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It's only a week later, but the Cary Duathlon already feels like it was ages ago.  I think it's all due to having too much to do in too short a time.  Everything just seems to go by so fast.  Before I knew it, it was the night before the race and I was still recovering from a hard workout that I'd had on Wednesday.  I thought about just not going, but that's not my style so I set the alarm for 6:30 and went to bed.  No special preparation or anything.  I went into like it was just another training day.

When I got to the race site I noticed that there were really only a handful of athletes.  This was going to be a small race making it even harder to get motivated for it.  The race went off at nine, starting with a 5 mile run through the Thomas Brooks Park in Cary.  It was a 2-loop out and back with a couple of steap hills.  Since we all went off together my efforts to stay at the front of the pack were ineffective and after about a mile I fell back to about the top 1/3.  I wanted to save something in my legs so I pushed it, but not too hard.  I haven't done many bricks yet this season so I didn't know what my legs could handle.

The first leg of the race went well.  When I looked at my watch as I entered the transition zone I realized that I'd run a sub-8 mile for 5 miles.  Oh crap, was my first thought.  Had I gone out too fast?  Getting on the bike felt good though and I quickly got into a rhythm and pushed out the 30 miles with little sweat, while averaging 17 mph.  It was great.  I passed a couple of women who had passed me on the run although I can't say that I was too optimistic about the final 5 mile run that was coming up.

My legs felt sore getting off the bike and it took me a little while to find my running legs again.  I had a lot of teammates from the Elite Triangle Triathlon team cheering me on so I kept pushing myself despite the difficulty breathing and complete lack of energy.  I started picking off girls one by one as quickly as I could, making it through the final loop on pure adrenaline.  I had estimated about a 3:20 finish considering my shape at the time and preparation so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw 3:08 on the clock as I crossed the finish. 

Great race, great day, and I met some great people!  Thanks guys!