Cape Henlopen Duathlon and Eight Years!

Completed the sprint today. Eight years since my RNY and this is still fun. Today's event did not go exactly as scheduled. We arrived about 10 minutes before the transition area closed. Got marked up and hurried over to the start line. The first run was only 2 miles and was not bad, but I felt like I had fluid in the lung as I darted into transition. The bike started out bad. I left transition and jumped on my bike, and pedaled for about 5 yards before I realized that I could not clip in.  I had left my guards on my shoes and so I couldn't click in. I tried to take the covers off while riding, but finally decided that I needed to dismount and take care of business. I jumped back on the bike and did the 15 miles in about 40 minutes. I found a young 45-year old woman that pedaling about 18-20 mph so I used her as my pacer. Everytime I passed her, she would whiz back by me. When we jogged into transition we were laughing about how niether of us really wanted to win that ride. I changed shoes, grabbed a swig of water, and plodded out of transition. The last leg is 3.1 miles but it seems a lot longer, and has a few long gradual inclines. Since my lungs were still clogged I decided to just run at a slow pace, and not take any walk breaks. It seems like mile 2 was never going to appear, but it finally did. The last 800 yards is just a straight grass runway to the finish line. I was with a group of about five other people when I hn it the grass. My buddy Susan (who had already finished) was cheering me to finish strong. I threw my water bottle to her about 30 feet in the air and while everyone was watching in surprise, I took advantage and finished about ten seconds ahead of two 45-year old women, a 32-year old man *****ally wanted to beat me, and a young guy in his 20s. Felt good to finish. After finishing, we took off to the local coffee/bakery store in Lewes to get a celabratory hot chocolate.

Luckily in my age bracket there were only three of us signed up, so I did medal. I'll take the medal into my surgeon on Monday and see if I can get it converted into a 2012 registration for another event. Now to get ready for the Sea Gull Century on Saturday

I love this life. It's been great having the support of my wife and kids. Also the support and accountability of all my buds on this forum has help me be successful. Special thanks go out to my cycling and running partner, Susan, who has taken pity on me, and made me her pet project. Without her, I'm not sure I would be getting up at 4:30a three days a week for a run. And commiting my weekends to long runs and cycling.

 wow, congrats on a great 8 years my friend!  and on yet another great race!  I'm not that far away, one of these days maybe I will join you on a century or du :)  

Congratulations.

It sounds like a good day.
Keep up the great work.  Hopefully there will be many more 8 year anniversary blocks, that are just as memorable.

Scott

congrats!  i need to get up that way to compete in some DE races.  my father did that du today as well, not sure how he fared, he has been racing with team Dave's Road Bikes and was probably racing in the 70+ age category.

YOU, my friend, are the resident "Stud". Great work today, and thanks for paving the way for allof us my friend...

Congrats on 8 years and a strong finish. 

 Congrats Rob, that's fantastic!  I love Du's!

Congrats on the bling! And of course, big congrats on 8 years!