Ralph. I will read the rest of the book on my bus ride home. Wait a minute, Jodi lost my place! Where was I? I think that I skipped a chapter anyway, so I will go back and figure out what I missed. I dropped the book when Mom made us go back to work. I think this book is sequential, but I am sure that I can figure it out. Here I am. Chapter two. What is a duathlon?
Chapter Two; Duathlon
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0820: Well, THAT was unexpected. No one warned me about that hill, just “Sugar Mountain.” I must navigate each hill six times in this race, since it is a six loop course. That hill was not as bad as the 13% grade hill that I had to climb in Lubbock, though. It was as soon as I got out of the transition area! At least this one was five miles into the cycling portion of the race. I do NOT want to think about hills, or my first attempt at completing The Buffalo Springs Lake one-half Ironman distance triathlon now. It would be too discouraging. I will just concentrate on the other triathlon I finished strongly in Florida.
I thought that Central Florida would have the same terrain as Northern Florida, where I participated in that one-half Ironman distance triathlon in May. It did not have ANY hills in the bike or run course, unlike this course. That is probably why I P.R.’d.The other two one-half Ironman distance triathlon courses that I attempted were harder courses to navigate, too. That course was a lot like Greater Houston, where I train. Flat and fast. That is probably why I set a personal record for the distance that course entailed.
It was VERY different, though, from the first time I considered participating in a multisport event. I did not know what I was getting into, and the weather conditions were BRUTAL! I probably would have given up the sport if it did not have a burning desire to prove, mainly to myself, that I could succeed at this rather difficult sport.
This bike course is treacherous. I need to distract myself as much as possible to keep from feeling pain and exhaustion. The memory of the first multisport event I attempted should keep my mind occupied…
It was a hot, muggy day already, even at 6:30 a.m. The Southeast Texas sun peered out of the mid-June sky. “Men line up!" Came the call a mere twenty minutes later.
“Faster runners in the front, slower runners in the back," said the race announcer. With a “God bless you" from Adelina still ringing in my ears, I took my place about two-thirds of the way back, thinking that was about right for a ten-minute-per-mile pace. The temperature had reached the mid-eighties by the time the starter's pistol sounded at seven a..m., so loosening up was no problem. I stood on my tiptoes briefly, trying to locate Luke, my friend, co-worker, and sometimes training partner. “He should be about in the middle,"
I thought, “but there are too many tall, skinny guys here to pick him out."
I had run my share of five-kilometer runs and had completed them without a whole lot of problems, but a duathlon was a different story. I had never even heard of a duathlon a year ago, nor did I know the meaning of the words "multi-sport event."
Millie, a good friend of mine from my church singles group, explained to me what a triathlon was since I questioned her after she mentioned that she was going to
participate in one. "A duathlon," she'd said, “is a good way to learn the basics." "I don't think that my surgically repaired right knee will take that," I remembered
thinking at the time. Yet here I was, almost a year later with my right knee carefully braced. (I always used a knee brace on this leg during heavy physical activity as the
result of an unfortunate accident in my late teens. Although I was now in my mid-thirties, I still believed the knee brace to be necessary; since the surgery was an
involved one that took the surgeon over four hours to complete.)
“On your left," rang out one rider after another, as I transitioned from the first two-mile run and onto the bicycle, still trying to catch my breath. The disturbing thing
was that most of the riders were female, which meant that they were all now eight minutes ahead of me since their wave was staged eight minutes after the men's
wave.
A ten-mile bike ride isn't really that daunting when it is done independently, but when it is staged between two 2-mile runs, it can be quite taxing. As a result, I let my
mind wander to distract me from the pain my body was feeling. I remembered my marriage that ended almost 5 years ago. (It has been medically proven that
distraction is an effective form of pain relief. That is something that I sought at this time.)
A divorce decree had come in the mail, the only confirmation that I was really and truly divorced. My ex-wife decided to go to the court proceedings by herself without informing me of the date. While I questioned the legality of the process, I felt no need to challenge the decision, except for two things. We (obviously) were not meant to have a permanent relationship, arguing over very inconsequential things. We had not known each other very well before getting intimately involved. That had been a mistake. However, we both agreed to a “no-fault” divorce, which meant that we would each keep the possessions with which we entered into the marriage. However, the wording of the document was the first thing that had disturbed me, since I had never been "sued" for anything before.
The other thing that bothered me was a bit more daunting. In my brief, six-month marriage, I developed a fondness for my stepdaughter, Ali, that I'm not sure will ever subside. I still think of her as my first child. That made the next memory a painful one, since I am VERY fond of children.
"Jed, are you going to move back in?" she asked, innocently, when I went to retrieve the remainder of my belongings from her mother's house.
‘'No, sweetness, I'm not," I stammered, as I turned away to hide the tears welling up in my eyes. What I didn't realize at that time was that I would never get another chance
to say goodbye to her. “I’m still better off now," I thought; thinking of my friends, Adelina, Leta, and Millie were close female friends with whom some romantic possibilities
existed. I did, however, empathize with Luke's situation to some degree since he was trying to save a troubled marriage for the sake of his son.
The ten-mile bike leg was over, and I had my second wind. I readied myself for the second two-mile run. The second run was much worse than the first, and before the second mile was completed, I was done for, or so I thought. With the smoke from the fires in Mexico burning my lungs, I doubled over in pain.
I was diagnosed with asthma when I was a teenager. It did not bother me enough to keep me from playing sports in high school, but today was different. The weather experts had given a warning, both on television and radio, for people with respiratory problems to remain indoors. The smoke from the agricultural fires in Mexico was blowing into the greater Houston, Texas area. I probably made an unwise decision not to heed this warning. As I was reviewing the situation, Millie came up behind me, shouting words of encouragement.
“I’ll run in with you," she said, optimistically.
"Go on in," I said, downcast. "I'm done for," as I began to walk, and Millie reluctantly heeding my words, ran ahead. Another attractive brunette overtook me, also shouting words of encouragement. "It's just another two or three blocks," she said. (Author’s note: Runners often lie to each other when we think we can encourage each other-as I found out at this time.)
I trotted (slowly) to the finish line, not wanting to embarrass myself. I finished 149th out of three hundred participants. "An average day for an average athlete," I thought, but, strangely enough, I enjoyed myself enough to participate in the second duathlon, which would go much more smoothly. I finished five minutes faster than the first duathlon (which may or may
not have been since, in the first duathlon, the first two-mile run was mismeasured, making it a two-point five-mile run.) It also brought with it a painful foot injury along with a decision to invest some money in a better bike, since my old one was too small and too slow. I had, however, enjoyed myself, and that was the most important thing to me at that time.
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