It was an overcast morning for this year's Capital City Challenge. A drizzle greeted us at Daniel Boone Park when Mike and I unloaded the kayaks. Thankfully, the rain dissipated by the time we reached the start line. Ashley met me there with her "Team Harmon" shirt; I had to inform her that Mike was not participating this year, but was on picture duty along the Boulevard.
A half hour wait ensued before it was time to toe the start line. This year we had Batman start the race before he led our first ever superhero kids' fun run. That was a great idea. Unfortunately, Batman's gun failed to go off and the runners had to take their cue from the elites at the front. I jolted into action and began my two and a half hours of continual movement.
The run went as expected. I wish I could calculate split times, but I always fear carrying my phone onto the kayak. I seemed to be running with a group doing sub-eight minute miles for the first two miles. On the back half of the run, that group out-paced me. I'll assume I did roughly eight minute miles on average for a running split of 32 minutes.
My kayak transition was kind of "a hot mess" to borrow an Ashley-ism. I stuffed the long sleeve bike shirt I was wearing into the kayak hull. After struggling to get the rubber hull closed, I began dragging the kayak down the ramp. At the bottom of the ramp, I noticed the rubber piece had fallen off and my paddle had tipped out of the kayak. I raced back up the ramp to retrieve those items, donned my cycling gloves, and shoved off with help from a volunteer's push.
The kayak portion itself proved the same suffering I've grown accustomed to in this event. My neck and shoulders grew tired early even as I tried to engage the abs more and more. Longer kayaks sailed past me, per usual. But I was heartened that my pace was steady and I even picked up the pace over some stretches. Once adjacent to Haddad Park, I popped an energy gel for some, well, energy. Mike got some pictures of my row. I gave him a cut-throat signal and then tried to do a Thomas Voeckler tongue wag, but that is hard to make out from the riverbank.
The kayak split probably took me an hour. I crested Magic Island with a lot of other participants. Becky, of our race committee, directed me to the chute we are supposed to use to run onto the Boulevard. There I met Ashley who was ready with my cycling gear. After a quick pit stop in the Magic Island restroom to change into cycling shorts, I was off on the bike portion.
I felt really good and relaxed on the bike. That was probably due to my July bike training. Even being low on energy I maintained a good pace and tried not to be distracted by the elites. The course held up well with no potholes, as we had feared, where the course narrows to one road lane. I saved my last energy gel for after the start of the second loop. Besides being trapped behind a slower cyclist for a brief spell, I had no issue with bike traffic. And we avoided any crashes this year (thank goodness).
The bike split probably took me another hour. I pulled into the finish at just over two hours and thirty minutes. It was a two minute improvement over my 2013 race. But I still finished in the exact same position, 64th overall.
I joined Mike and Ashley at the finish and helped photograph some other participants. It was another good year for the Capital City Challenge. Hopefully we can keep doing the kids' race and growing our numbers. The press was really favorable and should help grow its popularity.
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