Strasburg Surprises

Strasburg Duathlon
Saturday, April 14 2012
5K-30K-5K 

It is easy to become a little stale once you’ve been doing multisport stuff for several years.  Multisport racing has stabilized to some degre compared with its rather chaotic beginnings, there are now “established” races that have been going for several years, and it is quite possible to settle in to a routine where you do the same events (maybe every year, maybe on a two-year rotation) that you’ve always done.  So every once in a while I try to force myself out of my natural caution and try a different race.

Does a black pig crossing your path mean bad luck?

Scenic Surry County. Virginia

Virginia Duathlon, April 1 2012
Chippokes Plantation State Park
3 mile run–23 mile bike–3 mile run

Getting Back on the Horse
Less than twenty words expended and already two animal references.  Entirely appropriate for an event that takes place in rural Surry County on the banks of the James River.  For the last four years the Virginia Duathlon (now in its 11th year) has been located at Chippokes, in large part because it is one of the best locations for a race in our region.  What makes it so good?  Closed course runs entirely within the park, a flat bike course on good, low traffic roads, excellent logistics for the transition area, etc., freshly barbecued pulled pork for the after-race grub. . .

My team-mates have all been racing up a storm recently; traditionally Team Z does winter marathons and half marathons and watching them compete has made me feel not a little envious.  But I made a strategic decision not to race a winter marathon this year.  When I trained for my first Ironman I did do a winter marathon and it seemed to take me forever to fully recover from it, mainly because the spring training and racing ramped up almost immediately.  The training was starting for real and I was already tired most of the time.

So this time I’m trying a different strategy, doing a series of shorter races.  Early season races are important because they help you gauge your fitness and, more importantly, get your head in the game.  For me, this was the most important aspect, because I haven’t raced anything at all since–oh my God–Kinetic, in May last year.  There was supposed to be Musselman.  But, well. . .there wasn’t.  Prior to this race I had been thinking that I needed something to put a little bit of fear in me, to jump start my training.  But in fact, as I mentioned in the last post, I have been training.  Not spectacularly well but (with the exception of the swim) reasonably consistently.  It wasn’t until after the event that I realized that I really needed this event for reassurance: to prove that I still had some basic multisport racing skills.  Multisport racing works the same way as sex: if you don’t do it for a long time you regain your virginity (it is true, I swear) and in neither case is that a good thing.

What is worse than a DNF?

Image via Wikipedia

Musselman (half-Iron distance)
Geneva, New York
July 18, 2011 

DNF.  Three letters that no runner, cyclist or multisport athlete wants to see by their name.  When you factor in three sports and all the gear alone that goes with them, the number of things that can possibly go wrong in a race is huge.  Many of these can be anticipated.  Some of the things that can’t be anticipated can, nevertheless, be dealt with.  Sometimes however, the day will throw something at you that you didn’t expect and can’t cope with, and you end up with a Did Not Finish next to your name.

Much worse, however, is a DNS.  Did Not Start.  Because, in fact, you almost never see these letters next to your name.  A DNF says that you fronted up, gave it a go, but the day just got the better of you.  If you DNS it is as if you never existed as far as the race concerned.  You didn’t train, you didn’t hope, you didn’t have any goals, you are on a par with the vast majority of the population who have never even heard of a “triath-a-lon” and are still happily abed, slumbering quietly in church, or digging contentedly in their gardens.

Since participating in this event last year I had been looking forward to doing it again.  It is a gorgeous location, a wonderfully organized event, and although the run is challenging the bike ride is one where you can really put down a fast time.  I’d spent the evening before enjoying the usual pre-race rituals: organizing my nutrition, attaching race numbers, checking tires for embedded debris, etc.  I got to bed at a good time (just after nine) and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Then I was awake at somewhere around 2:30.  Anxiety?  Nerves?  No, the unmistakable signs of the onset of a migraine.  By the time my alarm went off at 4:30 there was no avoiding it: my race was over before it had even started.

Same as last year, just with more mountains and extra suffering

Mountains of Misery, May 29 2011
128 Miles 

In the end, not very much to report about this ride.  It went pretty much how you’d expect a ride that you haven’t trained for to go.

A Quiet Relaxing Weekend

Nope, sorry, that is a post from someone else’s blog.

This one is for my friend AJ, who passed me in transition, making a face like  a gothic gargoyle, and said “You need to blog about this and tell everyone how much it sucked ass!”