Saturday January 23rd marked race number 2 in the annual Chilly Cheeks Duathlon Series held at Cherry Creek State Park in Denver, Colorado. The weather was perfect. Sunny and 45 degrees with little wind. The roads and trails were mostly clear with the exception of a few patches of ice here and there in the shady spots. The second round of the Chilly Cheeks Series is a crazy race. The format is a 1.5 mi run, 3.5 mi bike, 2.5 mi run, 7 mi bike, and then you finish with a 50 yard dash from transition to the finish line. Your legs have no idea what you are doing to them. It’s great training and really quite fun, and a little painful being January.
With the crazy format creating several transitions, time is of essence and there are many different strategies being employed when it come to transitions. Of the serious contenders in the race, about half do the whole race in their running shoes, riding flat pedals and cages on their bike. Several others (including myself) opted to wear their helmets from start to finish. Even more adopted some combination of footwear/helmet strategies. I have to say it was a bit weird to start a race, running with my aero helmet strapped to my head. I’m sure the few cars that drove by must have thought this was a race for the handicapped when seeing several runners go by with helmets on!
Regardless, it was worth the time savings in transition (I opted to change shoes for each leg) and I was able to win the race in 50 minutes and 15 seconds, 40 seconds ahead of EPC teammate Jason Michalak. Jason threw down the fastest run splits of the day, but he chose to run sans helmet and think that may have cost him the race. Sometimes you just have to let go of the image and have people stare at you for the sake of race performance. I learned this lesson two years ago while racing an XTERRA in Alabama and receiving some odd stares from patrons of a restaurant we were in when I was walking through wearing my SKINS Recovery Tights. I guess guys in spandex tights and flip flops aren’t something you see everyday in the South? Well, my legs felt great and I went on to have a good race. So be it.
CW
Social poster
Downloads
- No documents for download.
Scroll to the Post Form and leave a comment. Pinging is disabled.
Currently there are no comments related to article "EPC Takes 1-2 at Chilly Cheeks #2".