I Didn't Sign Up for This

Philadelphia Women's Triathlon Race Report

I've never understood the appeal of duathlons. If you're going to suffer through a multisport race, why not just go for the actual triathlon? Mix it up a little more, you know? And it's never occurred to me to sign up for one. I mean, why? They just seem silly.

But this Sunday, as I and roughly 1,000 women headed down to the site of the Philadelphia Women's Triathlon, we learned that even though we hadn't signed up for one, we'd be competing in a duathlon that morning. Heavy rains Saturday night caused the water levels to rise dangerously in the Schuylkill River, enough so that swimming would have been a bad idea.

I felt bad for the first-timers who'd trained for months and expected to walk away from this race with the right to call themselves triathletes. And I was disappointed. I had really hoped to conquer some of my swim demons here. Regular readers of this blog might remember my swim debacle from last year where I stopped just after the start and let everyone go by. Ugh.

So it was a bit surprising when I realized that the prospect of a duathlon gave me a bring-it-on feeling I haven't experienced in a race before. Open-water swimming is unpredictable and scary for me. I am not afraid of running and cycling. Period.

On to the race. The first 1.9-mile run went well. I pushed it maybe a little harder than I should have, but I was pumped up. I worked hard on the bike and passed everyone around me, except for some super-fast elite types. At the last big corner, I stood up to shoot past a group of slow-movers and my left aerobar nearly fell off the bike. Holy crap! I was forced to slow to make sure it wasn't going to completely fall off. Crazy!

When I hit T2, I discovered that my legs had not accompanied me off the bike. My hip flexors, glutes, and every other muscle/tendon/ligament in that general area had gone on strike. I gingerly stepped out of my bike shoes, attempted to don my running shoes, then literally limped out of transition.

When I started running, I found a semblance of my legs, a version that turned over but refused to do so with any sort of urgency. And then my lower back started grumbling. And my left foot, which has been giving me trouble lately, began to feel like a stump.

Oh, and then the lip balm that I had inexplicably decided to take with me on the run course flew out of my pocket and I stopped to pick it up. And then one by one, what felt like hoards of women I had passed on the bike in my age group, began to pass me by. Sigh.

This race was starting to go downhill. Fast.

But I remembered how sad I felt last year when I shuffled through that run because my knee and hip were injured. I am in a much better place this year in terms of what my body can handle. So I concentrated on my form and tried to pick up the pace and get out of my comfort zone.

I won't lie. It wasn't easy. And I did just an OK job of it. Still I beat last year's time on both the run and the bike, and shot up significantly in the overall and age group standings. It was a big eye-opener in terms of what happens when you take the swim out of my race equation. And I'm beyond pleased that I improved on the bike, given my recent throw-up training rides.

Hm. Maybe I'll try another one of these silly races.

Katie, Erica, me, Christie, and Lori after the race.

Fellow EnMu athlete, Lori, who always manages to look glam in race-day pics.

Me looking very un-glam. A pensive moment, but a decent shot of the bike.