This was the last race of the Duathlon Series and the Victorian State Championships. Last Duathlon ended with me disappointed in my first run and a DNF (did not finish) against Elaine’s name in the results. We were both hoping for better this time around, especially seeing it was our last hit out before the Duathlon World Championships in Adelaide.
We always like to arrive early for races, gets us a good parking spot, allows time for a warmup, beat the queues for the toilets and in general prevents you from feeling rushed before the event. Planning to arrive around 7:15am for a 9:00am we were running ahead of schedule and ended up parking the car at 7:00am. However there were so many other competitors around I was worried I’d mucked up the start time, but a quick check confirmed it was 9am.
After registering, doing the warmup ride and checking our bike into transition, I took advantage of a free massage before the race. Probably just as well as the masseur noted that my glutes were very tight, but felt a lot better during my post-massage warmup run. I felt a little ordinary on the bike warmup, but great on the run warmup. Obviously the massage helped, but I had a massage before the warmup run last race and still felt crap.
As we assembled at the start line, conditions were perfect. Cool but not cold and virtually no wind at all. I consider the Richmond run course flat, whereas Elaine thinks it contains a significant hill. But I’ll admit that I notice that hill on the bike, just not on the run. The bike and run are mostly the same with the run course ending with the last 500m or so on a winding and slightly undulating dirt trail.
Young Martin was not racing this weekend, but in the past 3 races I have seen him go out way too fast in the first kilometre or two. So I was keen not to follow the same mistake. Like every other Duathlon I’ve ever done the field burst off the line as though it was a 100m sprint. Starting about 5 people deep (in a small field of 160 competitors) I was able to take off at a far more sensible speed and build into my race without the ridiculous surge at the start. My kilometre splits of the first 5km are below (kilometre splits with avg/max heart rate and steps per minute):
3m41s (150/161 bpm) 92 spm
3m36s (164/167 bpm) 96 spm
3m40s (167/169 bpm) 96 spm
3m45s (168/169 bpm) 96 spm
3m54s (167/168 bpm) 96 spm
The last kilometre was not as bad as it looks. Firstly I ease off a fraction towards the end to prepare for the bike leg, But mainly because I simply cannot hold the same pace on the winding dirt trail. Nearly all of my training runs are on similar dirt trails, but they are run as an easy pace. All of my fast running is done on an Athletics Track or a flat, straight stretch of trail. I find it interesting that my running cadence in the first kilometre was only 92 spam compared with 96 for the rest of the run. In the first kilometre I was consciously holding back to avoid going out too fast. For the rest of the race I was trying to maintain my pace and fast leg turnover is one of the methods I utilitse to achieve this.
In general I was very happy with my run, but still not good enough to keep club members Clint and Ray in sight nor other competitors in my age group Daryn and Gordon (or Michael who had recently moved to an older age group). With Ray now aging up to my category, I knew I was in 4th position.
Transition was felt little slow as I had problems getting my helmet strap done up. But otherwise it went well and ending up being one of my quickest Duathlon transitions.
On the bike and I tried to start out conservatively keeping my wattage around 300 watts. Even after a fast 5km run, it is very easy to go out way too hard in the first few kilometres of the bike leg. Another competitor passed me while I was getting my feet in my shoes. I paced him for just over a lap swapping the lead a couple of times. But during the second lap I made conscious effort to put some distance on him so that I could ride solo for the rest of the bike leg. Going through the whole being passed and dropping back 12 metres gets annoying after a while.
Each lap I monitored the position of Clint, Ray, Daryn and Gordon relative to myself. I could see a group was forming, mainly because some of the junior elites were blatantly drafting which was stopping the group from naturally breaking apart. Clint was the slowest runner of the riders ahead, but once he caught the pack it nullified my ability to close ground. Daryn, Gordon and Michael all dropped off the pack (mainly because they didn’t want tp get caught up in the drafting), but Ray managed to hold on (with the drafting cheaters) till the end. It ended up being my fastest ever bike split on this course averaging 40.2kph. Not enough to catch Daryn, Gordon or Michael, but it was the first time I’d ever managed to see Daryn just ahead on the bike in a Duathlon, so I was quite happy about that.
Bike stats for 20km:
40.2 kph, 300 watts, 157/162 bpm, 100 rpm
I actually cannot remember anything about the second transition, I was obviously in auto pilot. At 23 seconds, it turned out to be my fastest ever T2 in a Duathlon, so I obviously did something right (just can’t remember what it was). One difference to last race was that I reverted to my old race runners (Newton Distance S). I’ll almost certainly wear the Newtons for the Duathlon Worlds, but will probably swap back to the Inov8 Tri-Extreme for Mandurah 70.3.
Heading out onto the run I knew I was 20 seconds behind Daryn, Gordon and Michael with Clint and Ray a little further up the road. Knowing that all of these athletes are faster runners than be meant there was no chance of improving my position. I also had a 20 second gap behind me, so the focus of the run was to simply run steady and hold my position. At the half way mark I still had a good lead over the next competitors but probably took it a touch easy because it wasn’t until after I crossed the finish line that I realised 3 athletes were only seconds behind me.
Even though my last 4 Duathlons have all been on the same course, the distances are always a little different which makes it difficult to compare results across races. So I have taken the average speeds for each leg from the Garmin and adjusted the times for exact distances to get an accurate comparison:
| Jul'14 | Sep'14 | Aug'15 | Sep'15 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run1 | 18:40 | 18:45 | 19:05 | 18:37 |
| T1 | 0:34 | 0:26 | 0:27 | 0:26 |
| Bike | 31:40 | 30:23 | 30:46 | 29:52 |
| T2 | 0:27 | 0:25 | 0:30 | 0:23 |
| Run 2 | 11:48 | 11:45 | 12:00 | 12:03 |
| Finish | 63:09 | 61:44 | 62:48 | 61:21 |
Despite my slow 2nd run, this race was still my best ever Duathlon. Ironic that I missed the age group podium for the first time in 5 years.
Martin also had a great race with a similar result, although he didn't have the slow 2nd run like me. (and he won his age group). Elaine also did well coming third in her age group. A huge improvement over last race where she did not finish. Ray won my age group and Clint won the age group below (I would have come second if I was 5 years younger).
