1:11:11

Well it happened my first 1st place overall finish! Sure it may have only been a local duathlon but I was the best athlete there on that day.

It was a long week, including an 8hr over night shift at the post office which doesn't really help with recovery. So it was a tough week non the less. But when I arrived on Tuesday night to the duathlon and realized that the guy that beat me last week wasn't there I knew this was my chance to do it, it was my turn to lead the pack.

My warm up went ok I could feel that I was tired and I was really just hoping I could keep it together for this race. The weather was no help either with a strong east wind and some light showers. But when the gun went off it was go time.

I broke to the front right off the start to show my place in the race. It was a 2 loop run and bike course and I could hear the pack behind me for the first lap. I averages a respectable 6:01 pace and going into the second lap I could hear my gap opening up. I was first into transition with a first run at 15:22.

In transition I saw the others who were chasing me. I started out on the bike hard, but I was really feeling it in my legs I was just not recovered from the week enough. I was still able to hold off the guy chasing me for 3/4 of the first lap. We then proceeded to play cat and mouse for most of the second lap until I decided to just stay within reach right behind him and really make him push into the hurt zone. As we came into transition I snuk past as he removed his shoes and beat him into transition.

As we started out on the run I could see my stratagy worked by keeping him in the hurt zone he was hurting even more on the run and by the end of the first lap I had opened a substantial gap. I could feel it now my only goal was stay cool stay even and dont slow down. I usually dont look back but I took one quick peek with 1 k to the finish and saw that this race was mine. Fueled by adrenaline I picked up the pace to around 5:55/mile. I sprinted hard to the finish from about 300m out and it felt good.

I had done it I had won first overall, and the race was not a blow out I raced it and I won. It felt really good. The creepiest thing was my watch time was 1:11:11. Very weird. But overall I was happy and I am really going to focus on recovery for next week. Because as fun as these are I really dont need to be killing myself every week this early in my training and at a distance which isn't really close to what I am racing. But I can chalk this up to another sucessful race and a good start to another season.