What an experience!

Yesterday was spent at the Watkins Glen International Speedway for the fourth running of the "Fly By Night" Duathlon. I had stumbled across this race purely by chance in late 2007 while hunting for races to do during the 2008 season. When I went to the event website, it was reported that due to low attendance, the race was not going to be run again. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. However, I returned to the site a few weeks later only to find out that it was indeed going to be run at least one more year. I registered that day. A duathlon is usually performed in a run-bike-run format, but this event included an extra bike and run leg. This made it a run-bike-run-bike-run! Each run segment was 1.75 miles and each bike segment was 10.2 miles. The real draw for me was the chance to ride my bike on the Watkins Glen track. How many people can say that they’ve ridden their bicycles on a motor speedway? I had never been to watch a motor race at “the Glen”, but having grown up just a couple of hours away, I had heard about it. I don’t know the official designation of the track, but it’s not just an oval like what I picture with NASCAR races. It’s twisty, and hilly, too. Here’s an excerpt from the event website regarding the twists, turns and hills of the track……’hammer down the frontstretch into the Ninety, twist, climb and claw your way up through the Esses and onto the backstretch, white-knuckling the brakes as you hit the Inner Loop and navigate the Carousel turn, then drop off the face of the earth into the depths of the turn-heavy Boot. Climb your way out into Turn Ten, regain your senses and make a run for the finish line.’ Now how could I resist that?!

The duathlon was scheduled to start at 6:15 PM, but duathlon participants were encouraged to arrive early to watch the racing of the “Porsche Clash”, races which featured many different models of Porsche’s. I am not a car enthusiast, but I did enjoy watching the drivers negotiate the turns. I walked over to a woman who sitting by herself because I had a few questions regarding the race and we ended up chatting throughout the race (difficult to do, though, because of the roar of the engines).

Soon enough, the Porsche's were done and it was time for us to start warming up and getting ready. I was able to get one lap of the track in before it neared the start time and I realized I had underestimated the difficulty of the bike course. After checking my equipment over in the transition area, I walked to the start of the race. By now the wind had picked up, the temperature had dropped to about 60 degrees and it was sprinkling. While waiting for the race to start, the rain started downpouring! It rained all through my first run (15 minutes) and all of the way through my first bike lap (about 11 minutes) before stopping entirely. By this time everybody was soaked to the bone, but the worst part was that we all had to take the bike laps easier than we would have otherwise because the track was slippery from the rain. Still, it was pretty awesome. I started out at a higher pace than I should have and kind of burned out pretty fast, but when starting my last run, I thought there was a chance I could finish in under two hours. I pushed as hard as I could on that last run - didn't make it in under two hours, but did it in 2 hours, 4 minutes and 15 seconds. Now I have a concrete goal to shoot for next year! My time was good enough for third place in my age group, so I was really pleased with that. After going back to the car, drying off and changing clothes, I made my way over to the tent where there was a post-race gathering. Some hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and a really classy awards ceremony! This was the hardest race I've done to date, but also one of the most exciting. I will probably never forget the feeling of swooping through the turns on the track and feeling so lucky that I've been blessed with the ability to get out and enjoy pushing my body to the limit. (Additional race photos can be found here).