Twelve in 2012

Sunday’s date had been circled on my calendar since the beginning of 2012. When Chad and I made our New Year’s resolutions to compete in 12 races in 2012, I knew I wanted to do an Iron Girl event.

I had considered the Iron Girl races in the past but had never trained well enough for them. But when Chad and I sat down to write out which 12 races we were going to do, I went to the Iron Girl website right away.

Iron Girl’s mission is “to empower women toward a healthy lifestyle” and is a women-only event. Iron Girl puts on over a dozen races nationwide ranging from 5Ks to half marathons, duathlons and triathlons.

Minnesota’s event is a duathlon held in Bloomington. The race consists of a 2-mile run, a 22-mile bike and then a 2-mile run.

I knew it would be my hardest race of the year and the one race that I would make sure I was most prepared for.

Chad was jealous of my race choice — saying often that it is the perfect distance of each leg. But I was nervous about doing two running portions in one race. When I’ve done sprint triathlons in the past, the running leg is always the hardest for me.

So all year I prepared for this to be my toughest race of the season — and it was.

I finished in 2:26.55.

My goal had been to finish in around 2:20.00. I had gone up earlier in the week and practiced the running portion and expected it to take roughly 20 minutes each time. But I wasn’t sure how long the hilly bike course would take or how long it would take to work through the transitions with 1,330 people registered for the race.

When I set my goal time, I also didn’t factor in having bike issues (which I had!) or having to take a potty break in the middle of my second run (two and a half hours is a long time to work out).

I placed 753rd out of 1,063 finishers. Here’s how it broke down: my first run was 19:59, my first transition was 3:16, my bike was 1:38:17, my second transition was 2:57 and my second run was 22:26.

I wasn’t disappointed at all. I was really proud of myself for competing in a more challenging race.

The one thing Chad and I noticed about this race that really made it different from our earlier races was that it had fewer “recreational” participants.

There weren’t the casual 5K runners that were headed out for a beer afterwards. And there weren’t many bikes with big, fat tires. Instead this race had a lot of women who had spent hours and hours training and were serious about either racing or fitness.

And, yet, I wasn’t intimidated. I knew I had put in the hours running and biking this summer and there wasn’t any doubt that I would finish.

With 11 races completed, I may be getting a little too confident. Chad is trying to talk me into switching my final race from the Monster 5K to the Monster 10-mile run and I’m considering it. But with as much as I struggle with running I know it would turn into my hardest race of the year — and I thought I just finished that.

Tags: health, lifestyle