Mid-Channel....

Mid-Channel....

Thursday 22 October 2009

Du Blues 2 (sort of...)

So, you will remember I posted last week about going to watch Adam and his friend Chris in their first duathlon and Chris got a puncture and couldn't finish. Well, having been training hard I think he was a bit despondent to get a DNF in his first foray into multi-sport. He was extremely keen to get another one under his belt whilst he had the momentum but Adam was working the next two weekends so yours truly agreed to keep him company at the 1485 No Frills Duathlon.

I have NO idea what possessed me to agree, it must have been Chris' newbie enthusiam. Considering I view duathlons as basically triathlons without the fun part and with double the evil part, the thought of doing my FIRST EVER duathlon was pretty unappealing. The only joyous thing about it was the fact that the start time was at 10.30am so at least it wouldn't be a really unsociable start. I met Chris in Market Bosworth feeling nervous and, as there was a bit of a chill in the air, dithering about what clothes to race it. I eventually went for an odd combo of cycling jersey and arm warmers, tri shorts and topped off with running gloves and a buff to keep my newly coiffed hair out of my face. Despite the nip in the air I manage to nearly boil myself to death on the first run and gladly ripped off the gloves and buff in transition.

Setting up transition had been interesting. Having not raced multisport for three years now I felt like total newbie again and was stressing about forgetting things and not remembering what order to do stuff in. I think it helped that I had chose not to run with lock laces (used my trainers which normally see the more sedate pace of ultras/Ironman where gadgets such as lock laces are not a normal feature and didn't want to thread them with lock laces only to have to undo them again for training the next day) and so knew I was going to be slow in transition anyway so I didn't need to panic too much.

The first run went fairly well. Dom Phipps from Generation Bikes Ltd (www.generationsportsandcycles.com) has kindly supplied me with a Polar RS200SD which means I can finally tell how fast I am going during a run and this feedback was great as I cantered round the first 5k. I entered transition in around 25mins and was feeling ok. The aims for the race was to try and have two steady and well paced runs of 26mins each and to push the bike as hard as I could. Transition was slow but steady and I headed out to the bike course. It was a pretty good course and I passed a number of the quicker runners and made up a few places. My biking is still slow as it is the bit that I have the least background in and has been the most neglected but I was pleased that I pushed as hard as I could without worrying about the 2nd run. Off the bike for the second run I felt pretty strong and once I got my legs moving I seemed to be tapping along ok. Unfortunately the HRM foot pod had gone onto stand by whilst I had been out on the bike so I didn't get any measurements but I thought I was doing ok.

Unfortunately within the first km I was struck by the same agonisingly debilitating stitch type pain that I got last year in the Henlow 10. It feels like an extremely severe stitch but isn't cured by the normal hands-above-your-head, breathing out on opposite foot fall etc. When I saw a doctor after the race last year he wondered whether I had a mild abdominal or intercostal tear. The biggest problem is I can't really run as each footfall causes a stabbing pain and it is so severe that my breathing gets out of control and then I get a bit panicked. Hmm, not good. I knew it was only 4kms to go and so I tried so fast walking stints and then running when I could. I found that if I jammed my fingers into the spot where it hurt then that gave some relieved so I hobbled on running with only one arm going and stopping for walk breaks when necessary. I finally staggered over the line where Chris was waiting. Poor Chris! The first time we had raced together and I was a bit teary due to the frustration and the pain. It wasn't as bad as at Henlow and subsided within a few minutes after I had stopped but it was so frustrating that it had impacted upon my race. I thought I was probably be down in the 29mins or so for the second run and was chuffed to find that I had actually managed to hold it to 26mins all the same so my total time ended up around 1hr 42.

Chris had a good race ended up slightly outside his prediction of 1hr 30 at 1hr 33mins but consdering it was his first race it is always hard to judge and I thought he did fab. We watched the last finishers over the line and the presentation then headed back home. All in all it was a good morning's work as the stitch obviously didn't impact as much as I had initially thought and we were home by 2pm feeling chuffed. Considering I was fearing the worst, I actually thought my first duathlon went pretty well and I was pleased once again with how my running is progressing. I just hope the residual pain of the stitch thing goes before my second race of the week on Wednesday - my first B race of the season and the first opportunity to really guage my running progress over the last two months- the Henlow 10!

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