OnURLeft Duathlon

Above, the new Guru Crono which did me right today.
Below, Maite updating her FB status. Jorge pointing at the window treatments. Greg pondering taking up competitive bowling after I SPANKED him on the bike. haha

Time to start catching up on the blog. I am being harassed for letting nearly a month go since my last update. Lots going on. But no excuses right???
Today was a sprint duathlon, the Onurleft Duathlon. Not a bad race for the first one. I hope it grows and gets bigger for next year. The first hard part about this race was the start time. 6:45am. OMG! Are you serious? But in light of our triple digit temperatures lately actually a really good call. Ok, to the race. I have not been riding and just this past week built up a tt bike. I hadn't ridden a tt bike since Feb or March. But with a stage race next weekend I figured it might be good to get on it a couple times before the race. So I put in a huge training week finished off with pulling Dacree 55 miles yesterday just to finish me off properly. So this morning as tired as can be and with some very sore legs I made my way to the race. The only thing that made me look like I was ready was my bike. Pretty sick if I do say so myself. I got to the race a little later than planned but still enough time to get my number, bike racked, and pee before the start. Yeah, but my only warm up was the run to and from the bathroom. Had I ran any more I am afraid I would not have been able to finish the race since I have not been running except this week. haha
I am not alone at this race. I am joined by some of my faithful (better trained and race ready) Shama Tri team members and friends. The most fun is the trash talk amongst friends. I spend my time saying hi to everyone trying to keep my mind off of the pain to come. The gun goes off and I start to run. Trying to keep my friends in sight but its not easy. I keep in my mind the advice that Coach Trent gave me...run super slow on the first run, bleed on the bike and hobble in the second run. YEAH RIGHT! But that is about what I did. I cruised the first run. Got to the bike and had a hard time getting past 24 at first. But then by mile two I warmed up and started cruising. I starting passing people and picking off friends and competition. I started seeing 27 and knew not to kill myself past that or I would be stopping. Slowed down, had to drink, but found a good carrot, a fellow road racer ahead and the pain began. It took me nearly 7 miles to make the catch but it was worth it. I was not passed by anyone, the first for me in a du. Also the first time for me to ride a custom (for me) tt bike. Guru Crono. Smooth and fast. Not sure of my tt split I rolled into T2 tired and not knowing how I am going to run two more miles. I am not sure of my first half mile but it could not be pretty. I wanted to stop but I kept going. I got to a turn and some one was calling out a count of runners ahead. After being passed by 7 people before that I heard 26 ahead. WOW had I passed that many on the run? I kept it up. I wanted to come in top 50 at least. (200 racers) So I tried hard and kept a decent pace. My legs were screaming!!!! I was tired and wanted to sleep. I couldn't even keep count of those that passed me. Amazingly the finish line came up on me quickly and I came through the finish. I don't remember much of what I was thinking other than try not to suck too badly. LOL I was happy to be done saw most of The Shama Racers already done. Which is where they should be. ;-) But we still had a couple on course to cheer on!!!! As soon as we were all in...FOOD! We started making plans of where to eat. We packed our bikes and on the way out we saw the results being posted. I rushed over and low and behold I was 2nd in my AG and had the 2nd fastest bike split of the race!!!! (official web results show me knocked down one spot in each. But no worries I still got some bragging rights and with a bike split like that I could not have been happier. I was more surprised than anything. I have not had this good of a split at a race yet. I just might have to keep running and do some more of these....maybe even swim a little and dare I say do another triathlon...

The goods! Shama Team and FOPs

Kristen A 2nd in AG
Jenny H 4 in AG
Laura M 1st in AG (fastest female bike split)
Anne F 7th in AG
Dave D Masters Overall
ME 3rd in AG
Jorge M 4th in AG
Jeremy Rowe 2nd in AG
Greg B 4th in AG (I beat him on the bike!!!!! haha)
Brett Cole 1st in AG
Greg C 4th in AG
Andy A 5th in AG
Nigel W 3rd in AG

CONGRATS TO ALL on a great day of racing.