Dottie’s Du Recap

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was too quick and very busy with lots of travel time and a race on Saturday morning. My dad, Drew, and myself were all doing the duathlon! The distances of this race were a 2.2 mile run, 10 mile bike, & 5k run.

Dad and Drew!

I also am going to beat the surprise and just tell you now that this race didn’t go that well for myself, unfortunately…we’ll get to why in the recap, so here we go:

Friday night after work my parents and I headed to meet up with Drew in Seaside Heights, NJ. We stayed the night in a hotel because of course, much to my demise, races start very early in the morning.

We had a 5:30 wake up call to get down to breakfast at the hotel. I stuck to my normal foods of a plain bagel and a hardboiled egg. I’m always iffy about pre race meals, but I figured this would do.

For as tired as I was for the initial wake up I was feeling pretty good. Driving there the sun was just beginning to come up.

Driving out on the island!

We got there and registered and set up our bikes in transition, and obviously took some race pics before hand while we still looked good.

I also made sure to represent Oiselle:

It was a bit chilly but thankfully the sun was coming out an warming up! Before we knew it the National Anthem was played and we were at the start line. We waited for those in the triathlon to start their waves and then we were off. Surprisingly enough I felt great on the run and was able to settle at a nice pace. I felt a slight little twinge in my side similar to a side stitch (Clue: foreshadowing, for later) maybe a half a mile into in. Once I noticed it I tried to slow down my breathing and keep repeating in through my nose out through my mouth in my head. I knew it may just be because of the excitement of the race and that I should just control my breathing. I hit the turn around cone for mile 1 at about 8:10ish- right where I wanted to be for the first one. My goal was to finish the 2.2 miles in the 15-16 minute range, which would be a good pace for me to do and not burn out the rest of the race. Well..at about mile 1.5 my side stich slowly got worse. It got so bad I ended up having to walk in the last 400 yards of the run.

I do not like walking during a race. However I felt as if a knife was stuck in my entire right side. I was not happy.WHY, OH, WHY CAN’T my body just cooperate with me? I haven’t had a side stitch in god knows when! WTF!? I literally just could no wait to be done and get on the bike. I walked probably about 30 seconds and when I was “running” which you could barely call it, my stride was about two inches long. More of a shuffle probably. Looking down at my watch I was not happy. I was over the time I wanted by like 2 minutes. I shuffled into transition FINALLY and made my way to my bike and hoped to make up for a lot of time.

I was set on shaking it off and flying on the bike, my FAVORITE part anyways!

For the most part this part came true. The bike course was a straight out and back and on the way out I really was flying! Looking down at my speed I was mostly going between 19 & 21mph which is great for me. Of course, being that the course is so flat, this means you are constantly peddling, there is absolutely NO coasting. Which sucks because you don’t get to give your legs a little break without sacrificing some speed.

So anyways, the way out was great. I made the turn and BAM- Straight into a headwind. A STRONG headwind. It was now a struggle to go 15-16mph. Crap. My legs were feeling it at this point..I tried to take in some gatorade as much as I could to hopefully keep myself from cramping again on the last run. I also took a Gu at around mile 7 of the bike to give myself a little push (I hoped anyways).

I got off the bike and went to put my bike on the rack…taking one last swig of gatorade and hoped to have a good run. The first mile of running after the bike is always the worst for your legs so that was expected, however, I was really hoping to not have the side pain anymore.

Yah. That didn’t work out. There it was again. Dagger in my side. My stride was painfully small and everything hurt. I’m not going to lie to you and say that I was just thinking positively…no, I was mad. Really mad. Those of you who are competitive with yourself as well probably understand that I knew that with this hinderance would probably make me miss my PR. And you also would know how annoying that is.

Thankfully at about 1.5 miles in at the turn around my side stitches FINALLY let up, unfortunately the headwind did not. This definitely made running the last part tough, but I was able to run and not shuffle my way in to the finish line- which I was so happy to see.

Final Time: 1 hr 27 minutes. A full 5 mins slower than last year.

Soooo… I was disappointed. That’s for sure. The amount of training, time running, time on the bike far surpassed what I had done last year. I felt prepared much more too, I wasn’t a noob anymore! And yet.. There it was disappointing results and a very uncooperative body. Frustrating to say the least.

Pouty, whiney, disappointed (RED) face.

I don’t know why the cramps happened… Dehydration? My breathing was causing spasms? Wrong food? I’d love to know the reason so I can make sure that never happens again. EVER.

Even with that I got 3rd in my age group, my dad got 2nd (he’s a speed demon BTW!!!) and Drew got 1st!!!!!

Who knows. The race may have not gone my way but there was bagels and crumb cake after. I consider that a win.

For now I am way beyond sore. So, so, so sore. Today will be a recovery day for sure. I’m pretty much over the bummer of the race and the rest of the day was spend refueling. I unfortunately started to feel the oncoming of a little cold on Saturday and of course woke up with a bit more of one Sunday. Not much time to relax but I”m trying.

So yes..I know theres always the next race and actually there is one in 2 weeks. WOWZA. hopefully it will go better.

• Any advice on the side stitches?
• Did you race this weekend?