Prior to race start, Ian and Trish:
Alrighty, where to begin.
I can’t offer stats, because I have no idea at this time, other than I got Schwag for coming in 4th in my age group! 
This of course is likely 4 out of 5 but hey, schwag is schwag! And why did 4th get a prize? They gave an additional place deep in the age groups that the overall top place came from. 
So, I was up against some serious competition in the top 2 of my age group, at least.
Now, besides the lovely Camelback running pack and nice Camelback bike bottle, Buff head gear, and load of good fun, I was very disappointed with my performance. The only thing I can attribute it to, is a nasty chest cold I’ve had for a week, with which I woke this morning coughing up a lot of nasty stuff. For some reason it did not occur to me beforehand that this might effect my performance. I was feeling good about this event. Expecting a decent time on my runs. Yet looking at it completely as fun, with no actual goals set, other than to perform feeling well and enjoy myself. At 4k each on relatively level trail, I should have had a couple of good-paced runs. It was not in the cards. My first run nearly killed me. I came ever so close to not even getting on my bike. I came through to transition feeling light-headed and faint. I took my time, then got on my bike deciding to see what I could do, feeling just slightly worried about my safety.
To backtrack just slightly, this is an off-road Duathlon, the run is on wooded trail, ending with a 3 meter or so stream crossing about 500m from the run finish. The bike, takes an interesting climb up a ski hill, about 8km of steady climbing, of the 20km course. For more info on the race (a fun off-road DU, affectionately named a mud-run in past years, held in honor of Bryan Scallion) follow this link and check out page 5: http://www.trins.ca/members/newslett/2007/TA20074.pdf
On the bike, I began to feel better, but was struggling a lot with catching my breath. I walked more than anticipated, and even when walking considered just sitting down a couple of times. The only thing that kept me moving was that I didn’t think there was anyone left behind me to find me. Thankfully I was wrong about that. I managed to catch 3 people on the bike, however, one had a flat so I don’t really count him.
Me racking my bike in transition:
The second lap of the run was equally as slow, but felt a whole lot better.
Me crossing the stream prior to race finish:
I don’t know my time at this point, but think it was around 2:37:xx (according to my Chrono timer on my Timex) The redeeming thing (besides the lovely schwag) is that my bike time wasn’t all that bad. It took me more than half an hour to run each 4km loop. The first run loop was the worst I have felt running since I began calling myself a runner. So, taking that into consideration, my 20km ski hill trail ride was about 1:30:xx. Not bad considering, I ride about 25km on the road in about an hour on a training ride!
This is how I FELT like I finished:
Thanks to my off-road duathlon buddies who made me feel like a star when I won 4th AG! Ian and Brendan are great road trip / racing buddies. Looking forward to DUing this one again in ’08!
About Trish
