ATOMICMAN DUATHLON RACE REPORT

Another adventure. This time the journey took me and my friend east...to White Rock, New Mexico. A 6.5 hr drive away.

I had heard about the Atomicman Duathlon before and wanted to race it last year, but the drive was too long for one person :-) Especially me...2 hrs of driving = sleepy!!!
The race offers a cash prize for the win, and also a 500 $ bonus for breaking the course record...mhhh...I looked at the record and thought: Looks doable :-) I checked out the girl that had it and she is a GREAT athlete...so then I thought: why the heck are the times so slow?

Well, I found that out when I looked at the course:-) The run is a 2 loop 10 k, followed by the toughest 40 k bike I had ever seen in a multisport event, followed by another 5 k...
The running loop consist of a downhill of about 5 min followed by a 15 min uphill (felt like there was more uphill then downhill in that race ;-)
The bike is beautiful, it goes up and down and up and down and down into this canyon and back up on the other side (they are definitely NOT rollers, because you CAN'T "ROLL" on the uphill :-)...then followed by a 6 mile climb, then back the other way.

The race director and the entire town is super friendly!!! I had an offer for a homestay, but since we were 2 people we decided to camp instead of invading someone's house. We camped at the Juniper Campground, the weather forecast said 40 degrees as a low...yeah, right...we woke up and our tent cover was frozen, our water bottles were frozen and our handlebars and seat :-) And the NUTELLA!!! We actually had to heat the Nutella up to be able to have breakfast:-)

The race starts at a nice time: 8:30 am, so no stress :-)

The gun went off and the legs felt...OK. Not great but OK. I ran the first 10 k and was 2 MIN!!! behind my "goal time" for the course record. I jumped on the bike and felt OK again. It is really hard to find a rythm on this course. Constant shifting followed by thinking about getting out of the seat or staying in? I got to the turn around and looked at my watch and thought: there is no way I will break this record. I am pooped:-) But my 2010 attitude is that I just do the best I can without worrying or freaking out. And I kept going. I got into T2 and started running/or is it called...speed walking? I ran but felt sooo extremely pooped. IT WAS GREAT!!! My legs were done. I kept looking at my watch and realized I had a shot at making it, but I would have to go fast...the results from the years before show that everyone raced about one min/mile slower on the second run...including me. And now I know why. Because this is the toughest race!!! I ran around the last corner and realized that I ... wait a second... I am going to break the record!!! I finished 1.5 min under the old record. YIPPIE!!!

This doesn't happen a lot, but I didn't know if I could walk one more step!!! This might have been the toughest race I had ever done!!!

My friend finished 2nd in her agegroup and did great. We were both in a lot of pain after the race, but it was soooo worth it :-)

The people in the town were super nice and hung out with us for the longest time. We found out that the town has the most PHD's/Population in the US, because of all the secret weapon building that is going on.

This race is great. If you ever want to feel like throwing up, sitting down and walking due to being exhausted: go do the atomicman duathlon. Or just do it if you want to do a well organized race in a beautiful area with nice people!!!

Superseal San Diego

Whenever I have the chance I go to this great event!!! The SUPERSEAL TRIATHLON in San Diego.

I entered this race last year as a tune up race for Oceanside and I just had to go back. A great race, great organization, a great race director, great volunteers, great spectators, an ocean swim, ...what else does a triathlete need. Unfortunately the race is 8 hrs away from Flagstaff, so I had to convince my wonderful friend Pam to go with me. She is always up for adventures and she said yes without even thinking about it!!!

We drove to San Diego on a Friday, so that we could swim, bike and run on Saturday, as the race was on Sunday. We stayed at a great homestay!!! They were sooo firendly and lived ina perfect location (15 min to the race). Saturday we tried to go swimming at Balboa Park...but the pool was closed. Pam saw some water in it, but I could stop her from going in all the way.

So we decided to have breakfast first...well...I ate, she called pools:-)
While she was talking on the phone this bagel mysteriousely disappeared...

We decided to give up on the pools and pick up our race package. And on the way there we decided...well Pam decided, I was still thinking about it...what a great idea it would be to swim at the race site.

OK...still thinking...

I ACTUALLY SWAM IN IT!!! That has never happened before that I went into the ocean to swim (not boggyboarding)...and it was great. I got to test out my new Sailfish wetsuit for the first time and it is great!!!

Then we went on a bikeride to test out our gear. CEEPO TT Machine: Check...LAZER HELMET: Check...

Race day- we got to the race WAYYY early. But it was good. The women's elite rack was completely empty, and I was excited. A great parking spot:-) Then I ralized that all the other Elite women had racked their bike on the men's elite rack because it was a better position. WHAAAT??? After asking an official, I racked my bike on there as well. He said all or none. And I completely agreed:-)

The race was great, the swim was fast and there were no waves and no floating things. The .5 mile transition was great as well as have figured out now how to safe my legs for that. I got onto my speedy bike and posted the fastest female bike time and a 2 minute improvement from last year (even though it was more windy this year compared to zero wind last year). Onto the run and I couldn't even feel that I had biked. I ran a PR as well and finished 4 min before the 2nd Elite Female. It was a great race!!!

Pam got 5th in her agegroup out of 25 women!!! She had a personal best by 6 minutes!!!

And don't forget that we still have snow up here and training is limited!!!

After the race we decided to go snorkeling at La Jolla (MAYBE:-) While Pam snorkeld around, I played life guard in full gear:

Then I went in too and saw some super orange fish. They were great!!! And the seals slept and slept:

We got some dinner at a Fish "hut". IT WAS SOOO GOOD!!! Being close to the ocean is great!!!

YUMMMMMMMMM...after that we went to bed and hoped that we could swim one mroe time on Monday, but it was a rainy day...so we decided to leave for sunny AZ.

It was a great race (again) and I cannot wait to do it again!!!

Can Spring come now...PLEASE???

I can't believe it is April and we are still getting snow. I got up early to teach my Runner's Conditioning class on Tuesday and actually thought about just wearing a T-Shirt and a Windjacket...then I looked outside and saw this white stuff :-( And the reading on the thermometer: 20!!!

BRRR!!! I am glad that I am the instructor and I don't HAVE to do all the exercises :-)

2 more days and I am off to San Diego. Hopefully the weather there is nice. I started my "normal" training back up this week, so there won't be any tapering for the race. It will be a high quality workout with a hopefully good outcome.

My triathlon team, the NAU TRIJACKS, are in full prep for Nationals, which is coming up in 2 weeks. They put in some really hard work. Unfortunately they had a lot of bad luck with the weather, just like everyone in Flagstaff. Temporuns in 4feet of snow is impossible and on top of that they had to battle the lack of treadmills do to Rec center reconstruction...but they will do great!!! Running in the snow, even if it is for the easy runs, made them tough. Most of them already PR'd in their first race, no with 4 more weeks of quality in their legs...I bet they will do GREAT!!!

JR and I are getting ready to move...boxing up things, selling things on ebay, you name it. It reminds us every time of how much we dislike moving (what a nice way to say it:-)