Richmond in April should not feel like Richmond in July, but that's the weather that rolled in along with the 1,200 competitors for this year's National Duathlon Championships.  By mid-race on Saturday, the mercury was well into the 90's, with not much breeze.  If you're from the deep South, Southwest, or maybe the Caribbean, this didn't present a huge problem, since you've been training in similar.  For the rest of us mainlanders, these two national championships were more about maintaining a sane pace than blasting a PR.

Richmond has a great downtown for off-road, maybe the best in the US.  A first class mountain bike course, continually under improvement by the very active local mtb community, is complemented with running trails over and by the James River, although not through, as Xterra always does.  As beautiful as the courses are, they each will challenge you on an easy weather day, particularly the mtb trails, an end-to-end series of singletrack, switchbacks & bridges, punctuated by several rock garden ascents and descents and a narrow ride over a concrete dam.  This is not a course one can sit back and relax on at any point.

For me, the race challenge was compounded by a recent quad injury, leaving me unable to run more than a mile without a sharp pain in m left quad for the past two weeks.  (Over the past 30 years, I've done at least 3-4 runs per week of 4-8 miles each, with almost no problems).  So here was the question we all face if we race long enough: at what point do you back off?  When your mind tells you rest is best, but your heart wants to hammer, which way do you go?

Where I went was to Richmond.  I had signed up to do both the off- and on-road races several months ago. It should have been a tip-off that this might not be wise when a reporter called me to say that I was one of only two people who had signed up for the double and then asked me why I had.  Well, it's a long drive, and I was probably going to work out the next day anyway ...

On that drive, I promised myself to not push it.  A single race, any race, even an A priority one, is not worth longterm or maybe even permanent injury.  How would you like life as a non-runner?  Not much, as I had learned over the past two weeks, although thank the Lord for multisport; without swim and bike over the past two weeks, what sanity I have left would surely have drained away.

So purposely holding myself to a pace at least 2 minutes per mile slower than normal on the first run, I was able to get through it without a recurrence of the sharp pain in my left quad.  It must be the shoes ... I had changed out the pair from the past several months.  Having worn Asics for the past 30 years without a whole lot of concern about which model --- I mean, overpronating, underpronating, heel-striking ... can I just say to shoe manufacturers that I don't do just one of any of these things?  I do all of them, depending on the turf, speed, turns and direction I'm going.

At last on the bike, where I can hammer without concern for the quad: sweet, just like the singletrack and the cool tree shade, started passing people, including some just draped over their bikes in exhaustion, barely able to reply, when I asked if they were okay.  The heat was taking a toll.

About two-thirds of the way through, as concentration began to waver, I missed a move and tumbled headfirst into a gulley.  Landed on my helmet.  Lying there for a moment, taking inventory, no sharp pains, nothing broken, bike looks okay, if I can get it off me.  Sure hope they sprayed for poison ivy.  Clamber back up.  Brand-new-today bike computer snapped off, buried somewhere in the bushes; that's history.  Okay, party on.

As the thought of another run when the bike was finally over loomed ahead, I gave in, partially: okay, forget racing tomorrow.  Just get through today.  Never in my life have I DNFed a race, nor will I, if the Big Guy continues to allow me.  But a DNS did seem a reasonable choice at this point.  I took that decision and it seemed to make the rest of the race easier.  I slogged the second trail run at a pace nearly double my norm.  Just get to the finish.  Beer me.  And let the healing begin.