Second duathlon in the books!

The weather out in the desert was nice. Very cold in the morning but otherwise very comfortable.

We left early Saturday afternoon so that I could pick up my packet. We stopped by her parent's house first and I met both of her parents. Her dad is a blue collar type of guy who grew up in the Midwest farming while he was a adolescent and seems nice. Mom, a native of Boston did most of the talking and is a very nice lady.

We arrived at the host hotel and picked up my timing chip, bag of free swag, and my t-shirt. From there we had lunch, drove to our hotel, checked in, and got settled. It was nice to get everything up into the room. We stayed at the Embassy Suites Palm Desert and I don't think there's anything that can be complained about. Ok, well the wake up call never came even though we were advised to schedule a wake up call through the hotel's automated service because the alarm clock in the room couldn't be adjusted except by hotel/room service staff. I wasn't willing to bank my event participation and hotel charge on an automated system so I set the alarm on my cell phone and was glad I chose to. However, the staff was completely friendly and helpful, the rooms were clean and nice as expected. We were even allowed to extend our checkout by an hour without hesitation from the hotel staff. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

Saturday night we went out driving around. I must say that La Quinta, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and what seems to be the entire Palm Springs surrounding area is very nice. Many of the restaurants seem upscale but there are the more familiar SoCal chains for more casual dining. The area really caters to the golf crowd mostly. We went browsing around an area we settled on stopping at. There was a huge fountain pond/lake thing that we took a few pictures at. There were plenty of restaurants such as Babe's which smelled good and looked casual nice. Fleming's is a steak restaurant that I remember from Rancho Cucamonga (local for me). I've never been and it looks expensive. Certainly an special occassion type place to eat. Our first stop was this pretty cool hat store. They had so many hats! We stopped in Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and drooled and then sat and listened to an concert in this little open air area while watching the little kids dance around. We settled on eating at the Yardhouse since it fit my choice of attire at the time a little better.

We woke up about 5 Sunday morning and while Michelle was busy with shower, hair, makeup, and the typical womanly morning things I got dressed and loaded up the car (typical man things! =P).

We arrived at La Cahuilla Lake and found there was a very long line of cars waiting to enter the park area. It took about 20 minutes to get from the entrance to the parking lot. By the time we reached the transition area I had 10 minutes to get set up and mentally straight. Close call! Many people arrived too late to start on time. This mostly affected the sprint triathlon waves.

The first run was only 1 mile. It wasn't a friendly course as it was in the camping area of the shore. The ground rose up and leveled out, then dropped down and rose up again. The sand was nice and compact in some areas were it was easy to run on and loose and difficult in others. Watch out for the rocks too! Ankles were sure to suffer if you got complacent and had weak joints there.

I came in from the first run in 6:53 when I crossed the mats into transition. I left transition with the bike and mounted on the other side of the orange fencing. I was yelled at not to mount as I was halfway clipped in and immediately had to dismount until I was about 20 yards further away. Once I had the mounting location settled I was on my way. This event was amazing to learn as I went along on the bike. I can't tell you how many pure runners there were that couldn't ride a bike well. I passed everybody that went out ahead of me on the bike with authority. By my and Michelle's estimation I was about 15th or so out on the bike from the run and I passed all but 3 or 4 of them on the bike course. I averaged 23.39 mph on the relatively flat course and finished the 14 miles in 35:55.31. I felt awesome on the bike.

Coming back into transition I was yelled at again to dismount. I know how the timing mats work at Bonelli and you have to stop in a REALLY short distance and pileups are always waiting to happen as people come across and look to dismount. I simply wanted to dismount further away from the mats and dismount after the bend before transition so that I wasn't plowed into by whomever may be behind me. Nope, I was forced to dismount IMMEDIATELY and braking was uncontrolled at some point. Ok, well no big deal in the big picture but still another irritation. I don't need to be yelled at repeatedly when I'm trying to be safe because I know people start losing their minds and coordination sometimes and stuff just happens when you least expect it.

Anyway, I get into transition and go back out to the run course to finish the race off with a 3 mile run. I finish this portion in 22:49.01 with per mile times of 7:46, 7:21, and 7:09. Those mileage times are from my watch in case you were wondering why they don't add up to the official time. I was passed by 5 people. Two of which were older men. One of them was in his early 50s and the other 67. It feels pretty crappy to be passed by someone much older than you but I had to think about it this way. I've been running for 4 months and they've likely been running for 20+ years at least. Of course, the cross-country runner kids finished up the honors of passing me. I was able to hold off one guy that was close in age to me. He used me as a carrot to the finish line and that's where he came up to me and said "great job" and a congradulatory handshake followed. I had no idea he was near me until after we finished. He was closing on me over the 3 miles but I guess my pace kept him at bay long enough.

The race was now over and Michelle came to find me and give my stinky sweaty self a huge hug and kiss and told me how proud she was. She has never been to anything like this before I invited her and she LOVED the atmosphere and camaraderie amongst the athletes. Most importantly, she loved watching me.

After that, we waited for Don to finish his sprint tri. It was his first race since last June due to a shoulder separation he suffered last September. He looked in good spirits overall. I'm sure it was nice to have a familiar face and supporter there much like it made the pain of racing not so bad with Michelle there for me. I introduced Michelle to Don and visa versa and we all sat on the grass talking for awhile before Don needed to get back home.

My overall time was 1:09.36. That was good enough to finish 8th overall amongst the 87 registered duathletes and 2nd in my age group.