Bike Rides for an Upcoming Duathlon!

There are FIVE OF US heading to the first local duathlon this weekend. Steph, Borsch, Matt, Pharmie, and I are doing the Winter BeGone Duathlon down by Rochester MN on Sunday. I’ve been TRYING to hit the bike a few more times since IM NOLA 70.3 to get ready.

On Friday, I did a hilly course. It was a 22.8 mile ride that had a decent amount of hills, and it took me all over St. Paul, along the Mighty Mississippi, and into the ‘burbs:

Sunday was the hilly MDRA Mudball run, which was a good 4 mile ass-burner. (See post below.)

Tonight (Tuesday), I went for a fast, hard ride on a pretty flat course. But it was pretty windy. I went out down the Greenway Trail and back for a total of 21.68 miles:

Yeah, like you can read THAT. Sorry.

Oh, I forget to mention, Pharmie and I don’t have our bikes back from IM NOLA 70.3 two-and-a-half weeks ago! They said we’d have them back in just over a week. Well, Pharmie had to get on the phone with them last week and BEG them to ship them NOW so we can have them for our race this next weekend!! (3 weeks after the race!)

So, all that being said, I rode those last 2 rides on Big Rhonda, not Goldilocks. These past 2 rides may be my last 2 on Big Rhonda because we’ve found a buyer! So I snapped a photo to remember her by:

The computer’s been cutting in-and-out on Big Rhonda, so I knew I couldn’t trust it on these rides. It was completely dead for my ride tonight. So I took a few splits at major landmarks and compared them with the map above.

@ 6.2 miles: 18.42 mph ave overall
@ 10.84 miles (turn-around): 18.45 mph
@ 15.48 miles: 18.97 mph overall
@ 21.68 miles (finish): 19.38 mph

Good. Well, not bad.

Tomorrow, I have 13 hour day of work, so there's no workout. Thursday, I'll go for a hard 6-8 mile run. Friday, I'll swim a bit. Then it's easy sailing until the race on Sunday! We'll see what happens this weekend at Winter BeGone!!