My duathlon Story

OK, So I ran a duathlon last Saturday. This is Jeff by-the-way. I know Amy usually does these things but I thought it'd be fun to do one. I am going to do it Chris style and just create a link to my picasa if you wanna look at more pictures. So, just click on the picture of me running like a mad-man. Anyways, here goes.

I think most peeps know that I did a triathlon last year in June and am going to do another one this June. I figured this duathlon would be a good way of keeping me in shape. All though this is less strenuous than the triathlon, it was fairly difficult in it's own right. The duathlon consists of three legs. The first and last are each 5K runs (3.1 miles each) and the middle leg is a 15 mile bike ride. I love riding bike and am fairly good at it. I absolutely suck at running and, because of my bad knees and heels, I usually keep it slow. As a side note, my knee and heel pain has gone down a ton in the past few years. Maybe because of the weight loss or maybe because I stretch better. I like to think my body functions better now that my head is one straight. Anyways, so the first run was pretty easy. I positioned myself near the end of the mass start because I knew I'd go slow. I ended up passing more people than not so that was good.

The bike is where I made up a ton of space. Thank you to Grant and Carolyn...and Brian for donating this awesome 1991 Schwinn 564. All though I have upgraded it quite a bit, it was actually a pretty good bike to begin with. It flies and I like it a lot. I remember most of the people I passed on the bike...and I especially remember this 79 year old man (we all have our age on our right calf). He was going pretty good on the bike and I remember thinking he was in such great shape to be doing this at that age.

Well, during the run, all those people I passed on the bike met me again and passed me. They must have been thinking, "wow, I am kicking this 31 year old's butt". About a mile and a half into the last run, the 79 year old man flew past me as if I were standing still. Even more amazed by him I started to ponder all the things the body can do if we just take care of it. Well, during the last 1/2 mile I caught my second wind and picked it up a bit. There was a lady passing me and I said to myself, "no way dude". I sped up and passed her while she yelled "show off" and gave me a smile. Thank you to her for pushing me a little bit. Then I started to get passed by a man. Knowing there was only about 1/4 mile left I mustered up all the energy in my body and ran full speed to the finish, passing this guy. Of course, full speed at that point must have been a snail pace but it had me breathing pretty hard...as you can see from the last pictures.

So there's my race story. Hope I didn't bore you too much.