I've been looking to do a duathlon for a while now. They are few and far between. If they're not on Sunday, they're off road. I finally found one not too far away. I signed up for it and we decided to sign up my three oldest kids to do the kids' triathlon. Chino Valley is hosting another triathlon/duathlon in June. It consists of a one mile run, 15 mile bike ride, and 3 mile run. That is the distance I thought I signed up for. Instead, the race I did was a 1/2 mile run, 7 mile bike ride, and 1 mile run. I don't know how I got the two races mixed up, but I would have rather done the longer distance because I feel that would give me a better chance to compete. The race I did was more or less a sprint. But the other race is on a Sunday, and we had already reserved a room at a motel, so I decided to go for it.
I picked up the packets the week before on my way home from Kingman. The guy told me that only about 10 people signed up to do the duathlon, so I should have a good chance at medalling. I said, "As long as I don't blow a tire...wait, it's only a 7 mile ride. I'll pick my bike up and run if I needed to."
I got my 40 hours in at work by Thursday, so I was able to take Friday off from work. I spent all day getting packed and ready to go. We got on the road at 5pm. My four year old daughter had a bladder infection, so we knew we were in for an adventure. It wasn't too long before she, "I haf to go the bafroom." My wife decided to place her in a diaper, and let her do her business at her leisure. She didn't like the idea. She was afraid that a) it would go all over the place, b) she would get a diaper rash, and c) it would stink. But my wife finally convinced her that it was okay. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Now she had to poop. There was no way she was going to poop in the diaper. And she had to go right as we exited the 101 to the 17. That's not a good place to be at 6pm on a Friday evening. It took us more than 20 minutes to get off at the next exit. Meanwhile, Abby was getting this crazed look in her eyes and screaming like - you better get me to a bathroom NOW!! We drove down the road and didn't see any gas stations or fast food joints so I pulled into this deli in a strip mall. My wife took her in. The owner was understanding. When they came out, they both had embarrassed looks on their faces. It was just a Please follow Fast Running Blog policy regarding vulgar language
After the exhausting Please follow Fast Running Blog policy regarding vulgar language incident, she fell asleep and the rest of the trip was incident free. We checked in at the hotel, had a pre-race meeting where I explained to my kids what to expect in the tri, and we went to Pizza Hut for dinner. I got up at 4:40am, got ready, and got the rest of the family up. We made it to the race in plenty of time. We set up our transition area, got our timing chips, and got marked up.
The kids went first. They went in order of the numbers they were given. They started the kids off one every 20 seconds. AJ was the first to finish not too far ahead of Mary not too far ahead of Julianna. I think AJ had a wardrobe malfunction (I can't believe I used that expression because I hate Justin Timberlake) in the transistion area trying to get his shirt on which rolled up on him. They all left on their bikes at about the same time. AJ was using my road bike. He came in at least 10 minutes before his sisters. Mary came in on her Huffy next. Then Julianna came in. She was struggling and didn't want to do her run. (She was crying and thought she was going to be last.) I went with her and tried to encourage her. I told her let's just jog for 20 seconds, then walk, then jog. That worked a little. We reached the drink station were they were SUPPOSED to turn around. Unfortunately the man manning the station was sending all the kids to do the loop around the school. That made them all do 1 mile instead of the 1/2 mile they were actually supposed to do. He discovered his error shortly before we got there. Oh well. So they said Julianna could turn around there. This gave her a little motivation because now she was ahead of some of them. She finally made it and, everyone was so proud of her. But if you ask her if she was proud of herself, she'll say no.
The duathletes started immediately after the kids' race at the same time the first mini-triathlete started. (They weren't dwarves or midgets. It's just that there was a maxi-triathlon, too.) Wait a minute. What happened to the 10 people that signed up? There was only four of us; two men and two women. They counted us down, but I was the only one paying attention. I told them all (all three of them) to go. We took off, and I (how do I say this nicely?) left them all in the dust. I got to the drink station, where the man was still going on about sending the kids the wrong way, turned around and slapped the other runners five as I passed by them. I found where my boy had parked my bike, threw on my helmet, and was off.
I had my Garmin set to record my run, transition, bike, transition, and run, but I forgot to trigger it each time. This was the first time I had attempted to use my Garmin like this. So I was riding my bike and thought that the mileage shown on my Garmin was just my bike miles (which I knew I had been riding for at least a mile before I triggered it.) So as I was approaching 2.5 miles, I thought I must be getting to the turn around point soon. But no, this was my total mileage both bike and run. I made a wrong turn and a guy told me I needed to continue on the main road. I turned around and saw a couple of the minis hot on my tail. I kept going further and further expecting to see a place to turn around, but nothing. So I turned around and asked the guys if they were in the mini. They said yes, so I followed them. All in all I probably lost about a minute not knowing the course well enough. Again, oh well. I had a sizable lead on the other duathletes. There were some pretty good hills to climb, too. I decided to attack them because it was such a short distance overall. Then I made it back to the tranistion area, tires still full of air, and dismounted.
I like this picture because it shows off my massive muscles and sweet farmer's tan. The last mile of the race was just me gutting it out after pushing it so hard on the bike. I grabbed a water at the drink station, took a swig, and dumped the rest on my head. I think it glided straight down my shirt into the pockets on the back of my shirt for my GU's. It felt heavy. I did my lap around the school and declined another drink as I passed the drink station again.
I came into the finish line and the race officials weren't paying attention, so I yelled at them that I was coming in! I took them by surprise. The announcer said over the intercom, "Finishing up is our first duathlete, Burt McCumber from Queen Creek. Thank you for bring your whole family up." (and my wife finally snapped the picture of me as I came in.) It was fun. I was very proud of my kids. AJ took 4th in his age division, Mary also took 4th, and Julianna took 7th.
I took first overall, and I'm glad I didn't enter as a Clydesdale. The other guy entered as a Clydesdale and would've ended up coming in second. So, at least he got his first place, too.
Well, we had a fun little mini-vacation. Might be the only one we get this year. I saw a friend that I've known since 4th grade, but haven't seen since high school. I also met another on-line friend of mine from Athlinks.com. After the race we went and watched Monsters vs. Aliens. I saw a place that served chili dogs. We were going to eat there for dinner, but they were closed. So we went to Dairy Queen. Now I'm home, and I gotta get ready for another 5k this Saturday. Time to read all the reports on the Ogden Marathon! | 