This morning, Katie and I drove down to Cannon Falls, MN for the Cannon Falls Duathlon. A duathlon is an event with a run, followed by a bike, and finishing up with another run. In this case, it was a 2 mile run, 14 mile bike, and a 3 mile run. Katie and I decided to do the team event, so she biked and I ran.
We knew it was going to be a windy day, and that was a bigger problem for Katie on the bike than it was for me on the run. Winds were 20mph and gusty. But, it was sunny, and the temperature was ideal, so it could have been worse.
The drive down was nice—it was about 45 min south of St. Paul. We got there, ran into Steve and his crew, and got set up in transition. We picked a nice transition spot, but realized the "team exchange" area was someplace else and moved closer. Our transition area looked like this:
Don't you like Katie's fancy new bike?
We got there early so we had a bit of time to kill (I'm chronically early to everything—I inherited that from my mother). There's a pre-race instruction meeting, and then we head to the starting line and get the show going. (Note, the times below aren't official. I'll have those sometime this week)
Leg 1 — 2 mile run, 14'15"
My goal for this leg of the race was to push it pretty hard since I would have a chance to recover between runs. I also needed to make sure I didn't go out too hard on the first mile. I wanted to do 6'45" for mile 1 and 7'15" for the second mile putting me in at 14 minutes. There weren't any mile markers, so I have no idea what my splits were, but the total time was pretty close to where I wanted it. I also noticed that my hill-work and speedwork have been doing me a lot of good because I was really able to hammer it up the few short hills and pass a lot of people in the process.
Steve also said to look for the waterfall around the first mile marker. Well, I totally missed the waterfall because there weren't any markers.
Leg 2 — 14 mile bike, 51-ish minutes
I passed the chip off to Katie, and she was off on the bike course. I don't know the details about her ride, but I can offer some thoughts. First, the wind was awful. Really, really awful. I didn't envy her at all. The wind was in her face the entire 2nd half of the ride. Second, Katie was on a new bike, so this was its first race. She's still getting used to it, and does not yet have things like clip-less pedals (which, oddly enough, have clips). She did say that she noticed a big difference though by having drop handlebars.
During her ride, I just chilled in transition. I made sure to keep my muscles as warm as possible and snacked on some trail mix and pretzels. While there, I saw the lead duathlete come in:
Ponder this: Even with the wind of doom, he came in with a chance to break the course record. (As it turns out, he ended up breaking the course record by a minute or two, which is just rather amazing considering the conditions)
I also saw Steve come through transition. He has an exciting bike jersey that is made to look like a leisure suit:
I downed a Gu, and figured Katie would be coming soon.
Leg 3 — 3 mile run, 21'34"
Katie handed the chip off to me, and I was off. I had already seen 5 teams go through transition, so I knew we were out of the running for top 3, but one team had come in about 30 seconds before Katie, so I made it my goal to catch him.
I caught him—within a half mile. Ok, time for a new goal. It was a little awkward the first mile or so because the real duathletes were moving pretty slow because of the awful bike ride, and I felt bad for going by them so quickly with my fresh legs.
The second run course was different than the first. It was mostly and out-and-back along the Cannon River Trail. It was relatively flat with a few ups and downs, but nothing major. I also got to see the waterfall this time!
Mile 1: 6'49" Whoa! Too fast! As it turns out, I was wind-assisted for this mile.
Mile 2: 7'22" A little slow this mile. But, as I hit the 1.5 mile turnaround, I hit the wind, and that's what slowed me down.
Mile 3: 7'21" The last mile was also windier than the 2nd one. I kept passing people though, and knew I was going to have a strong finish. With the finish in sight, I kicked it, and finished really strong. Here's me about 15 meters from the finish:
I finished this run with a time of 21'34". (Probably more like 21'40" since I hit my watch a few seconds late heading into the run) This was a fast run for me. My 5k PR (post high school) is 22'59", so I'm pretty sure that if I needed to do that extra 0.1 miles, I could have still broken 22 minutes for a 5k. I felt great on this run, and I'm really happy with my performance.
After I crossed the line (I'm pretty sure my finisher photo will be me hitting my watch), I turned around to see a high school age girl coming up to me and commenting on how strong my finish was. I was flattered, but as it turns out, she was just saying that as something to get my attention because I ran right past the people taking the chips! So really, she didn't care about my finish, but wanted my chip. Doh!
I found Katie afterwards, and we chatted with others and watched a lot of the finishers come in. They had a BBQ afterwards with hot dogs. These weren't just any hot dogs—they were Thousand Hills Cattle Company free range organic hot dogs. Really, quite possibly the best hot dogs I've ever tasted. They were that good.
We stuck around for the awards ceremony (we didn't get any), and they gave away some door prizes. Katie was really hoping for the wetsuit, but she didn't get it. (Actually, a guy got the wetsuit, which was clearly a women's wetsuit. I hope they let him exchange it!)
We packed up, and drove home—even hitting a traffic jam in rural Minnesota!. I had a great time. Katie had a great time. We told ourselves that we wanted to enjoy this race, and we sure did. Katie most definitely had the toughest job of the two of us with the windy bike ride, and I'm really proud of her for du-ing so well. I don't have any pictures of Katie on the bike, but maybe we'll find one when the official photos are ready.
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