Doing the 'Du

As couple of months ago, my friend Laurie suggested we do a duathalon.

"Yeah right" was my response.

"No seriously!  There's a a Sprint Duathalon in July that I think we can do!" Laurie said.

Now let's clarify a couple of things:
1) A sprint duathalon consists of a 1km run, followed by an 18km bike, and is finished by a 4km run.
2)  I have never, EVER done anything like this before.
3)  Running is not something I enjoy.  Put me in a sport like soccer, basketball, or ultimate, and I'll run until my feet become stumps.  But running for running's sake?  Not a pleasurable experience.

My friend Angie quickly hopped on the bandwagon, and signed up for the duathalon.  Bowing to peer pressure (yep, I have a spine of steel!), I also registered.

We did a couple of practise bike rides, and I did a few runs to prepare for the race. 

I set a very lofty goal for myself: FINISH!!

The day of the duathalon arrived, and it was sunny and hot.  Unfortunately Chris and the kids couldn't come cheer me on because Aidan was in a soccer tournament that day.

I threw my bike in the back of Angie's truck and off we went.

They marked us up (they write your race on your left calf, your age on your right calf, and then your bib number on both arms), gave us our timing chips, and we were ready to go.

Here we are (me, Angie, and Laurie) all smiles before the race:

And here we are after.  Still smiling, but barely!!

I achieved my goal of finishing the race, and even manged to do so in a somewhat respectable time of 1hr and 14 minutes.  Not bad for a hack!!