Dirty Duathalon (Race Report Dos)

So I still haven't done a legitimate bike race for the 2009 season yet but I am slowly getting closer to things that resemble actual cycling. Last Saturday was the second off-road Duathalon in Lawrence this year, and I definitely made it around to racing in this one. It was held on the River Trails so I was stoked about that. I haven't raced on the river since 2007 when I gave up my lead that I held for almost an hour straight to a 4th place finish when a stupid crash resulted from my over-confidence on my home turf.

I told myself this time was going to be different. I might not be in the best cycling form of my life but I have been laying down some serious miles on the feet so I felt that I could do okay at the start of the race... How wrong I was.

My legs were not having a race-pace run that morning. I tried and tried but after holding onto a top 10 spot for a little under a half mile my lower extremities just shut down and left me loping along at a pace more suited for a middle-ager running a marathon. Not too sure why that happened but I knew what I had to do in order to make up time.

Photo cred. Lantern Rouge

Mountain bikes... this part of the race would have been awesome, if I had stayed in a decent postition on the run. I spent pretty much the entire first half of the bike course dangerously dodging all of the traithletes and runners who had passed me early on. The sides of the course were still slick from all of the rain last week and I was not letting anyone keep me from wrecklessly plowing past them on the side of the trail. I had to have passed at least 35 people on the bike and rarely any of those passes were graceful but I finally put myself into the pain box, locked it tight and held onto the corners for dear life on a mountain bike for the first time this season.

Photo Cred lantern Rouge

I ended up finishing 10 minutes off of my team mates podiuming marks but still had a solid mid-pack finish. However Bad to the Mothereffin' Goat racing had a strong showing this weekend with Josh Patterson finishing first and John Waller third in the duathalon. Followed by both of them hopping back on their bikes to battle it out for fastest overall combined time (du & mtb only), Pattersnap got the nod by a mere 8 seconds.

Photo Cred Josh Pattersnap

So overall Bad Goat represented hard for the weekend with 2 podium spots, 1 goofy mid packer and Stumpy volunteering his time to score.

So here's to a crew that represents the whole gamut of the great sport of bikes.