With 5 weeks remaining to the World Championships, and my body now adapting and responding to this month's ramped and revved up training plan, I headed down to Texas to complete my final state-side duathlon of the season, the second annual Prairieman Duathlon down in Dallas on September 13. It was the smallest race of the season. That's not to say there weren't many competitors - there were - but almost all of them were there for the triathlon. The associated duathlon paled in comparison. I could count the number of competitors we had on both hands. Nevertheless, Ute Nestler was there, a world-class duathlete/triathlete I had previously raced at the Chris Brown duathlon in 2014.

Wut? This is it?

I was expecting much better results at this race than I had 5 weeks ago at this year's Chris Brown. But travel, a lack of sleep, an early morning call, and a calamity of race preparations didn't help me out much, and I fell short of my personal goals. Race wise, I came in second to Ute. I was disappointed in myself at first, until I went and reviewed last year's CB results. Ute is a beast. My efforts against her this year had improved dramatically when compared to last year. I didn't feel so bad after that...

A congruence of calamities...

I won't go into all the details here. Suffice it to say that all of Dallas is under construction, and getting around it sucks. Max's good friends Josh and Lauren had been kind enough to let me stay at their place across the city. Which was great. But extra drive time plus bike needing to be racked before 7 meant I was up before the sun ever was, racing across the highways in my Prius to get to the site. The race directions led many, many of us to the wrong location, and it was only after wasting 20 or so minutes that I figured it out and luckily then managed to navigate myself to the correct place.

By the time I found parking I had 10 minutes until transition closed for the pre-race meeting. And I hadn't even picked up my packet. I frantically ran full speed to the registration tent, and cursed every god I could while I waited for the chick in front of me to complete her registration on the iPad, swipe her credit card, wait to figure out why nothing went through... I finally picked up my packet and sprinted back to the car. I had 5 minutes and still needed to assemble my bike, put my water in my water bottle and place it in the cage, air up my tires, number my bike, grab my shoes and attach them to the pedals, grab my helmet, put my race bib and number on, and all in the perfect pitch blackness of the early morning pre-sun 6 AM call. There were no lights where I was parked, so I turned my flashlight on my phone on and held it between my teeth as I managed to slam the bike together. I couldn't really tell what pressure I had inflated my tires to, but it felt good enough. I grabbed shoes, bottle, helmet, etc., and ran fast as I could with my bike and gear to the transition area. I asked the gentleman guarding the area if they would give me just a couple extra minutes, and I must've looked frantic 'cuz he assured me in a calm voice that everything was okay and yes, just take my time, get it assembled, I would be fine. I ran in, looked around for the duathlon rack amongst all the clearly marked traithlon racks, couldn't find it, and ran back out to ask where the hell to put my stuff. This is when I started to realize that maybe this race wasn't as organized as I thought (though the mis-directions should have tipped me off). The transition area guy wasn't sure, so I took a guess and racked the damn thing where it seemed most likely, and called it good.

By then the sun was finally starting to peek. I made sure everything bike-wise was good, and headed back out of transition to finish getting my run gear ready and to warm up.

More calamities ensued as the race director wanted to start the race early... then he didn't... then he did... then he, oh nevermind, just GO! My warmup was paltry at best.

The Race
3 mi - 12 mi - 3 mi

There's not much to discuss about the race itself. I was impressed how they managed to convert a small space of running trail into a 4-lane track for competitors, duathletes and triathletes (later) both, as the run course was a simple out-and-back that wound through the park and actually had some fantastic views of the rising sun against the lake. Ute sprinted off from the get-go, holding solid well-below-7:00min/mi and quickly ran her way out of my viewpoint. I ran my usual 5k pace, hoping my bike performance was solid enough to catch her, not realizing who she was at the time.

Transition happened pretty flawlessly, as I had committed to practicing it before this race, so yay for that.

The bike leg was extremely nice and smooth and flat as a pancake. crossing a bridge over the lake and going on and on and on until you did a tight U-turn to head back the other way. I was disappointed in my power output. It was not at all my usual levels during a race, yet, curiously, my speed was fantastic. A niggling suspicion about my powermeter battery led to me change it post-race, and testing thereafter seemed to confirm that I was getting incorrect data. But at the time I felt much frustration over my performance. I never managed to catch Ute, and part of me desperately hoped I had and just not recognized her. The other part of me took that lowered power reading and said "Yup, you really suck today." And was anguished.

Back through transition and on to Run #2. This time with everybody, triathletes included, on the course. Yikes. I knew exactly where to go since it was the same course as Run #1, but the 4-lane superhighway had many confused, I found myself constantly darting in and out of competitors. I quickly spied Ute as I neared the turnaround, noting how far ahead of my she still was. Fortunately, I spied no other ladies until I was solidly on my way back.

I ran into the finish feeling mild disappointment with my day's performance, but wanting to congratulate Ute on her amazing run. After I found her we chatted some, and I realized she was headed down to Adelaide, too. This instantly made me happy as I had now made a new American friend to get in touch with while down under.

Plus the Prairieman folk gave me some really nice swag. I did some digging later and found out that this is only their second time to host this race. Despite the glitches getting there and getting set up, and laying out the run course, it was actually a lot of fun and the volunteers and course directors were all really quite friendly. I would recommend it, on the basis that I hope things run smoother next year.

State Individual Time Trial (ITT)

Ahh... my favorite cycling race of the year is finally here!!! It's like Christmas in September, only you get to hurt the entire time you do it.

Since this serious of 3 races (Prairieman, ITT, Tulsa Zoo Run) are all leading up to the World Championships in Adelaide, my goal this year was to purely use the ITT to focus on the 40k bike leg at Worlds. As such, Mark and I relegated the race from Goal Race to Training Race this year, and I continued building in my training cycling through it. Just the weekend before I completed the Prairieman Duathlon. On Thursday I then completed my final long run, logging a solid 16 miles on foot to complete the endurance portion of training for the run. 

By race day Sunday, my legs were really good and tired and sore.

This made me happy, since it would allow me to practice outputting a solid power on the bike on tired legs, which I would need for Worlds. But it was not championship winning, for sure, and I went in knowing I would fare poorly against the rest of the field.

Sadly, almost no one showed up! I really did want that competition; I needed that push. Sigh. Kirsten was injured, having broken her collarbone only weeks before, Helene was out of country, Lynna was still recovering from surgery, and Tori had just gone off to college out of state, so I knew why my teammates weren't there. But my field had 3 competitors, 3! Including me. Makes me so sad that no one wants to try their hand at such a fun race...

Anyway, I warmed up, sticking to my usual protocol, wished Katy and Ariel good luck, and was off!

The Race

40k balls to the wall

I started out pretty decently, considering my fatigue, and until the halfway point I thought I might actually pull off 40k at true TT pace, not duathlon-leg pace. 

Sadly, it was not meant to be.

Weather conditions were much different than the previous year, being much colder, rain-ier, and windier. By the turnaround I realized that my legs were starting to falter. What had felt like a headwind out was also feeling like a headwind back, and the tailwind I was counting on was nowhere to be found. By my in-head system of measurement, it seemed like I might've had as much as two minutes on Katy, since she was still coming and I was going and it took about a minute to see her past the turnaround cone, but I wasn't sure. What I was sure about was that she was now going to take that time back this second half!

I stared in chagrin at my powermeter with that helpless feeling you get when you see the result of your actions but there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. I put my head down and kept pushing as hard as I could, trying not to think about the 5k run I still needed to complete after (bonus workout, yay!), trying to remind myself this was, in fact, an ITT and I was here to unload everything my legs had. 

Which kept me firmly in duathlon-level territory that second half ;)

I finally made it back to the line, not even able to really rally and put out a final push. I had nothing. Nada. But dead, dead legs. I scurried immediately back to my car, learned Fury against the side of Pepper, threw on my running shoes and Forerunner, and took off, knowing a decent 5k route nearby that I used as a cooldown last year. 

The run hurt. I felt every single kilometer of it, checking in on my watch often to see if I really still had that long to go (I did). I managed to just crank out a solid tempo pace for the run, and it was over in only 24 minutes or so, but stillll...

By the time I got back to my car, the podium ceremony was about it begin. I thought I'd go check out the damage to my bike time. My muscles were tender and I was developing a limp in my leg due to some very, very tight hamstrings pulling painfully. My knee was hurting, My Achilles's tendon flaring.

And I found out, weirdly, I had won! 

I just managed to hold Katy off. Who is definitely no slouch. I was happy about that. That despite how much pain I was in I managed to still swing the race. But I saw my time and knew that I had done much, much better last year, so I was still kinda bummed. (Side note: I checked the course against the weather conditions last year using BestBikeSplit - highly recommend it - and found out that the weather alone did indeed play a huge factor in my time, so at least I was right about that.)

Thanks to James Gann for the great photos, as always.

10 kilometers full of pain

This was to be my practice 10k event leading up to worlds. I actually had a weekend off from racing (but not training) after the State ITT, so this race was the first weekend of October and the last weekend of full training at home before I flew out to Oz.

I was dreading this race.

As I've said before and still truly believe, a 10k is just like a 5k only worse, because you have to basically hold your 5k pace for double the length. It hurts. It sucks. I've never done well at this distance. 10ks are why I found marathons in the first place.

Anyway, we had done signficant 10k training up to this point, and I was actually starting to feel a sliver of hope about performing decently at this. 2 mile repeats had assured me that maybe I could hold that pace for that long, but I had yet to string those 2 mile repeats together without rest, and that was causing some anxiety.

I had no real race plan for this race, other than I just wanted to go out hard, as hard as I did those 2 mile repeats at, and see what happened.

Turns out that wasn't a stellar plan.

My paces decreased steadily decreased about 10s per mile each mile, until I was running over 8:00min/miles at the end. I didn't best my realistic goal of a sub 48:00 10k, and I came nowhere close to my in-my-heart goal of a sub-46:00 10k. I huffed and puffed my way to a 48:33.7, coming in 13/280 for the womens and only 3/54 for my AG.

At least I got the worst case scenario out of the way.

Post-race, Mark and I chatted about how we should change the game plan for the upcoming 10k portion of the duathlon at Worlds. Fingers crossed I could stick to the plan. Without a second chance to put it into action, I would be trying to commit a plan on the fly, not an easy thing to do...