Monday, March 12, 2012

Desert Classic Duathlon 2012

I feel darn pretty good about this one, although it wasn't a tremendous result but just getting any result felt like a huge victory.  On Monday of race week, I couldn't walk; my right heel was inflamed and my tendon felt terrible.  I still don't know what caused it; it wasn't an active injury, instead I woke up with the pain from a sound sleep, go figure.  After limping around for 3 days, I finally started feeling better Wednesday night, but still had it checked out on Thursday.  My orthopod (from the Sunday Brews Brothers bicycle group, too) said the tendon was OK, it was just inflammation where the tendon joined the bone, and with some stretching and ibuprophen, by Saturday morning I felt good enough to race.

Then I managed to make the race logistics difficult, forgetting my USAT card and my water bottles at home.  I forgot sunscreen and lip balm, too.  I had to borrow a better phone (thanks, dude) to download a picture of my current USAT card, then used a disposable screw-top water bottle from the car for the bike portion (which meant having to unscrew the top with my teeth, drinking, then screwing the top back on, all while pedaling).  I have put a spare water bottle in the trunk of my car, but that's only going to help next time.

And there's more, they changed the course, which I sort of knew, but I didn't realize how much they changed it until I'm on it.  The first run went from 3.5 to 3.65 miles (no big deal), the bike went from 21 to 30 miles (a very big deal), and the second run went from 2.7 to 3.7 miles (also a big deal; in percentage terms, bigger than the increase in the bike course but it didn't affect me as much for some reason).

So that's the kvetching, now the good stuff.  First, I finished and felt pretty good despite being potentially incredibly stupid of me to race on my inflamed heel, which as it turned out, felt just fine and which hasn't, knock wood, acted up since.  Second, because I wasn't certain of how my foot would hold up, I was very cautious on the first run until thoroughly warmed up, and kept myself consistent on the bike ride, shifting more frequently than normal and not standing in my pedals.  I felt pretty good for the third run, staying with a 70-year-old woman for the first half of the course as both of us passed about a half-dozen younger guys who had gone out too fast and who were fading in the heat.  Then with about a mile to go, I passed her, then caught another younger Tri-Scottsdale runner, then stretched it out a bit to the finish.  I've never been somebody passing at the end, usually I'm the other side of that transaction.  So though I couldn't break 3 hours, I was really happy with the result.  Plus, pictures.

Then to top off a great day, the race was at McDowell Mountains Regional Park, so I stopped on the way home at DJ's Bagel Cafe for a toasted sesame with their whitefish salad, and went to the Arizona Opera production of Aida that evening, for which the acting was OK, the camel on stage didn't do that much for me, but the voices were wonderful.  A really nice day.

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