Minneapolis Duathlon

Oh boy, was I excited when I signed up for this race. My training for it was so-so. I did some bike/run training, but not alot and not all out, if you know what I mean. I knew race day would be interesting enough given the newness (to me) of the race. [um, what's transition? should I change shoes?]

As per usual, I set aside my race stuff the night before. T (who also raced) had the bikes on the car the night before and we were ready to roll far too early on Sunday morning. Even so we arrived with only a few minutes to spare to rack our bikes in the transition area and head to the start line.

This is the before picture. Do we look nervous?!?

The run was a nice course starting downtown by the Mill Ruins. It included the Stone Arch Bridge and a out and back along the river parkway. The first run was pretty well paced. Maybe a bit slower than I would normally given the fact that there was an 18 mile bike immediately following it.

Transition was pretty easy. T and I met in the transition area so that we could head out on our bikes together. He probably could have outpaced on the bike. There were times when I was, literally, at full speed on my bike and couldn't pedal any faster. Of course, I was using my city bike (no road bike for me), so that was understandable. For some reason, both T and I thought we might get some "rest" during the bike portion of the race. That was not the case. We were both pretty much full pedal for 18 miles. About halfway through I turned to T and said "I love riding my bike. I do NOT love racing my bike." T was great and kept me moving along on the bike and took off for the long slog uphill at the end, then he waited for me to head out on the run.

The first few steps were ridiculous. My calves were pretty well numb and I was just trying not to fall. I knew I was moving forward, but felt like it was in slow motion. We ran about the same pace in run #2 as we did in run #1, which surprised us both. We kicked it in at the end and crossed the finish line together, which was great (with a time of 2:12:03).

We look surprisingly happy after the race.

Marie and Brandi also rocked the Du. It was great to see them, cheer for them and with them. T raced like a champ.

......and for T's REAL reward, we stopped at Town Hall Tap post-race (instead of the race sponsored beer at Brit's)