Triathlon at Retirement

Encouraged by a good run time in my last race, I thought I should try to qualify for the 2025 World Championship in Duathlon (run - bike - run). It's going to be in Spain and will fit into my travel schedule. For that I need to do races to improve my ranking, which I thought would not be a problem. I signed up for Katy (Texas) Triathlon/Duathlon September 1 and planned for some more during the fall. I had a great race. There are never many people in duathlon, so everyone started at the same time, all ages and men and women together. To my surprise, I felt that the initial run pace was slow. I had planned to start modestly, but not THAT slow. After the first run of 2.5 km, I was at 4th place of total with a 7.39/mile pace. (It was a flat course). Bike went fine too; 6th place of all with 20.9 miles/hour pace. At the second run, I was a little tired but still managed an 8.45/mile pace on 5km and a 3rd best time. Overall, I won the women's race and was number 5 in total. Only four...

Four days in Omaha of several slightly different events: triathlon, duathlon (run-bike-run), Aquabike (swim - bike), Aquathlon (Swim-run) and relays! Several competitions of National Championship status and qualifiers for world championships. For triathlon, which is my main focus, the shorter distances are covered: supersprint and draft legal sprint. But this year, I tried supersprint duathlon as well. Three hours later I did the supersprint triathlon. The distances are so short that I figured I could handle both competitions the same day. At the duathlon start 7 am, I met some friends from previous competitions and got talking. The super sprint is a time trial with people starting every 3 seconds, and I was so distracted that I almost missed my own start and lost a few seconds right there! I also forgot to start my smart watch, so I have no recording of the race I took up the chase and passed a lot of people on the first run which was abut 1 km, but I don't think I was closing in ...

In 2019, Eliud Kipchoge became the first human to run a marathon under 2 hours. On his feet were a pair high tech shoes featuring a carbon fiber plate and air-filled pods. Since then, numerous long-distance records have been shattered by runners wearing these types of shoes. Strava data suggests that a change to carbon plated shoes improves running time over 5%! I have been wondering, is it just a fashion, or are these shoes really faster? Seems hard to believe that shoes could make a noticeable difference today. Can they help me to be faster or is it just for elites? Finally, these shoes are being made by various brands in larger quantities and are available in low enough price for the general public. As I like to try all new shoes in person, I went to town to buy a pair, any brand. That did not go well, all shops were sold out.  I decided to gamble and order on-line. I read a lot of confusing reviews and learned that shoes higher than 40mm mid sole just have been banned for compe...