Very First Duathlon

Yesterday I "raced" my very first duathlon with the D.C. Triathlon Club and it was a success. It started off as a 3.2 mile run, 16.5 mile bike and a 3.2 mile run however, the weather didn't cooperate. The small race was being held at Hains Point in Washington D.C. right along the Potomac River. If you've never been around DC, Hains Point is a small peninsula near the Jefferson Memorial right near the 14th Street Bridge. It used to be known for a very incredible sculpture called "The Awakening". Sadly this moved to National Harbor.

Anyways, the majority of Hains Point was shut down due to flooding concerns since the water was already up to the bottom of the benches along the shore. (I meant to take a picture but I forgot.) The race was shortened to a 3.2 mile run and about an 11 mile bike, fine by me since I was not looking forward to being soaked. Luckily the rain held off long enough to finish the bike without everyone getting completely soaked.

I've never run or biked with this club before so I had no idea what the competition level would be. Considering I'm around 255 pound with a lot of muscle it's usually safe to assume I'll be slower than most people. I think there were about 20 people in the "race." I managed to finish the run in about 28 minutes and finished before 3 people, much to my surprise. I've never cycled for time before and I've never ran before biking. I feel as though I did pretty well for my first time. The 11 mile or so bike took me around 38 minutes but, I passed 2 people along the way...the course was 3 loops and I was passed by two or three people but, they did finish the run a lot sooner than I did.

Definitely a great time and I'd definitely do it again. Now all I need to do is add the swim portion which will more than likely be at the first triathlon.

Today was a little different. It was such a nice day so I decided I would do a bike/run since the second run didn't happy yesterday. I biked about 15 miles on the Mt. Vernon Trail along the other side of the Potomac River...I'll never be biking this trail again unless it's early in the morning. It's narrow with a lot of turns and very busy. It was by far the slowest ride I've been on. At one point it was impossible to pass someone for about 5 minutes because of all the people and not being able to see around turns. I got sick of this and detoured on to the road and finished the last mile that way. It turned out to be a great idea since it ended up being a 22 mph mile. Anyways, I finished the bike without incident unless you count falling over when I was stopped because there is so much play in my pedals I couldn't turn my left foot far enough to unclip my shoe.

The run was fairly brutal but I ran about 3 miles and felt out of breath the whole time. My legs didn't hurt but they were definitely tough to move. I'm very interested to see if they get used to this transition.