The Duathlon in Fresno last Sunday started with a cold and rainy morning, it looked bleak and miserable.  I had heard that the forecast was for rain Saturday night and Sunday morning, so bad conditions were in the back of my mind a few days before.  As I sat in my car in the Trisport parking lot at 6:15 AM, with rain tapping on the roof and running down the windshield, I thought to myself “why did I preregister?”  I ran across Friant road and at the registration tent there was a totally different atmosphere.  People were lined up waiting to get their bib numbers and goodie bags, and were chatting with strangers and getting excited about the event.  Everyone was in a great mood, although there were many more people in the preregistration pick-up line than there were signing up that morning.  I picked up my stuff and went back to my car to unload bikes.  I had my bike and Issac’s bike, which was on loan to our friend Jenny.  Jenny who was also in the race, and JK who was there for moral support met, me in the parking lot and helped got the bikes put together.  At 9 minutes before the start we were ready to go.  The rain just started to let up as we put the bikes on the staging racks and dashed over to the start line with a lot of excited racers.

The directors explained one last minute change in the course, part of the bike section would be cut short due to the danger of wet roads, and then we were off.  It started with a 4 mile run, which was 2 laps around a dirt trail in the river basin.  At one section the trail got extremely muddy and slippery and mud caked on the bottom of everyone’s shoes.  For most of the second lap I ran beside another racer and had a nice conversation about different races and some triathlon stuff.  This guy also had a watch, and told me we were at a 7:53 minute per mile pace.  I was glad to hear this, since I planned on running between 8 and 9 minute miles.  As I ran up the hill and approached the end of the first running stage, it was a nice feeling to not be going all-out like the end of most running races.

At the racks I quickly stuck on my helmet and grabbed my bike, and jogged over to the Eaton Trail.  The next stage of the race was 8 miles of riding, first on the paved bike trail, then Old Friant Road, and back to Woodward Park on Friant.  My bike was still set up as a single speed, I had decided not to put on all the sprockets, derailleurs and shifters for more speeds.  I had tried out the trail and roads a few days before and thought the whole course was appropriate for my gear ratio.  The only real up hill section was on Friant road and was fairly gentle, plus I was in good shape from riding every day, and I was used to the bike as it was.  It was a real thrill to stop running and start biking in the middle of that race, it was such a feeling of freedom.  Suddenly using different muscles that weren’t tired yet, and going almost 3 times faster than before.  Into the wind, I tore through the trail and passed 6 people along the way.  After the second bridge I got a little tired but held a long lead over the racers I had passed.  On Old Friant Road I was caught by another racer with a Specialized Allez Elite, similar to one I had owned a few months before.  I stuck with him for a few minutes talking about that bike, but he pulled ahead of me and established a big lead on the uphill section of Friant.  The rest of the way back on Friant Road was easy, and slightly with the wind.  I didn’t keep track of the times for each stage, but from my final time and my running pace I calculated that I did the bike section at 20.5 mph, which I am pretty happy with.

The last running stage was 2 miles, just one more lap around the dirt trail.  At this point I was all by my self, with a long distance up to the next runner and a good lead over those I had passed on the bike.  It was getting close to an hour at this point and somehow, I still had energy and will to go run.  About half way around the loop my knees finally started hurting, and I had to balance keeping the pain down with maintaining my lead over the racers behind me.  Over the muddy section this last time was much nicer, it was almost dry.  Up the last hill was a challenge to not slow down to a walk.  I kept jogging, focusing my thoughts on other things.  At the top of the hill I high-fived Jenny who was heading down to the loop, JK was there cheering me on for the last quarter mile, and I kicked it in to the finish at 1:10:46. I was 26th place out of about 125 people.

After the race recovery was amazingly easy.  I didn’t not feel like I had just done 70 minutes of strenuous exercise.  I think it was the combination of different events, each one giving certain muscles a break, that made the race less strenuous overall.  At the finish line I got some food and Gatorade, and talked to JK and some other racers while we waited for Jenny to finish.  It felt so good at the end of that race, like no running event I have ever done.  The people were great, and seemed like a slightly different crowd from Cyclists and Runners, we thought maybe this is a specific Triathlete crowd.  It turned out that I was 4th in my age group, just one position away but also 8 minutes behind the 3rd place finisher.  The first two finishers overall were also in my age group, so I had some very stiff competition.

This event was amazing.  Now I’m considering the Millerton Lake Triathalon, which is comming up in a few weeks. Although I am a bad swimmer, the promise of it being anything like this race is too enticing to ignore.