Bang. 2007 Rio Rancho Duathlon.

First, I want to be clear about one thing: Sara is a super sweet person. She loves to hug, and despite having a bad knee she does as many of these things as she can. She has the enviable job or working for parks and recreation for the city of Rosell AND being the regional coordinator for the Senior Olympics.

Now back to the Du. I found out from Michi that they had 4 weeks to pull this together, and I have to say, it was as well organized as races I've been to that have been around for years. Everything you'd expect was there. We were allowed to forego body markings as long as we wore race numbers and had bike numbers. After all, most people were covered, especially in the beginning.

At the start of the race it was chilly, Im' guessing about 45 degrees or so, but we heated up quickly. Some of us more than others. It's a surface-area to volume ratio thing. You might not understand.

The run was about half sandy trail and half blacktop. All very well maintained, with 3 aid stations with friendly volunteers and nice COLD WATER. Drinking water, in my opinion, is vastly underrated. How can you cool down your core with warm water? Nope, this water was cool.

This was a tough little duathlon! Hilly run, hilly bike. This is a profile of the run...

Now, Rio Rancho, my town, is not terribly amenable to being slowed down in its 60 mph commute to church. Or fishing. Or whatever it is that requires driving very very fast and looking very very annoyed when your speed is curtailed at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning.

I say this not so much with malice, but as a fact: it's not historically been a pedestrian or bicycle-friendly city. That's changing; the city of RR has committed to adding wide biking shoulders to all its new roads and walking paths throughout the city.

Luckily, the auto-baun wanna-bes were only an issue on a very small portion of the course, and the police were around to put the kybash on anyone who might have otherwise been inclined to knock us into a ditch. As I say, all that attitude is changing. I expect many will be annoyed by it. I don't care.

But anyway, most o' the time the road was devoid of anything other than the cautious and curious passer-by. The road, by the way, was LIKE. BUTTAH. Smooth as glass. But hilly. This is NOT a duathlon for the weak of leg or huge of ass.

Here's a profile of the bike:

At one point Sweet Baboo rode by (he was head ref) and kind of flipped his hand at me. I thought he was trying to get me to move further to the right, so I was like, WTF? but it turned out to be a wave.

The second time around on the run (same course as above) was done much less energetically and we were spaced much further apart, as one might expect.

The announcer was Michi's esteemed Iron Outlaw, and he did a great job. Mike is a great speaker, and he startled me by announcing as I came across the finish line that I was an "Ironman Triathlete." Heh. I never heard it said like that before!

Anyhoo, Mini-baboo got first in his age group, and I got 1st Athena. The prizes? a fleece running cap and scarf, with the race logo on it, and matching gloves and a little bag they go in. This in ADDITION to the very nice Colorado timberline long sleeve technical shirt and water bottle

Oh, also in the bag: Oreos! OREOS!

Cha, I know what you're thinking: oreas? I'm so THERE!

But anyway: useful swag! I like that. Oh, and after the race, Dion's pizza, oranges, more cold water, so that, um, you know, I wouldn't be caught in some sort of calorie deficit. Because, you know, I could like, starve and stuff.


This was a nice way to finish the season. Not with a whimper, but with a bang.

I so needed this.

I so needed this.


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