle Buddy.

My Uncle Buddy died at his home on Thursday, Feb. 28. He was 83 years old and had been very ill with emphysema for quite some time. By the time I got the news, I already had plans in place to race the Charlotte Duathlon. I thought about skipping the race and heading straight home to Mobile, Ala., to be with my family, but since the funeral didn't take place until the following Tuesday (March 4), I went ahead and did the race. Then I drove from the race site first to Atlanta, stayed overnight with friends there, and then continued to Mobile on Sunday.

I can't say that Uncle Buddy and I were extremely close, especially considering that I have lived away from Mobile for 24 years now. I can say that he is someone I liked and admired very much my entire life. Apart from my parents, he was the most influential adult in my life when I was a child. And with his passing, I feel that one of the constants in my life, one of the pillars upon which my own sense of security and well being in the world was based, is gone. I'm sure that my father, who was Uncle Buddy's best friend and vice versa, must feel this even more strongly than I do, as do Uncle Buddy's surviving children and grandchildren.

But even though I felt sad and shed tears at the funeral, the service was very much a celebration of a man who had lived a remarkable life and had a very positive impact on many people, both within and without our family. Now one week later, my sadness over Uncle Buddy's passing is balanced by an equally strong feeling of being glad that I knew him while he was alive.

Rest in peace, Uncle Buddy. Your spirit lives on in the many lives that you touched.

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 ...