As Free as the Wind Blowin' Down the Road.

The sun rising over the misty lake.

Okay. Time for a race report from Sunday. We were supposed to do Iowa's Best Dam Triathlon, but on Friday we got an email saying the e coli (read: poop) levels in the water were too high (EW!) and they would replace  the 500 yard swim with a one mile run and call it a Duathlon. Since I haven't been swimming much at all this Summer, that worked for me.

John cooled-down after the race by hanging with a fellow competitor's sun and making sand castles.

 I have never done a Duathlon before, so I had no idea how to run that first mile. Should I go as hard as possible, or should I save something for the rest of the race? I decided to place myself in the back of the pack and see how anyone else was running it. Big mistake. I got stuck behind a group of women just jogging along and talking for fun and I couldn't get around them. I finally zipped around them only to encounter another group of women. I zipped to the right of them and had more room to run. Then we hit an uphill - not my strong suit. Three women passed me on that, but then we turned around and went down there and that's where I excel. I got on my bike after passing one more woman.

The other two triathlons I did this year, I died during the 5K run at the end. I was so afraid of that happening again, that I tried hard to go hard on the bike. The problem was that I forgot my gears were screwy from the last Time Trial race I did and I had to try three or four times to get into the big ring, which was a huge drag since the bike section of the race was EXTREMELY hilly. I did pass a lot of people on the bike, but I had no idea if any of them were in my category. I hopped off the bike and started the 5K run. My legs didn't feel too bad, but I warned myself not to go to hard, so I wouldn't die at the end. Some of the women who I had just passed on the bike, passed me right back on the run. After the turn-around, I still felt just fine. I told myself that meant I should be going harder. So, I stepped it up and got a decent stride. I came into the finish line 3rd in my category and 16th out of all of the women. I didn't really feel all that tired, which meant I should have been going faster. I'm sure a lot of this was because we didn't do the swim at the beginning, and that usually kills me.

Because I placed, I got to choose either a coffee cup or a pint glass. Since I won a mug the day before, I went for the pint glass.

I'm all smiles after the race.

John got first in his category and 5th for men overall. He chose the mug.

On the way  home, we ran into some friendly deer, and I was so glad they didn't decide to jump out in front of me when I was screaming down that hill on my bike. Whew!

After the race, we met-up with some of our RAGBRAI friends. It was our friend, Timmer's birthday and he wanted to ride to Sutliff Bridge and then to Big Grove Brewery for dinner. Hell, what's another 50 miles? We didn't go very fast, so it was fine.

Here is a photo of me and John and our bikes' shadows on the bridge.

After a duathlon and a 50 mile bike ride, we were both pretty damn tired. I don't think I even made it to 9 o'clock before I passed-out. That's the sign of a great weekend, right?