Kraig's Report on his second try at this event:

Saturday I did the Basic Boulder Mountain Duathlon solo. In honor of the Hawaii Ironman I first swam 2500 yards at North Boulder Rec Center, then headed straight to Chautauqua. My car would serve as my personal transition area. I found a spot in the same area as I parked last year on Morning Glory so I could compare splits and times from my effort last year. I started the bike ok and hit the summit of Flagstaff with a descent time (climb split of 30:37), this encouraged me and I continued to ride hard to the gravel and then back up and over Flagstaff to the Chautauqua parking lot again. At this point I was within a minute of my split from last year. I vividly remember last years BBMD for me; I had an incredible day, probably one of the top 5 workouts of my life. I just couldn't make myself tired and I did a 39-minute ascent of the Green Mtn. TT course during the run. This year would be a different story. After switching to running clothes and shoes I started running thinking that I was going fast and continued to push hard until I got to the endless stairs near the top. At this point I knew that I had about 6 minutes to the summit so I glanced at my watch and I was depressed to see that I was already over 37 minutes. I pretty much let off the throttle at that point and tried to be happy with just finishing the course at a more pedestrian pace. I hit the Green summit in 44 minutes (over 5.5 minutes slower than my pr) and then jogged down Green-Bear trail to West Bear Ridge trail. Climbing up Bear peak was just lovely. My legs were very tired and I was going quite slowly despite having a pretty high heart rate. My Bear Peak ascent was over 6 minutes slower than I did last year. It was however a beautiful day and I was enjoying the incredible scenery. Occasionally I would think of all those people in Hawaii who at that very moment were suffering on their bikes in the heat, humidity and wind. The descent down Fern canyon was it's usual brutal steepness. Ever since my hip injury, I am very cautious on descents and have the feeling that my right hip will crumble if I put too much force on it. Luckily I would finish this workout without re-injuring the hip, although it felt funny throughout the day. Once down on the Mesa trail I really enjoyed the fatigue induced in my legs on the last couple of climbs. There is nothing like putting 7000 vertical feet into your legs and then climbing some more. I ended up finishing in 3hrs 42 minutes. Last year I finished in 3 hr 26 minutes. Yes, I got my ass kicked by last year self.