After Ironman Los Cabos the plan was to do some (shorter) fun races to enjoy racing since I lost the joy a little bit with focusing on Kona. So the first race which fit my schedule was the Mt. Rainer Duathlon when I signed up for this race I wasn’t even aware that it was the National Championship for long course Duathlon. Once I learned that fact, I was thinking that will get me some good competition.
I was a little concerned about the weather since it was supposed to be below 10 degree Celsius. In the end I decided to wear my QT2 singlet and shorts together with arm warmer and cheap throwaway gloves. I was a little worried at the starting line since I was freezing. But it was too late, I would have to tough it out.
Run 1:
Start line
As for every race I got pacing information, from my coach, which called for a 6:10min opening mile. But this time John (my coach) also mentioned that it would be okay to go faster if that is necessary to stay with the pack. As it turns out it was… since I did the first mile in 5:39. I checked my heart rate and it was already above 180. The pace was very high and some guys were already ahead of the front pack but there were about 10 of us within 50 feet running together. Close to the 2 miles I glanced back around a corner and couldn’t see anybody for a couple hundred yards. I knew that I had to hang with this group not to get dropped into nomansland.
End of the first run the. The guy in front of me was pacing me for about 3miles. Thanks!
The group started spreading out a little, but I stayed together with 3 others at the end of the pack. The pace seemed very consistent and it was nice for a change to run with people (this rarely happens in triathlon). Especially during the hilly sections of the course. We were closing in on transition and I caught myself to ease up a bit since I was already hurting and started to think about the biking. John made it very clear that I have to be aggressive and stay at the front of the race so. So I did. I finished the run in 31 minutes with a 5:58min/mile a bit faster than planned. Considering that we also had 220 feet of elevation gain a pretty good pace. The average heart rate of 181bpm on the other hand is a different story 🙂
T1:
I rushed through transition and was pushing hard on into my pedals in no time. (50 seconds to be exact).
Bike:
The plan called for 265-275Watts which felt fine at first but soon I realized that this wont be an easy task, especially with the already tired legs. While my Watch was working the bike computer wouldn’t start up and only show the start up screen. I turned it off and on many times till it finally worked which was about 15min into the race. This made it a little harder to monitor my numbers, since the watch on my hand is not visible in the aero bars.
I overtook some riders and some overtook me but it took a couple miles till I settled in between some people who were riding the same pace. Self doubt started creeping up and I was wondering if I went out too hard on the run and with that thought I hit the first 700feet climb. I wasn’t supposed to go over 300Watts on the hills, but had a hard time doing so because of the steepness of the hill. The ascent took almost 8min. Once I was on top of the hill it started raining and my feet were getting wet and really cold. To my surprise my upper body was doing fine. The downhill was fast and was hitting 40 miles/hour a couple times. It was a little scary since I had to overtake “stragglers” from the short course Duathlon which were going significantly slower and were riding all over the place. One guy almost took 2 of us out at a turn by cutting corners, at least it was a slower turn and I noticed that he wasn’t the most skilled biker. First loop done and onto the second one.
I was pushing hard on my pedals, but I felt like I was moving slow. The head wind certainly didn’t help either. During the race I checked my tires about 3 times to make sure that I didn’t have a flat. After climbing the hill again I noticed that I couldn’t feel my feet anymore and was thinking that it will be an interesting run. I ate 2 gels on the bike and drank 2 bottles of perform. So I didn’t feel dehydrated and think I did pretty good job on fueling. I knew that I won’t consume much on the run since the HR was so high. I tried to be aggressive and pushed hard to the very end. Apparently not hard enough to reach the goal wattage. The normalized overall power for my race was 258Watts.
T2:
I got of the bike carefully because of the feet and started running. I opted to leave the bike shoes on for the run through the dirt and take them off at my transition spot. I was supposed to be an easy transition. Switch shoes take off helmet, done. Once the running shoes were on I started running only to realize a second later that I still had to take off the helmet. I guess better than running out of transition with the helmet on 🙂 After 52 seconds I was out of transition again.
Run 2:
My legs/feet felt like stumps and I had a hard time to get up to speed. I started out with a 6:30min/mile and that was all that my feet would allow me to do.
Finish sprint
I joked around with another guy about our frozen feet. I gradually got faster while the blood flow returned into my feet and I dropped the person who was running with me. There was one other runner ahead about 100 feet and then one almost out of sight. So I focused on my next target. I caught him at mile one and then the next one was like half a mile up so I knew the only way I could catch that guy is if he would fall apart or if he is a weak runner. All I could do was to execute the best run I could, I gradually increased my pace while. Starting off with a 6:18min/mile up to a 6 min/mile. I noticed that I hardly closed in on the guy in front off me, but I also didn’t know how many strong runners are behind me. All I knew was that I would give them a run for their money. Once I passed the 3mile mark I started pushing hard. I was hurting but didn’t want allow that someone else would close in on me. I didn’t know that the next person was almost a 1 min back. I ran the last 0.8 of a mile in a 5:43min/mile which resulted in an 6:06min/mile pace for the second run. Interestingly enough my heart rate was much lower than the first run. At the beginning of the run, I was in the low 160 and pushed it back up to 178bpm max through the run. The average however is much lower with 169bpm. This clearly shows how tired my body was.
After match:
I was second in my age group. The person in front of me was an overall winner (including prize money) an therefore I received the first place award in my age group!
I was surprised to see red colored pee when I went to the restroom. That had never happened to me before. Later on I learned that this is most probably protein due to muscle damage. Now I have some proof that I raced really hard 🙂
After 90min in my NormaTec boots, on the strongest setting, my legs felt better.
Award Ceremony of M30-34
Award
You did so awesome!!!!!
Well done! Congratulations!