Duathlon Results

I haven't posted for a bit. I'm not really sure why. I have cooked many new recipes and had new successes recently and will post about them soon. But today is about my duathlon that I completed this last weekend. This is an event that is like a triathlon but the swim is replaced by a run so it goes run-bike-run. The particular event that I competed in was the Cary Short Course Duathlon that was a 2.5 mile run, a 17.65 mile bike, and a 2.5 mile run to finish.

Preparation
I had been running and biking daily over the month leading up to the event. I was also preparing for a half-marathon at the same time (which I'm running this weekend). I rode many 30 mile rides and continued my typical weekly schedule of running, 10+ miles per week and was feeling pretty confident going in. This increased amount of physical activity along with some tweaked nutrition got my weight down to a new low, 159 lbs. with 8.8% body fat. The only way I changed my diet additionally for the duathlon was to add some rice into my meal plan the night and morning before in order to have a higher carbohydrate level for energy during the race. I was pretty nervous/excited going into the event so I got extra-packed/prepared the night before and tried to get plenty of sleep.

Race Day
For the 9:00 am start-time, I woke up at 6:30 and got dressed and ate a breakfast of brown rice and turkey sausage at about 500 calories; this would be plenty to get me through the entire race without any additional sugar or carbs and it should be decent on my stomach (I wanted to avoid fiber). 

 Here I am before the race started; I really got there too early and had to figure out a way to kill time before the race started.

Race

So the race started a little after 9, 129 people were doing the same race that I was, and the first run went really well. The transition into the bike also went well and then...in the bike I got passed by what seemed like 50 people. I didn't know what to expect though and I did what I could, the second run also went really well. So here's how I finished:

Run 1: 19:42 (7:52/mile avg.)

Bike:  1:03:35 (~17 mph)

Run 2: 19:44 (7:53/mile avg.)

64th place overall.

My big disappointment was the bike; I thought I would have been faster, by like 10 minutes. So I will certainly have something to begin to work on immediately. Here's a link to the overall results; I will definitely look to do something similar very soon. I will also be looking to post some of my new recipes, techniques, and exercises that dropped me down to a new low as well as a recap of my half-marathon that I am running this Sunday.