Double Oak Duathlon Race Report

Mar 19 - Mar 25

S:  7,800 yds - 1hr 50min
B:  63.06 mi - 3hr 11min
R:  32.28 mi - 4hr 5min
Total:  9hr 6min

As seen above, this week was pretty awesome in terms of getting to sleep in a couple days towards the end of the week.  After ~3 months of pretty hard and consistent training, today marked the season's first race...aka time to really figure out how I'm progressing.  Of course I already know how I'm progressing by looking at power files and stuff, but today was a real race atmosphere with rested legs, so I was pretty pumped about laying down a good effort.  The Double Oak Duathlon was a 5k run, 20k bike, 2.5k run.  So basically, a very painful ~60 minute effort.  The short story is that I was 2nd overall, a little over a minute back from first and 2-3 min ahead of third.  The long story is below.

Run 1 (5k): 18:47
They started the long course and short course racers together, but I knew who to watch out for.  Local top amateur Aaron Ainsworth was most likely going to lay down a 17:30, so I knew I had my work cut out for me.  Straight from the gun, everyone took off up a ~0.4 mile uphill.  I let a couple of people slide in front of me, knowing that I didn't want to blow my legs up in the first 2 minutes.  At the crest of the hill followed a good downhill, of which I took advantage of and actually passed a few guys.  After hitting the 1 mile in 5:57, things started to thin out.  After 2 miles in 12.07, I passed a guy that had gone out way too hard, leaving only 2 guys in front of me.  The last mile had a 0.6 mile single track trail section that unfortunately limited speed a little bit, but not too bad.  Coming into T2, I had Aaron and 1 other guy in front of me (both in around 17:30).

Bike (20k): 32:53
The bike strategy was to make a game-time decision on what I needed to do in response to how the race was unfolding.  Knowing that Aaron was 1:20 up the road, I knew I had to be aggressive in order to give myself a shot.  After passing the 2nd place guy a couple minutes into the bike, it was just me and the open road...all by myself.  After a couple miles, a volunteer shouted that I was 1:05 down from the leader.  At the turnaround, I speculated that I had it at 0:55 down.  There isn't much else to say about the ride...other than it was all about trying to do everything perfectly: keep the power up, stay aero, cut the corners of the winding roads, etc, etc.  I tried to pick it up even more on the way back, but I was at my max.  Coming off the bike I was around 0:40 down.

Run 2 (2.5k): 9:27
This run was...let's just say painful.  It was basically a 0.5 mile flat/downhill followed by a 0.6 mile uphill on signle track trail followed by a 0.5 mile flat/downhill finish.  Things were hurting bad by then, but the run went by pretty quick.  Trail running has a way of doing that; it's like you are focusing on not breaking your ankles and that makes time go by slightly quicker.  Once I got back on the paved road for the last 0.5 miles, it was "just close your eyes and go hard till you hear them say your name and then go another 10 seconds".

Total: 1:02:05
So that's pretty much how it ended.  2nd overall with a consolation prize of fastest bike split.  Of course I wanted to win, but I gave it all I had and left it all out there, which I'm happy with...and Aaron was the better athlete of the day.  But, I'm definitely a way different athlete than last year.  Running wise, a 5k under 19:00 last year would be close to an all out effort, but now it has become something that I can bike hard off of.  Biking wise, I'm probably 10-15 watts stronger across the board in very general terms, which at this level is pretty significant.  I'm pretty excited to see how the rest of the year unfolds...it was a good start to the 2012 season!