Smile at Me Smile at Me-World Peace via International Friendship

Smile at Me-World Peace via International Friendship

[ Monday, October 20, 2003 ]

 

Well despite the absence of any multisport competitions this year, I have maintained a baseline of training. Not wanting to shoot a whole season with no race, I did an off road duathlon yesterday, a 5k trail run and 12 mile mountain bike race. My 21 year old son did it with me, his first multisport event. It was a frosty 45 degrees at the start of the race, glad it wasn't a tri!!! I did the 5k run in a respectable 30 minutes (good for me) and was about 30 seconds behind the son at that point. I passed him and about 5 more people on the bike over the 12 mile trail ride. It wasn't too hilly, but the trail conditions were soft, with sections of deep loose gravel and some large rocky sections. I completed in an hour and forty minutes to finish 29'th out of 42. There were about 4 ahead of me in my age group, but I haven't seen final results yet. Son should have been right behind. After ten minutes I started quizzing finishers to see if anyone was broke down, flatted, or was walking. There was a simultaneous 28 mile mountain bike race on the same trail, so some of those riders were filtering back now too. One woman described my son and said he was walking his bike back near the turn around. He was one to two miles behind me at that point, I passed him coming in as he was going out, and he seemed fine then. My worry ended about twenty minutes later, when he crossed the line 41'st out of 42. He had walked about 100 yards to stretch his calves at the turn, and then mounted back up. I think he'll be training more next year, and will probably want to stick with pavement! I was glad to finish in the mid pack rather than my usual place second to last or last. Next year bigger and better things may be in store.

Nunya [8:30 AM]