Tri-ing in the Holy Land

The ramblings of a struggling triathlete in Israel

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Location: Israel

I'm the mother of 3, a teacher and a couch potato turned triathlete.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Nitzana Duathlon - 31 March 2007

Thanks to 4sport for this photo and to Shvoong for the one below

It was a beautiful day for a race -- we couldn't have asked for better weather. Logic would suggest that duathlons should not be a big favorite of mine because there's no swimming, which I like, and I have to run twice, which I generally dislike (note that I did not say "hate"). And unlike in a triathlon, a duathlon requires me to bike on somewhat tired legs. What on earth could be enjoyable about that? And yet, I always like duathlons. Go figure.

Because I haven't gotten my running mileage back up since being sick, I decided to do the sprint distance at this race -- 5 km run, 20 km bike, 2.5 km run. This is generally a small race, but it was particularly small this year. There were only 40 participants in the sprint, as opposed to over 60 last year. I don't know why so few people came, but those who didn't show really missed out. This is one of my favorite races -- in a special place (right on the border with Egypt), well organized, a mainly flat course.

The first run started out ok. Everyone passed me almost right at the start and I ended up running with this other
woman, who, at about 1.5 km or so, also ran ahead and left me alone (but by this point, we'd managed to pass a couple of the people who had passed us earlier, so at least I wasn't quite last). The first km was fast for me -- probably too fast. I looked down at my watch and saw 5:20 and wondered if I'd be able to keep up that pace. I wasn't. I kept running, though, frustrated at the gap that was opening up between me and the people in front of me. The course had a lot of small stones on it and one of them managed to get into my shoe, which was incredibly annoying, but didn't prevent me from being able to run. My time for the run wasn't stellar and was slightly slower than last year, but it wasn't my worst 5k time by a long shot.

When I got to the transition area, it was very easy to find my bike ;-)

The transition was so-so at best. First of all, when I took off my right shoe, I saw that there was blood on the back of it, where the stone had rubbed me. Maybe that was a good thing, as it reminded me to shake the stone out of my shoe before I had to put it on again for the second run. I don't actually remember much more about the transition itself, apart from the fact that I remembered to turn my number around, which is something I usually forget.

I knew that mounting my bike would be problematic and I was right. I haven't practiced transitions in ages. I decided to just do it slowly, but even that didn't go well. I was very wobbly and almost fell off and even had trouble finding the pedals. That was something new. I was all over the place and right at the start, some guy yelled at me to move right -- I still wasn't properly on my bike and I yelled back that I was trying. Ugh.

As bad as the mount was, the ride itself was incredible. Right at the beginning, I started passing people. First it was the guy who had passed me while I was still trying to get on the darn bike and then the woman right in front of them. There were maybe one or two other people that I could barely see up ahead at this point, so I just gave it my all and started picking off more and more people. I even tried counting. I lost count after passing 13 or 14 people (remember -- there were only 40 people in the whole race and quite a few were really far in front of me because they were mainly men who run a lot faster than I do).

There was a bit of wind on the out section, but I just got down on the aerobar and pushed. I figured that it didn't matter how much energy I used up on the bike -- I wasn't going to run fast with or without energy and I wanted to make up as much time as possible. This was a very good strategy.

The way back was a piece of cake. I did it about four minutes faster that I'd gone in the other direction (4 minutes on 10 km -- that's quite a difference). I was flying, still passing people.

The only "bad" part on the bike was that in typical duathlon style, my left calf cramped up. I had to stop pedaling several times so that I could stand up and stretch it and although it hurt a bit, I managed to deal with it pretty well and I don't think it slowed me down too much.

Getting off the bike was not as bad as getting on. I almost got run over by a kid, but apart from that it was ok. Mounting and dismounting are definitely not my strong points, so if I end up on my feet, that's good. When I got into the transition area, I was amazed at how much empty space there was on the rack. I knew I'd passed people, but it was still weird for me to see so many missing bikes. I may have to start getting used to that, though! Just before I set off for the run, a guy came in with his bike, looked at me and said, "Hey, you're not bad on the bike!" Needless to say, that made me feel good :-)

The second run was... Well... Short. 2.5 km. And thank God for that. My legs were tired, but I was able to run on them. As I was going out, I saw a woman who I know is very fast just finishing up. I realized that she was probably the first woman finisher, so I looked for some more. I didn't see a single other woman on the way out (there was one more, just up ahead of me -- I didn't see her for some reason, but I did hear them call her name when she finished). It suddenly occurred to me that for the first time ever, I might take a place in the overall results. This wasn't enough to make me sprint the rest of the way (I didn't have it in me), but it was enough to make me run fast enough to keep the women that I saw behind me away. My time for the second run was pretty bad, but none of the women passed me (even though I think that just about all of them ran better times).

Despite my slow run times, I finished almost a minute faster than last year. And I got first place in my age group. And I finished third overall (but they didn't give trophies for overall finishers in the sprint -- only in the Olympic distance). But the most thrilling part for me wasn't any of those things. When I went to look at the results, I saw that my bike split was the 10th best for women AND men. Out of 40 people on the course, only 9 had faster bike times than I did. Two of those people are my teammates who are pretty good cyclists. And the absolute best part? I had the best bike split of all the women in the sprint.

At the awards ceremony, I got another compliment. The woman who I'd run with at the beginning of the race was sitting behind me. When I turned around and noticed her there, she said something like, "You're really strong on the bike! You just whizzed past me and I couldn't catch you after that!" That made my day.

In the last year or so, I've made amazing progress on the bike. What used to be the weakest part of the race for me has become the strongest. My bike splits used to be among the slowest. Now they're up there with the fastest. And even the partial break that I took from cycling in the winter (once a week instead of twice) so that I could train for the half marathon doesn't seem to have caused any regression whatsoever. I just keep getting stronger and stronger. And unlike the run, where I always feel like I'm giving it everything I have and I'm about to die, on the bike, I always feel like maybe I can give just a little bit more and I always finish feeling like I could have doubled the distance at the same pace. Whereas I feel "stuck" on both the swim and the run, I feel like I'm only starting to get a glimpse of my potential on the bike. I look forward to continuing to test my limits.

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