Vicki and I raced the Enchanted Rock Duathlon this past Saturday. It consisted of a 5 mile trail run, 16 mile road bike, and a 2 mile trail run - the last half mile of the run went straight UP Enchanted Rock (approx 425 feet of elevation).
The course was beautiful and very scenic and I especially appreciated the fact that the bike leg was on the road rather than on trail (I don't do mountain biking). But in typical Texas Hill Country fashion, the out and back bike course was filled with rolling hills and what felt like a head wind both ways. I thought we had a headwind on the way out but was quickly corrected when I made the turn around at mile 8 and almost immediately felt the strong head/cross wind. But we are strong cyclists and we are used to these conditions. So you just put your head down and GO.
I saw Vicki after the race and we were chatting about how the morning went. When we got to discussing the bike leg, the first words out of her mouth were, "Susan, I looked down at my cyclometer and was only going 7 miles per hour. 7 MILES PER HOUR!!How am I going to do RAAM?!" I couldn't help but bust out laughing. I'm sure there were times I wasn't going much faster either. I responded with, "Hey, you were making forward progress right? Well that's how we are going to do RAAM." Then I reminded her that per her request, she's going to be the one bombing down the mountains in the darkness of night, so she'll have plenty of time to make up for "7 miles per hour".
Bottom line, we just have to put one wheel in front of the other. Or something like that.
