On May 25th I participated in the fly by night duathlon. Last year was my first time participating in the race and I really enjoyed it. I had a lot to live up to since last year I placed 1st in my division. This year I did it as part of a relay team; my dad did the running and I did the biking, below is a recap of how it went.
There are two things that I really like about this race. First, it takes place at Watkins Glen International Speedway (the race car track) and second, it takes place in the evening. Usually I take it easy before a race but since I was doing this as part of a relay team and would only be biking 20 miles (the amount I usually ride in a day commuting to and from work) I didn’t think I needed to allow myself much recovery before the race (mistake number 1). I began the day by waking up around 6:30 and working on our house for the morning and afternoon (mistake number 2). Shortly after 1:00 we were out of work to do for the day so we headed inside. Training for an Ironman is hard work, but let me tell you, building a house isn’t much easier. Greg and I have been exhausted and sore almost every day since we broke ground on 5/5/11. We usually don’t get done early so we decided to take advantage of the day by going to get a massage (mistake number 3). It’s a good idea to get a massage a few days before a race but it’s not a good idea to get one a few hours before a race. The above mistakes left me tired and with dead legs before I even got to the race site.
The race was a formula one duathlon; run, bike, run, bike run. Each run leg was about 2 miles and each bike leg was about 10 miles. Since my dad was the runner I got to relax and watch as the runners took off. Before I knew it my dad was entering the transition area. After a quick little shuffle to try and exchange timing chips I was off. I had biked one loop of the track before the race started to refresh myself. The Watkins Glen track has lots of twists and turns and up and down hills, it’s not often bikers get to ride in a venue like this which makes it a lot of fun but the course gets real tiring after a few times around.
Leaving transition area puts the biker on a somewhat downhill sloping straightaway. A sharp downhill turn followed by a curved flat brings us to the first uphill. The first uphill climb is the steepest on the track. Once at the top bikers continue a moderate climb for about a mile. After that you come to another downhill and enter what’s known as the “boot”. An area of somewhat quick turns up and down hills that end up resembling a shape somewhat similar to, you guessed it, a boot. Climbing out of the boot bikers come to a slightly downhill straightaway, two easy curves, and another downhill straightaway as they near the starting line/transition area. Each bike leg consisted of three of those loops. In addition to having lots of steep up and down hill climbs and quick turns the course also has a 6 degree bank on all turns which makes it even more interesting to ride on.
For me, the fastest part of the track was coming out of the boot until the first sharp downhill turn. Lots of bikers picked up loads of speed on the other down hills but I decided to take it easy on those areas. I guess I’ve fallen off my bike one too many times to know that I would rather take it slow than have a major wipe out. My dad and I finished just under 2 hours. We came in 14th place in the mixed relay division, far from the first place trophy I won last year. It was a lot of fun as always, it’s just too bad my dad can’t run faster, maybe if he could we would have been able to defend my title (just kidding, dad).