Holloman Duathlon

The race gets a negative for hassle with registration. As the name suggests, held on Holloman AFB.  The registration form was harder to find than the Loch Ness monster. I think these military installations stage these races as activities for the good men and women of their respective military services. My guess is that if you serve at HAFB registration would be simple but for those of us who track down these events, they are less than inviting. I only found the registration after triathlete extraordinaire Cody Hansen posted it on his blog. Multiple voice messages and emails to the RD went unanswered. When we showed up, at least 10 people were there who had registered, some of which even had fax confirmations, and were rebuffed with "sorry, you're not on the list." I think everybody that wanted to race got to race, but still you don't want to drive hundreds of miles at the ass crack of dawn only to be told "you're not on the list." Boo for registration.

That being said, the race itself was excellent.  No swim which made me happy. I would promise to quit griping about the swim portion of these triathlons, but hey, it's my blog and I'll complain all I want. Stupid swim (grumble). The parking lot was muy intimidating. Only about 50 people there for event but no newbies to be seen - only little skinny athletic looking-bastards.

Run and bike were flat, flat, flat. Road was 85% smooth and the bumpy part wasn't that bad. Car pooled with world's nicest guy John Gardea. We left my house at 5 a.m. and arrived plenty early. Started out strong on the race and clocked 6:56 for first mile. Felt some hunger pangs right from the start so should've ate a little more. Went out with the pack of the pack with the fast guys and hung on til turn around. Time started to slip away and 2nd mile was 7:35. 3rd mile was tough and couldn't seem to step on the accelerator. Watched the fast guys (fast to me) slip away and struggled to 8:15 3rd mile. (Excuse alert!). Sick this week for first time in a long time and took it easy for 3 days to recover. Don't know if I had trained through it if that would've made a difference but I suspect it would - and I know Gretchen would say it would, so there's that.

Pretty quick transition for me at :55 seconds. Out on bike maintaining 20-22 pretty evenly. Got passed by one guy and I passed 3 on the way out. Bike was an out and back which I love because you get a good idea of where everybody is at the turnaround. I put 3 minutes on my erstwhile nemesis/good friend John Gardea and I was pushing hard on the bike for the first half so I figured I wouldn't see him for 3-4 minutes after the turnaround - wrong! Much to my surprise and chagrin, I saw John not 100-200 meters after the turn. Crap! I really, really pushed coming back in because I expected to see John whiz past me any second. I pushed so hard I passed another 4 people coming back in including super stud Cody Hansen with a little less than a mile to go. Cody looked like he was struggling a bit but, like the true competitor he is, he didn't take me passing him so well and immediately passed me back. The bike ends with a sharp right turn back into the transition area and after the nasty fall I took at MVT, I babied that last turn but sprinted to the finish after that with a bad case of John Gardea-itis. I finished ahead of John by 1:09.

Bike time was 52:23 for 18.8 miles average speed 21.6. The proof - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/79915393. John's bike split including transition was 51:25 so he made up 2 minutes on me on the bike which I barely held with my 3 minutes on him on the run. He told me afterwards that he was really busting it trying to catch me the whole way in so I'm extremely satisfied with my effort!

Got 1st place in Clydesdale with John a close second. The next Clyde was over 17 minutes behind me so I guess you could say John and I were in a class of our own in the fat boy division.

My boy Brooks Vandivort killed it and came in 3rd overall in a very, very fast field. Very impressive Brooks!

I've got no chance of catching John in the Southwest Challenge Series. Head to head, we're 2 and 2. I might could catch him if we did the same number of races the rest of the year but he has a head start b/c he did the Polar Bear and Jingle Bell Tris in December and took 1st in both so has a 20 point head start on me. Gretchen is telling me I need to be an age-grouper next year so I might not get me a fancy jacket for this year (award to the season winner). We'll see.

Next race is the Dog House Sprint in Lubbock on May 15th. My precious daughter's 9 year old birthday party is that day so I won't be leaving El Paso til late but race doesn't start until 9:50 so I should be able to get some rest. I'd give up the rest, however, to start a little earlier b/c it's going to be flipping hot! Swim is in Buffalo Springs Lake which means open water which means gulp! Funny thing is I went to law school for 3 years in Lubbock and never even knew they had a lake - guess I'm going to find out now. I'll post the race report to reflect on the carnage.