Until recently, I haven’t been focused on races and have instead been trying to get my right Achilles tendon healthy. Now that it finally seems as if it’s mostly on the mend, Teresa has taken advantage of my newfound health and has been bugging me about my 2011 race season. First up was the Mt. Rainier duathlon, which I wasn’t thrilled about because I wasn’t optimistic about how well I’d do (especially since I was fresh off an injury, hadn’t been running much lately, and had gained a shame-inducing amount of weight in the offseason). My grumblings fell on deaf ears, and both my trainer and my somewhat bullying boyfriend peer pressured me into signing up. (Well, technically Jason signed me up, but he used my credit card. Bastard.)

Because of my running handicap, I got out of doing the long course for the third straight year, but Jason opted to finally pop his long course cherry. I wasn’t optimistic about posting a PR this time around and instead opted to focus on not embarrassing myself. Since I didn’t expect to run better than last year, I figured I could at least improve my bike time. Jason’s goal was to take the big descent back to transition confidently since he was still a bit shaky after last year’s bike accident.

We got to the race and although the rain had held off and it was remarkably sunny, it was also ball-shrinkingly cold (if I had balls, that is) and holding steady at about 36 degrees. I began to immediately fret over what to wear: should I have gloves? Should I wear the team windbreaker? Is a t-shirt and arm warmers enough or do I need to don a parka OH GOD I’M GOING TO FREEZE TO DEATH OUT THERE. I reminded myself that I often race warm and ended up going with the “Screw it, it’s a short race that I don’t really care about” approach to getting ready.

Jason and the other long course racers started five minutes before us shorties, so I gave him a hug and a kiss and wished him good luck. I stood around with my teammates until it was our turn to get started. Let my first race of 2011 commence!

Run #1

I wasn’t sure how hard to go out on the first run leg, so I just took off like a spaz and ran as best I could. I had to dodge several horses since this year we were sharing the area with some Enumclaw horse show nonsense, but it wasn’t too annoying because the first run is so short. I thought about trying to chase down Jason’s sister who was also doing the race before remembering that she had just done the Boston Marathon and I was newly uninjured, so unless I wanted to keel over and die on the bike portion of the race, I’d better give up on unsuccessfully trying to catch someone who’s quite a bit faster than me. Boo. You just wait until I’m healthy, Danielle! …healthy and a much, much better runner. (Also, in this stupid run fantasy can you stop getting faster so I can catch up to you? K thanks.)

Run #1 time: 12 min 33 seconds (7:51 min/mile pace) — not bad considering I had barely done any running (and haven’t done any speed work) in the past six months.

Yes, that tiny spec is me

T1

This year they changed how you enter and exit the transition area, so my transitions ended up being a bit slower than last year’s super speedy times. Nonetheless, I managed to get in and out in 52 seconds. Yaaysauce.

Warning: extreme belly paunch

Bike

Oh goody, this is the part where I get to catch up to everyone who was faster than me on the run. Time to push it, Salt ‘n Pepa style. I caught up to Jason’s sister after a couple minutes and waved at her as I pedaled by in aero. (To which she responded “Awww” — she may be a great runner, but her inexperience on the bike is my advantage. Note #2 to Danielle: Do not log any cycling hours on that new Cervelo of yours.) My legs felt a bit stiff but I felt like I was pushing the bike pretty decently.

I got to the all-too-familiar Mud Mountain Road climb and began my steady ascent. At one point I saw a girl riding a road bike in what looked like white beach loungey short shorts. What is this nonsense? How was that remotely comfortable to bike in? I got annoyed by seeing the threat of underbutt as she sashayed her hips back and forth on her bike so I passed her.

As I approached the top of the meandering hill, I saw two spectators parked on the side of the road. I wondered who would be dorky enough to be literally the only spectators on Mud Mountain, not to mention sadistic enough to actually want to watch people painfully ascend up the road while going 4 miles per hour. As I got closer to them, I realized it was Jason’s parents. Heh. Everyone who passed them would gasp and sputter, “How much further is it?!” and Jason’s dad would give them a status report. When I got to them he said nonchalantly, “Oh, you know where you’re at, you’ve done this tons of times.” I chuckled and waved and soldiered on.

Conquering Mud Mountain

When I got to the top, the stretch between the top of the hill and the descent back into town felt a bit more difficult than usual — I wasn’t sure if it was because of wind or what, but I wasn’t going as fast as usual. I tried to push it on the descent to make up for lost time, but I also wanted to stay alert and be safety-conscious so I wasn’t sure what my bike time would end up at.

Bike time: 49 min, 38 sec (17.4 mph) — At first I was really, really bummed to see that I cycled slower than last year. It was a bit of a confidence crusher at first because I had been biking so much lately to make up for my lack of running, plus I did a ton of cycling last year for Ironman Canada, so how could I have been slower? After the race, however, Jas looked up last year’s times and noticed that pretty much everyone who raced last year had slower bike times this year, so I guess we did hit wind or something after all.

T2

In and out in 50 seconds. The Zoot race slip-ons sure are handy…

Run #2

…until you realize that you need to replace them. I think I’ve put too many miles on my Zoots, as they were starting to ache my feet during the second run. Oops. I tried to ignore the pain and haul my chubby ass 3.7 miles to the finish. Between the first run and this run, it was the furthest I’d run since December. When I got to the first mile marker, I looked at my watch and it said 8:40. What the hell, was I really running that slow?! (Answer: no, I wasn’t, the mile markers were spaced wrong. Nonetheless, nothing makes you feel crappier than thinking you’re going way slower than you assume you are.)

Between the slower run pace, the wind on the bike, and the new, longer transition setup, there was no way I’d PR or even break 1:30 this year. Bummer. Oh well, at least I was out there and doing it. Eventually I wheezed my way to the finish line, happy to be done. My feet were aching, my lungs were burning, and my self-esteem was at a low at the thought of seeing my unflattering paunch in numerous race photos.

Run #2 time: 30:14 (7:57 min/mile pace) — a bit of a relief that I ran sub-8s after my mile 1 scare. I was two minutes slower than last year’s run leg but I guess I’m not as slow as I feared.

Total time: 1:34:08. Slower than last year, faster than the year before. Ho hum.

Note to self: I look like a d-bag running with my Rudy sunglasses. Also, my arms look grossly huge. Time to cut back on the bacon.

As more and more of my teammates finished the race, results for the short course got posted and I saw that, to my surprise, I won my age group again. Whaaa?! Booty Shorts McUnderButt took 2nd, and Jason’s sister Danielle ended up taking third (she had a slowish bike but fast runs). I had successfully defended my title in my age group. Maybe I should just stick to duathlons and cut out this swim nonsense altogether…

Me and Danielle, Jason's sister, rocking out with our 1st and 3rd place medals

I didn’t get a ghetto-fabulous homemade trophy this time, but I did score a 1st place medal with a bike chain wrapped around it. You gotta love BuDu and their DIY awards.

One of my debilitating personal traits is how ridiculously hard I am on myself. I was pleased to take 1st place in my age group again, but I was a bit disappointed with my slower bike time (even though everyone seemed slower this year) and was a little depressed with my run — it’s hard to have a good run season the year before, only to get injured and lose some of that fitness I worked so hard to achieve. I know it’ll just take a bit of work and some time to get my run back to where it was (and hopefully better than it was), but it still feels like I’ve taken a step back. The extra chub I’ve gained this season isn’t really helping, either, but I’m working on that too. We’ll see if next year I can threepeat or if Teresa will finally shove me towards the long course instead of making idle threats every year.

Last year I raced a 1:36:37. My only goal this time around was to PR and to try and bike 50 minutes or under (I biked a 51:22 last year). Jas and I showed up and set up our transition areas. It was cold but sunnier than last year, and it ended up warming up fairly quickly so I just raced in my usual tri gear and threw on some arm warmers for good measure. Some of my training buddies raced in bike shorts, which I cannot fathom how comfortable it is to waddle-run with a huge cushy load near your ass and taint.

Not ideal for running

Most of my teammates raced the long course but five of us represented Team Shorty. We started the race and I pushed myself to run a good but not super strenuous first leg so that I wouldn’t feel like collapsing once I got to transition. After the first 1.6 mile run I grabbed my bike and embarked as fast as I could. I felt pretty good and kept mentally telling myself to push it during the bike part of the race. When I got to the Mud Mountain Road hill, I had my best climb to date. Don’t get me wrong, it was still kind of crappy and I got passed by better climbers, but I felt pretty good and steady and was able to scale it without feeling like I was going to crap myself afterwards. (Plus, I re-passed just about everyone who passed me on the hill, so suck it.)

When I got back to transition, a couple of my teammates who weren’t racing that day shouted some words of encouragement and told me, to my surprise, that I was the third female to finish the bike portion. I clickity-clacked into transition to rack my bike and pull on my Zoots, and Jason’s parents cheered me on. Jason’s mom said, “I think you’re the first female!” When I responded with, “I heard I was third,” she said, “Oh…those must have been some manly looking women then.” I chuckled and started run #2.

My pace felt a bit fast but steady, and I just kept thinking push push push. I still felt good and just wanted to have a good race. At one point I passed a female and got excited, but then another female went blowing by me and I never caught up to her. She ended up beating me by about 30 seconds. *shakes fist* Anyway, I was maybe less than a mile from the finish when I thought I heard someone shout “Bec!” I threw a side glance over my shoulder but didn’t want to turn around and lose momentum. Shortly after that, someone emerged beside me and said, “Good job, you’re doing great!” To my surprise, it was Jason.

“How am I ahead of you?” I asked incredulously. He should have been done with the race by now — I estimate he’d have finished about five or six minutes ahead of me. It turned out that Jas had a great first run and bike, but during the second run he missed turn #2 due to half-ass course markings. I guess quite a few racers missed the turn. Jason ended up running about six minutes extra (three out, three back to the correct course), which is a big oops when the run distance is only 3.7 miles. The competitive, non-chivalrous side of Jas didn’t want me to beat him, so he turned on the afterburners and passed me. I’m used to chasing him during runs, so puttering behind him wasn’t anything new for me.

At one point I looked down at my watch and noticed that if I hauled ass, I could finish in under 1:30, so I took it up a notch, Costanza style, and ran a bit harder to the finish. I clocked in at 1:29:36, sixteen seconds behind Jason and a seven minute PR over last year’s time. Huzzahowie! I later found out that I took first in my age group and was the third overall female to finish. This was a race to go down in Mediocre Athlete infamy, as I’ve never really legitimately placed well in my age group. Sure, last year I took 3rd in the duathlon, but it was out of 5 girls so it kind of put me in the middle of the pack (a placing I’ve more than grown accustomed to). One time I took 2nd in my age group at an Olympic distance triathlon, but that was out of 3 and the third girl never even showed up to race. Thus, my top finish was the first time I placed well and actually beat people who showed up. Pretty awesome.

Me with the 2nd and 3rd place age groupers

For winning my age group, I received the following trophy courtesy of what I’m assuming was the Enumclaw junior high woodshop class:

Yes, that is indeed a block of wood with a cassette gear shoved into it and a piece of chain crookedly glued onto it. My first homemade 1st place trophy! (I make fun, but I’m proud of it — it’s a fitting trophy for this mediocre athlete.)

When I got home I checked the official results and found that I had improved across the board over last year. Both runs, my transitions and my bike time were all faster (I biked a 48:15 and hit my under 50 min goal); in fact, my runs averaged out to be a 7:31 and a 7:25 minute mile pace. I’m not accustomed to seeing my run pace not start with an ‘8′ — it seemed as if I was stuck running in the 8s forever. I guess those track workouts are starting to work wonders for me.

The duathlon was a nice confidence booster for me and a good assurance that I was on the right track with my training this season. However, there is a downside to my good race — I know for a fact that Teresa’s going to make me do the long course next year, where all of a sudden I go from being a big fish in a small pond back to a mediocre fish in a pool of elites. Long course racers are pretty hardcore, so next year I get to look forward to resuming my regularly scheduled mediocrity. Ah well, for now I shall bask in my win until April 2011.

Jason, his dad, Beth, Barb and I met in horse loving Enumclaw and rode our bikes to get a feel for the duathlon course. Beth told me that she wanted to make sure she could successfully get up the hill this year since last year she was unable to conquer it. It was a warm, sunny day and most of the roads were flat and fast with a few gradual inclines…and then we got to the hill. Even though I had heard gloriously awful things about it, the beast still caught me by surprise. The first part of the hill is the steepest — it’s mercifully short, but I’m told it’s a shitty 17% incline. When I hit it I was in the completely wrong gearing and frantically downshifted. Although I did make it to the top, I ran out of momentum and ended up keeling over and running into a guardrail (thankfully, much like a Weeble, I wobbled but did not fall down). When Beth caught up to me at the top of the hill, I asked her, “Was that the part you got stuck on last year?” She just laughed and said, “Oh no, it gets worse.”

“Worse” is putting it lightly. This mofo is 2 miles long. While the rest of the hill isn’t as superbly steep as the beginning part, it’s a long, winding, never-ending piece of crap. Every time I rounded a corner and expected to be at the end, I’d see more hill to climb. I cursed, sweated, wheezed, dropped my chain, cursed again, stopped to put the chain back on my bike, burned my legs up trying to start climbing again mid-hill, sweated some more, wheezed a few more times, and finally made it to the top. Then we turned around, flew down the hill (well, they flew while I held my brakes in a nervous death grip) and climbed the bastard again. While I was in better gearing the second time around, my legs were tired and hating me for drowning them in lactic acid. Why the hell would I want to pay to bike up this hill? I just climbed it twice for free and hated every sweat-soaked minute of it!

Our practice ride was last Sunday, and all week Jason and I contemplated signing up for the duathlon. Teresa initially wanted us to do the long course (which consisted of a 5.1 mile run, a 28.8 mile bike and a 3.7 mile run), meaning we’d have to do the bike loop (and that bullshit hill) twice, and once we rode the course we were like “Yeeeeeah, the short course seems more appropriate.” Several of our training buddies were doing the short course and a couple of folks were doing the long course. Confident that she could conquer the hill this year, Beth egged me on to sign up and race with her.

Jason and I dragged our feet up until Saturday, at which point Jason put on his game face, hitched up his britches and decided to do the race. He set out his gear and clothes and I begrudgingly mimicked him like a disgruntled monkey. When the alarm started blaring at 5:15 am on Sunday morning, he bounced out of bed and said in a far-too-chipper voice, “Time to get ready, Bec!” My response was a mumbly “I don’t wanna do the race.” He said, “Why not?”, and I muttered something about getting bullied into it, how the bike course wasn’t fun, the hill was stupid, I’m gonna do crappy, it’s unnatural for human beings to wake up before 6 am, etc.

This is not the first time I’ve put up a fight getting out of bed for a race, and it won’t be the last time. Jason knows my routine, and he’s become quite adept at subtly bullying me into racing. Here’s how he does it:

Me (laying in bed): “I don’t want to race.”
Jason (from the other room): “That’s fine, honey. You don’t have to race if you don’t want to.”

I get out of bed, use the bathroom, re-enter the bedroom and see that my ninja boyfriend has already made the bed.

Me: “Damnit.”

I walk downstairs and see that Jason is making breakfast.

Jason: “You don’t have to race. Nobody’s making you…do you want oatmeal? One packet or two?”
Me: “One…wait, I want an English muffin. And I don’t think I’m going to do the race.”
Jason (putting an English muffin in the toaster oven): “That’s okay, don’t feel stressed. I’m still going to race but you don’t have to. Are you going to stay home, or will you still watch?” He starts pumping up my bike tires.
Me (eating my English muffin): “I…don’t know…maybe…maybe I’ll come and watch…”
Jason: “Okay, that would be nice…do you want a Gu2O or just a water bottle?” He starts mixing bottles.
Me: “I’ll take one of each…wait, what am I saying? I’m not racing today!”

And then before I know it, I’m pulling out of our garage with my race gear on and my bike strapped to the back of my car. He is such a sneaky bastard.

We got to the fairgrounds, signed up for the race and set up our transition area. Before the race began Teresa snapped a photo of her athletes like a proud parent taking pictures of her kids on their first day of Kindergarten:

Look how bleary eyed I look. At this point I still hadn’t forgiven Jason for suckering me into waking up at 5 am and driving all the way to cold-ass Enumclaw to do a stupid duathlon.

At 8:05 the short course racers started. The first run was a short 1.6 miles. I ran with Bri and we hit the transition area at around the same time. I changed out my shoes, strapped on my helmet, put on my sunglasses (which immediately fogged up), grabbed my bike and click-clacked out of the transition area (note to self: learn the fancy “run out barefoot and slip into your shoes while riding” trick sometime this season) to begin the 14.4 mile bike portion. I biked pretty steadily and felt pretty good about passing a bunch of people. When my spidey sense started tingling to inform me that the hill was approaching, I sucked down a gu and fueled via my aero bottle in anticipation.

For me, this was the third time I’d be climbing the big hill within a week, and the third time was the charm. And by “charm,” I mean it didn’t suck quite as bad as it did the previous two times. Yes, I was slow and yes, I wheezed like a fat kid on a 12 carton of smokes a day habit, but I wasn’t as slow or as wheezy as the week before. I hit the top of the hill, refrained from punching the photographer in the face for capturing me at my absolute worst, and kept plodding along.

The rest of the bike course was fairly fast. At one point there was a steep downgrade and I wasn’t in the right gearing when I got to it, but my hands were too frozen for me to trust them to fumble with the shifters at the end of my aero bars, so I ended up keeping them right next to the brakes as I coasted down the hill, praying I wouldn’t hit a pothole and fly off my bike going over 30 mph. One dude actually passed me going down the hill, shooting down in his little aero helmet and fancy bike. He was the only person to pass me on the bike portion, and I later found out that he was the long course winner. That dude was fast.

Eventually I got back to the transition area and nearly fell off my bike when I dismounted (stumpy Asian legs + frozen quads = accident waiting to happen).

(Motion lines added for emphasis)

I dropped off my bike, stripped off my helmet and sunglasses, changed into my running shoes, and started the 3.7 mile run. Holy crap, my legs were so numb and cold from the bike that I felt like little Forrest Gump running gimp-style with his leg braces (minus the triumphant scene where they break off into a million pieces and he outruns the bullies). Two women passed me on the run, but I trudged along and hit the finish line at 1:36:37. Not too shabby!

I waited around with Jason, Teresa, and some other folks for some of our teammates to finish the race. While we were waiting the race organizers announced age group winners. To my surprise, I heard someone say, “Is Rebecca Kelley here?” I waved my arms in a dorky “Derrr, I’m Rebecca Kelley!” fashion. It turns out I took 3rd in my age group, and the two women who passed me on the run took 1st and 2nd. (They beat me by less than a minute. Bastards!…though I did have the best bike time in my age group, so that’s rad.) My first age group placement! (Well, technically I took 2nd in my age group at last year’s Apple Capital Olympic triathlon, but that was out of 3 total females…and the 3rd girl didn’t even show up to race.)

I was so stoked to have received a 3rd place medal that I forgave Jason for “tricking” me into doing the race.

See? Hugs and forgiveness abounds!

Speaking of Jason, he won his age group! Well, technically he was the only person in his age group, but hey, he had to show up in order to win, right? Plus he placed 11th overall, so it’s not like his time was sucky. He did really well and I’m proud of him.

Thus concludes my lengthy duathlon recap. I guess the moral of this story is that you should never say never. You don’t know what you’re capable of until you at least give it a try. I dragged my feet and whined and pouted about not wanting to do the race, but in the end I tried my best and got a sweet-ass medal for my efforts. Oh, and having a nagging but encouraging boyfriend doesn’t hurt, either. :)