Just Du It!

I did something over my lunch hour today I don't think I'll do again. Well, maybe...

A few weeks ago, in a moment of weakness or vulnerability to brainwashing, I signed up for the annual indoor duathlon at the Iola-Scandinavia Fitness Center. A duathlon -- not to be confused with a biathlon featuring skiing and shooting -- requires participants to run, bike, run. In this case, run 2 miles, bike 5 miles, then run 2 more. Easy peasy, right?

Since this is an indoor event, with a limited number of treadmills and stationary bikes available, contestants had to reserve a time over the course of 2 days to participate. Today was my lucky day.

Now I have resumed running in the past 2 months so I felt pretty OK with that part of the competition. But biking? Not so much. If I had thought about this months ago, I could have perhaps trained or something silly like that. Instead this was one of those "I'm just doing this once to prove I can do this" things!

I can tell you now I am glad I did it but it was hard! The first leg of running went very well by Robyn standards -- 2 miles in 17 minutes, 11 seconds. I had a misstep hopping off the treadmill to get over to the bike, but I didn't fall on my face or anything.

I expected the bike part to take 25 minutes so was happy to finish it in 24. However, after pedaling my legs off for the last quarter mile, they were done. I mean it. My legs were seriously thinking we were done. When I got off the bike to book it over to the treadmill again, my legs refused to move for a second. It took every ounce of my brain power to will those legs to move 5 steps over to the treadmill. Then I had to run?!?

Oh those last 2 miles were killers. I kept saying, "I just want to walk!" Cheryl, the fitness center drill sergeant timing me, said, "No way! You'll just be mad at yourself if you walk now!" But it hurt. My legs, what I could feel of them, hurt. And my lungs.

I kept concentrating on the music in my MP3 player. When Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive song came on, I thought, "This could be inspiring. This could keep me going." I hate that song now.

When I was less than a quarter mile to go, I felt like puking or passing out but I said screw it, upped the tempo and finished strong.

In the end, I accomplished the journey in 1 hour and 13 seconds! Yay me!

At this point, I don't even care if I am one of the top 2 finishers (in male and female divisions) to win a turkey. I'm just proud to say I did it and it's OVER!

Plus, I should have enough of those feel-good exercise endorphins to carry me through the day anyway. Let's not think about how this old body is going to feel tomorrow morning...