Pacific Crest Duathlon - Training Continues to Pay Off

Pacific Crest Weekend Sports Festival (June 24-26, 2011)


The third year at Pacific Crest in Sunriver turned out to be a good year for Joe "Wheels" and Gimpy.  The half-marathon was the right distance for Gimpy McKay, but he spent a lot of time thinking about "Coach" Rosling and the 100 miles he was running the same day and night at Western States.  Would Gimpy get to run a 100 miler some day?

Perhaps, but Gimpy was also thinking, let's get through this half marathon run first and next months 50 miler.

So back to our Duathlong, we picked up packets on Friday and located an Olive Garden for carbs after searching downtown without luck for several Italian restaurants that had apparently closed and been replaced with New Orleans and American cuisine.  Probably good food, but not the carbs we were hoping for.  Once back at the motel, morning came a little too fast for Gimpy, but if there's a good reason to get up in the early AM it's to run.

...and to eat left over breadsticks :_)

We left the Motel 6 in Bend around 6am and headed down to Sunriver. We normally drive straight to Wickiup, but we missed the turn for some reason and ended up driving the bike course up past Bachelor from Sunriver getting a peak at the bike course and the higher than normal snow levels.  The snow drifts near Bachelor were only a few inches from the edge of the road in places and at least 8 feet high, which would make the bike and traffic challenging in this section of the course.  The road itself appeared clear and dry.

The early morning fog cleared and the day was going to be sunny and beautiful as Joe unloaded the bike near Wickiup Reservoir and the boat landing.  We hauled the stationary trainer and bike down to the lake for Joe's warm up.  A quick glance around made it appear the participant level might be higher this year with bikes lined up everywhere although the Duathlon teams seemed to be about the same number.  I think we both were wishing we had a swimmer on our team as every year we've discussed taking up swimming to make the move from Duathlon to Triathlon.

Well no time to take up swimming and as it turns out, Joe's bike time for the 58.2 miles remained impressive and resulted in a 6th place overall for the Duathlon bike times, so who needs a swimmer anyway.  The weather and training also helped improve Gimpy's time for the half-marathon this year by nearly 30 minutes.  The miles went by so much faster and Gimpy was feeling strong through mile nine.  Then it was grind time and Gimpy kept watching the pace, keep it below 9'/mile and finish strong.  I had a lot of encouragement along the way and between S-Caps, keeping hydrated at each station, and cooler temps banged out my best half to date.

Together our dynamic Duo was able to improve over two previous years and finally went sub-5 hours for the two events.  Gimpy likes the Duathlon relay!

Part of our happy experience, while at Wickiup and after Joe warmed up

and took off for the bike portion of the race, Gimpy made the mistake of

pressing the emergency brake on the van and couldn't get it too release.

As a result Gimpy got to take the bus back and only got to the transition

zone about 30 minutes before Joe.  A transition that was a little too fast

to tell Joe what happened in detail, fortunately my sister Darlene

(Joe's Wife) came over from the Valley and saved the day.

But not before Joe had to walk around for two hours in bare feet.

Oops, Gimpy's sorry!!!   

JNB TAG TEAM results:

Joe Rothery: 2:44:14, Roger McKay: 1:53:29, Total Time: 4:38:41

Well after a great race and the one mishap, all turned out ok, Joe fixed 

the emergency brake and we got back into Sunriver in time for food,

strawberry short cake, and the medals ceremony, for another good 

year at the fun festival.

...and as the day wore and I'd already made my way home, I kept checking on my favorite running coach

Mike Rosling as he made his way from Squaw Valley to Auburn impressing again on Gimpy the importance

of training and preparation, if you want to do well at those challenging things we want to do in life.

And I didn't have to set my alarm when I woke up around 4am on Sunday to see if Mike had come across

the finish line, he'd made it under 24 hours.  I did have to wait 'til after 7am to see the video as he crossed 

the line with his son and other family members.

What an accomplishment and inspiration to see...

While Gimpy wasn't ready in 2011 for Western States, he was ready for Pacific Crest and he does hope

someday he'll be ready for something as challenging, difficult, rewarding, and intimidating

as a 100 miler.

Until then, Let's go Gimpy, time to run!!!