God's Country Off Road Duathalon

I have a new found respect for triathletes. One type of physical activity is hard enough, two is worse. Triathletes do three! Are there quadathletes? There should be and the 4th discipline should be arm wrestling.

So... X and i drove up to Lawrence today for the God's country Duathalon. This was the first time either of us had done this event (also X's first mtn bike race ever!) and the first race I had ever done with a 'Du' in the front of it. There were a lot of first's going on today so we weren't sure just what to expect.

What we got was a fun and hard day of racing and a very well organized event. Chris Locke seems to have his s*it together. I've done several of his races and the've all been totally sweet. Last years Bone Bender (coming up again one week from today!) is at the top of that list. Today, for example, there was practically a buffet waiting for us after crossing the finish line. Bagel's w/ peanut butter, ham sandwiches, grapes, bananas, cookies, pretzels. Plus free hammer Gel and shammy butter.

Bam!

Only the Nutella was missing... just kidding, inside joke.

The race started with a 2.5 mile trail run followed by a 11 mile bike ride followed by a final 'ceremonial' run of about 100 meters.

I've been running once a week for about 6 weeks now, but i never ride my bike immediately afterwards. Having now done that let me tell you, it's hard. I finished the run in around 25th (happy with that) and close to vomiting (not happy with that). My transition was filled with lots of deep breathing and deep coughing.

I figured that once i got on the bike i'd be good. After all, i ride my bike a lot more than i run, plus one lap around the River trails is nothing, so it should be hammer time. Only problem is that due to the run my legs now feel like cooked spaghetti and i'm breathing waaay too hard. However long the bike part ended up being (30 minutes, 45 minutes, eternity?) I was still recovering from the run for the first half of it.

Despite this i managed to pass around 10 people, finishing in 15th overall. At least i think that's what the results said. But it wasn't pretty. Due to the run induced fatigue i was bumbling all over those trails. If there was a bad line i took it. Now, I don't pretend to be a great mtn biker, but i can get over the average obstacles no problem, today however i was going with more of a 'drunken master' approach; hit the worst line, head on and at full speed, then use the 'dehydrated fatigue / not thinking strait' confidence to will the bike up and over... then repeat.

I am the drunken master.

X kicked some major butt and was the 2nd female across the line. Not bad for her first mountain bike race ever. Maybe next time she'll remember to bring a water bottle so that by the time she crosses the finish line her mouth wont be glued shut like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix

Today was humbling, hard, and fun.

This guy won, this guy got second, this guy kick's ass.

Plus Johan Van Summeren won today's Paris Roubaix, i love that guy!

Big thanks to Chris Locke and everyone else who made it happen, y'all rock!