Race #1: Chilly Cheeks Duathlon (#1)

Race Details:

• Date: December 20th
• Type: Duathon
• Distance: 15ish (4 run, 11ish bike)
• Shwag: Sweatpants 

The Saturday before Christmas, I officially kicked off my 40 for 40 race adventure with the first race of the Chilly Cheeks Duathlon series. I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to sign up for a race two days after returning from a trip to Russia, let alone a duathon, but I did.

Special Guest Stars - Becky and Ron

Wait, I remember. It was because when you sign up for all three Chilly Cheeks races, you get a pair of sweatpants. And I wanted the sweatpants. (Note: You can also buy the sweatpants but, and maybe this is just me, I feel like sweatpants are something you need to earn.) 

Race day found me jet-lagged and completely out of shape. The only form of exercise I got in the motherland was lifting meat pies and other assorted pastries to my mouth, and then repeating again and again. Never the less, I met up with my friends Becky and Ron, who were signed up for the run, and made my way down to the Cherry Creek Reservoir in Denver.

I wasted no time getting
into the sweatpants. 

I was greeted by the friendly face of Jen Szabo at the registration tent where I snagged my sweatpants. With the sweatpants in hand, I thought about heading home without even doing the race. It was a chilly, cloudy morning and I thought, “there’s no way I’d go for a bike ride today if I didn’t have to” but it’s funny how you’ll do so many things you otherwise wouldn’t, just because you’ve already paid for them and/or people are watching.

I grabbed a spot next to an older gentleman who was doing his first ever multi-sport event. He had lots of questions about how everything worked and I helped him with the usual setup stuff and gave him as much advice as I could. Despite the frosty temps, the guy was wearing shorts, which made me feel even wussier when I put my new sweatpants on over the seven layers I was already wearing. 

Pile-o-crap. I maybe haven't
done this in a while

Then it was time to set up my stuff. I hadn’t done one of these things in a while, and definitely hadn’t done one in the winter so I had no clue what to bring. Instead of thinking through things the night before, I just brought pretty much everything. Becky and Ron helped talk me through it and, slowly but surely, I got my giant pile of stuff organized into a semi-orderly transition area, full of piecemeal clothing. 

Chilly Cheeks is a “duathlon” series, not a duathlon series. That means that instead of being run-bike-run, the events are totally random. Race #1 consisted of a four mile run, followed by an 11ish mile bike. Aside from just surviving the race, my biggest concern was getting too warm on the run and then getting chilled on the bike. That meant some creative attire, including some random jacket I found in the back of my closet. (Where did that even come from?)

Tired but happy.
Race #1 is in the books!

I won’t bore you with the details of the race itself, since I'm probably boring you enough already. I'll  just sum it up like this: The run was fine, a little enjoyable even. The bike was… well, it could have been worse. I survived and that’s all that matters. No, wait -I survived and I had fun, which is what really matters. And, while I got passed by a fair number of people, thanks to the fat tire division of the race, I was able to pass a decent number of people as well which, in some weird way, made me feel better.  

There were plenty of goodies and snacks at the finish line, including hot soup and chocolate chip banana bread. And the sun even came out, which was lovely.

Overall, it was a good day and a great race to get things started. Oh, and did I mention the sweat pants? When I got home from the race, I immediately changed into them and spent the rest of the day on the couch, in the sweatpants, watching Christmas movies. I earned it.