Riverport Duathlon 2013 Report

Well last weekend was the final multisport event of the 2013 season. And it has been quite the season indeed, starting way back with Tri the Oval on February 17th.

Anyway, for once the weather at this race wasn't crazy wet and windy. In fact the wind was a dull breeze, the sun was shining and all was good. Sure it was a bit chilly at 4C for race start, but it was so nice to see the sun.

After signing in, chatting a bit, and having our pre race meeting, we lined up and were off!

I knew that with the competition around me I would have to give the first 4 km run of this duathlon all I had. So I did not hold back at all. I felt good at the 2 km turn around and realized I had built a tiny gap and was running in third place. Sadly, the gap in front of me was already large and I was not catching those guys. But I pushed pushed pushed to maintain my slight lead and not let my pace drift off. I came into T1 still in third and with a 11 seconds of lead. My total time was 14:27 for a 3:37 min/km pace.

It is always nice to enter the transition zone early and see all the bikes still there. And this year I had a new bike to run and grab. Alan Miner had lent me his proper triathlon time trial bike to see how I would fare. Though I hadn't had much time to practice with it, I was looking forward to that challenge.

I was about 4 kms in by the time I got passed by a few guys who were all quite tight together, though at least at this point it wasn't in a drafting kind of way. Still I was able to maintain my pace on the bike and not kill my legs. Sadly, though, even as I was able to keep up with the 2 guys in front, they were drafting quite badly and managed to pull away a bit more than I would have liked. And it was frustrating to watch as one of the guys even used illegal tactics to gain an advantage going around corners (sweeping over the yellow line). Still, all you can do is race as clean as possible. 

Coming into T2 I let up a little and shook out the legs. Then I slipped out of my bike shoes and jumped off the bike right before the dismount line. All very clean and good and I was into the TZ mounting my bike on the rack. Sadly I also clipped my left running shoe and then had to chase after it, losing maybe 3-4 seconds. Not a big deal, but still, a little annoying. My total time, including T1 was 49:20 for the 28 km ride for an average speed of 34.1 km/hr. 

At this point my Garmin watch had stopped working. I knew that the battery in it was near the end of life, but I had hoped to get one more race out of it. Sadly this was not to be. So off I ran for the second 4 km run and had to go by feel. I needed to make up some time and pull myself out of the 8th place spot I was currently in. So I pushed the pace early on. Eventually I passed 2 people and pulled out a sizable lead on them. Still having no idea of my actual pace I tried to pull up on the 2 runners in front of me, but things were starting to hurt just a little too much. I did manage to pull back a lot of time on those guys, but sadly didn't have enough to catch them by the end of such a short hard run.

I was very happy to see that I managed the thirds fastest time again for this run, and also kept my average pace low with a time of 15:44 and a pace of 3:56. I also see that amount the top runners I was second best at maintaining my pace with only a slight drop in average speed. That bodes well for the future.

In all I managed to complete the duathlon in 1:19:30, some 2 minutes faster than last year and in 6th place overall. Huzzah!

So, no more multisport for the season and likely only one more running race of note. My big plans now are putting on my 6K Movember run fundraiser on the 23rd of November. It was a great event last season, and we are hoping for just as much fun this time around!