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Rope Mill duathlon

Had a pretty good race last Saturday at the Rope Mill offroad duathlon.  It was a bike-run-bike format.  I've been feeling a little sluggish lately and am about 8 lbs over race-weight so I was surprised to see that I set PRs on the course.  I frankly felt terrible on the run. I had a light breakfast of Kind bar and coconut oil.  I usually do pretty well on this course and it is really Singlespeed friendly.  Was shocked to see that Garmin reported the race as having 1500 feet of elevation.
I had a quick start and was in 3rd for a long time on The Mill trail then finally some geared-fasties started to overtake me.  My legs were on fire on the climbs.  Dylan Reach passed me on the loop somewhere but I didn't remember seeing another one-gear bike :) He took the Singlespeed win.  We placed 5th and 6th overall respectively.

I suspect that I still may be recovering from the 70.3  I did on Sept. 27th and months of training.
My transition was decent but bobbled with the right run shoe a bit.  Explorer loop is normally easy for me but it was ghastly on Saturday!  Turns out I beat my previous year's time by 2 minutes!
Was glad to be done with the run and had a clunky transition back to bike and inexplicably took my gloves off for the bike?? Ran too long before mounting on bike.  Was super-pleased to clean the uphill, rocky switchback heading in to Avalanche.  On the 1st downhill switchback section, my front wheel washed out and I went down hard on my right knee and shoulder. I think this ended up costing me first place as I feel I could have caught Dylan on Avalanche at the end.  Had a pretty good Bike 2 though I didn't feel fast at all yet ended up setting another PR.  It's a tough day to set PRs and come in 2nd!

Overall I'm pleased with my effort but not with the result. But at least I had fun and got to share it with Renee.  Renee was running the race so it was nice to pass her on the run and give a high-five on the Explorer bridge.


mountain bike: MTB &emdash;

mountain bike,LLC: MTB &emdash;

Dashing Images,LLC: MTB &emdash;

Dashing Images,LLC: Run/Podiums/Extras &emdash;

Dashing Images,LLC: Run/Podiums/Extras &emdash;

Dashing Images,LLC: Run/Podiums/Extras &emdash;
+VIVOBAREFOOT
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