2016 Barkin' Dog Duathlon

This year, I shared my first multi-sport race day with the hubs and it proved to be a lot of fun! We spent a good 30 minutes the night before, creating "bike origami" to get two bikes and four wheels into the back of our little coupe. Miraculously, it somehow worked out great and we got everything into the car without too much swearing or yelling. ha

The rituals of the night-before meal and the SUPER early pre-race breakfast brought back a lot of fun memories from the past few years. I was excited to get out there for the race, and those butterflies that always seem to show up during the drive to the race somehow stayed away...  I must be starting to feel some more confidence for the shorter courses. We'll see if that translates into my longer races too, but I'm guessing they'll find their way back when I see that open water in front of me.

Our morning forecast was pretty cold for a Saturday in the middle of May. It was only 40 degrees outside at the start of our race, and we were as bundled up as we felt we could be. Hubby went off at 7:05 and I followed, ten minutes later.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of myself at this race this year. We were so excited to take pics of hubby after he WON his age group!! So here are a few of him accepting his pint glass and gift card award. He did awesome!

I showed up at the finish line 40 minutes after he did, but I'd put in some really good times compared to my race goals. I set a PR 5k during my first run and averaged 17mph on the bike. I have some work to do to get that third leg looking just as good as the first two... But I'll get there! Only 8 weeks left until Muncie!!!

10k Results

I started my race season with two 10k races this year, and had good results for both. Back in March, I participated in the "Lucky Laces" run at Civic Center Park in Denver. The course was delightfully flat, the morning was cool but not cold, and the sun was just barely peeking out to create some pretty ideal running conditions. I set a PR 10k at this race, finally putting in a 6.2 mile run under an hour!

Unfortunately, this race happened the day before I left for Asia in March, and my training suffered a lot while I toured the Asian countries to see our factories. My running has been a little bit "off" since then, and I've also been battling a knee injury these last several weeks.

As much as I have been preferring to rest my knee and avoid a typical running routine lately, last weekend was my second 10k of the season, and luckily everything felt pretty normal. My knee felt good throughout the whole race, although it was unseasonably cold. Considering the race was sponsored by YogurtLand, our prize of frozen yogurt after the run was a little tough to stomach. haha

This was also one of the first races I did with a friend. One of my co-workers met me last Saturday morning and ran along side me, cheering me on and pushing me to run faster and master the hilly course laughing and smiling the whole time. It was really a blast, and I need to find out if she'll come to Indiana to pace me in July...  ;)  LOL  It wasn't my best 10k result, but I was only two minutes slower than my best time on a much hillier route. So I was happy with that!!