President's Day Duathlon Race Report

Holy crap it's been a while since I wrote. I've been training well. Some missed workouts here and there but largely I've been training consistently. People keep telling me that I need to eat a hamburger or something because I'm getting too skinny but my weight is staying the same. Right about 202.  I would actually like to be about 190 but then I couldn't compete as a Clydesdale. More on why that's where I need to be later.

First race of the year was a duathlon at White Sands Missile Range. Important race for me because its the exact same race that was my introduction to multisport exactly a year ago. 5K trail run up and down a little and then what was supposed to be a 18 mile bike.  Did really well on the 5K with a time of 23:22 and was 3-4 minutes ahead of fellow big guys. More than a minute ahead of my time from last year. Gotta work on transition as I always seem to hesitate to catch my breath a second or two (in my head) and ends up being a minute or so in transition which isn't necessary when all I have to do is change shoes and put on a helmet.  My bike time was 52:27 and an average of 20.5 mph. Improved my time from last years same event by over 8 minutes! That's the good news.

The bad news? I wanted to win the Clydesdale division. The head stud was Cody Hanson who rocked last year in the Southwest Challenge Series and was coming in overall in top 5 at lot of events. He kind of lost his enthusiasm for the sport and showed up to this race but out of shape so I never saw him and he ended up finishing about 3 minutes behind. My other competition - John Gardea.  John is an inspirational story - used to weigh close to 400 pounds and now is about 210. He had already won Clydesdale division in two prior events that I didn't race.  I was 3 or 4 minutes ahead of him on the run and never saw him.  I was only about a mile and a half from the finish on the bike, I was hurting but going along good. I shit you not, just as I thought, "I'm ahead of the other Clydes as long as John or Cody doesn't catch up," freaking John passed me flying. *&$!#!!!.  I immediately tried to give chase but ended up finishing 20 seconds behind him. Dambit!  Completely pissed me off and made me not so happy even though I beat my last years time by over 8 minutes.

My trainer says I need an aero helmet and a new wheel set for my bike. I ride on basically bullet proof Armadillo tires because I hate getting flats.  They are great for training, not so great for racing apparently b/c they're heavy. Didn't realize that.  The helmet is one of those dorky looking things that you make fun of when you see spandex-wearing 120 pounds guys go flying past you.  I guess we'll see how it looks on a 200 pound guy next race. I've always hesitated to buy the fancy looking stuff b/c I didn't want to be "that guy" who shows up with all the gee whiz technology and gets dusted by a dude on a Schwinn wearing cargo shorts. I think I'm safe from that guy now so I'll put my big toe in the fancy waters.

I ended up 2nd in Clydesdale, 22nd overall out of 67 individuals. Had I competed in my age group, I would've been 4th and out of the hardware. I didn't compete as a Clydesdale last year because I didn't know if I would stay above 200 for an entire year of training. Now I know I will, and I'll keep trying to beat the big boys!