www.davynextdoor.com

I got a chance to be in a couple races recently, the first of which was a duathlon in Cary, a neighboring city. No, not a biathlon where you cross-country ski then shoot a rifle at targets, a duathlon where you run, bike, then run again. This one consisted of a 5 mile run, a 32 mile bike ride, then another 5 mile run which took me 2 hours, 49 minutes, and 41 seconds all together.

I didn’t really know what to expect beforehand so I told myself I would run the first 5 miles at a comfortable speed, continue on the bike at a comfortable speed that wouldn’t kill me before the last run, then give it everything I’ve got left for the last run. Well, that’s exactly what I did and felt great until the last 10 miles of the bike ride when I started to think “Okayyyy, this bike ride could end now.” Once it finally ended the last run was brutttal. I was thinking it wouldn’t be too bad since I still felt pretty good at the end of the bike but quickly realized how wrong I was once I discovered that my legs had, in fact, turned into lead weights. I kept thinking that my results would be completely spoiled by an absurdly slow final leg of the run. I was pleasantly surprised at the end to see that I ended up running the first 5 miles at 7:06 per mile, biking 20 mph, and running the last 5 miles at 7:36 per mile. Turns out my last run didn’t spoil my results, and I ended up 28th overall in men and 3rd in my age group. Full results here.

Saturday was my first triathlon. It was a small one, with roughly 75 people and took place near Asheville. Chris, Billy, Mom, and Dad were all kind enough to come despite having to endure the rain and ridiculously early morning hours. It started in a pool, everybody lining up in order of submitted swim times. Fastest people in the front, slowest in the back. Competitors start every 15 seconds. Zig-zagging across all 6 lanes, down and back, 300 yards. I was number 25, but was pretty nervous because I’d been swimming pretty poorly recently. I pulled it together for the race though and ended up with my best swim time by far at about 5:15 which put my swim time at about 15th overall.

After that it was a matter of running to the transition area, ripping off my goggles and swim cap, putting on my jersey, bike shoes (no socks), sunglasses, and helmet, and then onto the bike portion of the race. Mom was cheering loudly for me as I left the transition area and quickly encountered a series of steep hills to climb, the worst of which I was going about 5 mph up in my lowest gear and still managed to pass a couple people, one of which had given up and started walking. My bike time was 10th overall, despite the fact that my average speed turned out to be about 16.5 mph, 3.5 mph less than the 20 mph I had biked at the Cary Duathlon the previous week. Just goes to show I shouldn’t worry about speed so much as my time compared to others.

Biked back into the transition area, Mom still there cheering me on telling me I’m doing great. Helmet, glasses, bike shoes off. Running shoes on. The bike-run transition was considerably different this time from the duathlon in that I started feeling awful and gradually started to feel better and be able to turn up the speed. I only saw one person during the run, a guy who smoked me, so I wasn’t sure how it was going. Ended up with a 23:19, slow because of the hills, but still fast enough to be the 5th fastest overall run time.

Overall I ended up in 8th place, and got 1st in my age group. Full results for men are here.

A couple pictures from the Cary Duathlon:

The month in training:

9 – Running – 4 miles – Slow. Merideth with Chris. Achilles’ tendon felt fine, no pain.

10 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 50s with 30 s rest when I realized my arms were too tired from the previous week’s manual labor in Ecuador to do any reasonable set, 600 ODS.

10 – Biking – 90 minutes – Trainer. Studied Japanese and took it easy.

11 – Biking – 90 minutes – Trainer. Same deal.

12 – Running – 5 miles – Merideth.

12 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 6×100 (30s rest) = 600 (1:57, 1:57, 2:02, 1:56, 1:56, 1:44). 600 ODS.

13 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Intervals.

14 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 6×100 (15s rest although cheated and added extra 20s rest at one point) = 600 (1:53, 1:55, 1:58, 1:57, 1:53, 1:47), 600 ODS.

14 – Biking – 90 minutes – Trainer. Japanese + Intervals at the end.

16 – Running – 7 miles – 60 minutes. Merideth. Felt really, really great today. Didn’t even notice my Achilles’ tendon.

17 – Swimming – 300 warmup, 300 (5:32s), 600 ODS, 3×100 (30s rest) slow. Got frustrated and left.

17 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Kicked ass. Seriously kicked ass. Did the Lance Armstrong training routine thingy. Was able to ride in a much higher gear on the trainer than previously before. Will have to adjust trainer’s resistance into the hardest difficulty. Awesome.

18 – Running – 5.5 miles – 8 min/miles without too much effort in Merideth. Everything felt great and still continues to feel great.

19 – Swimming – 600 ODS, 10×100 alternating fins/normal swim, 600 ODS.

20,21 - Rest before race

22 – Running – 10 miles – The first 5 were 7 min each, the last 5 around 7:45ish each. Felt great the first 5. Was in a world of hurt for the last 5. Biked 32 miles in between. Cary Duathlon.

22 – Biking – 32 miles – 20 mph. Cary Duathlon. Beautiful ride.

24 – Swimming – Made a pathetic attempt at swimming. Swam 400 yards maybe but was frustrated because I was so bad. Left.

25 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Long intervals.

26 – Swimming – 200 yard warmup. 300 (57,1:00, 1:00, 1:00, 58, 54 = 5:52 = slowwwwwwwwww). 600 yard ODS, 6×100 (30s rest) = 600 (2:00, 2:05, 2:00, 1:57, 1:55, 1:54), 600 yard ODS. Whyyyyy oh whyyyyyy am I still slow and getting slower?

26 – Running – 7.5 miles – 8.5 min/miles with Charlie in Merideth. Great run.

27, 28 - Rest before race

29 – Swimming – 300 yards. 5:15. During the Haymed.org triathlon. Best time so far, happpyyyy.

29 – Biking – 11 miles – 16.5 mph. Haymed.org triathlon.

29 – Running – 3.1 miles – 7.5 min/miles during the Haymed.org triathlon, my first.

31 – Swimming – 4×300 = 1200 plus 4×200 drills = 2000 total. Didn’t time myself but was really encouraged that I could swim 4 300s. A distance I feared greatly a month ago.

31 – Biking – 60 minutes – Trainer. Long intervals.