Do the Locomotion

Because Du the Locomotion was just too cheesy. I just got the call from Montreal, and KL finished the World Cup race! Tales of her adventure should be on her site in a day or two. As for the Rye Duathlon, that went pretty well, with a few twists. The results were up on Coolrunning.com as soon as I got home. The trail runs were nastier than what I expected. They were only about half in the woods, where it was a twisty, muddy, parcours which had been improved with copious quantities of wood chips and even some sheets of particle board on the muddiest sections. There were some big undulations, and I tweaked a quad a bit on the first run.

The temperature was also a surprise. Arriving at the race early (another first), the fog was so thick I barely found the place. By race time the sun had burned through on most of the course, and it was pretty warm. Part of the run course looped back and forth on what can best be described as a vacant lot. It was pretty hot there. The bike course was a big rectangle along the ocean. The more inland of the two long roads had some tiny elevation changes, and it was warmer there. The road along the beach was pancake flat, and it was at least 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the course. The wind was pretty much a non-issue too. There was a big seawall on our left the entire 15k or so along the water, and what wind there was seemed to be from the right anyway. The mist and fog down on the beach section eventually forced me to remove my glasses, but I don't need them to see, just for eye protection. This was a FAST bike course.

There were 253 duathletes on the results list, plus relay teams, and a few people just doing the 5k run too. I found Dr. Bigs at the start, and we lined up near the front. The run started with about 2k on the road before turning into the mucky trail. I started fast (for me) but was easily outclassed by many runners. Somewhere early on I tweaked my quad, but I kept up a good pace using Clif's "count to 20" technique. The results showed me 34th for the first run, with a time of 20:12. I don't think the 5K distance was legit, as on these trails there is no way I would run that fast. For reference, the fastest runner ran a 16:53, so maybe I didn't run so badly after all.

I made a decent transition. Friday night I had picked up a pair of speed laces, so I had that going for me. I used my Carnac MTB shoes with ATACs, as they are quick to put on and better for the mandatory run out of the transition. I was running out behind four barefoot athletes. We were required to run all the way out, and then when you hit pavement you could mount your bike. The course was only about 4 meters wide at that point. With their shoes hanging from their pedals, all four of these guys ran to the edge and stopped to put on their shoes, all fanned out across the road. I barely make it in between them as I jumped on my bike (almost a flying Litka). Time waster dudes! The official timers don't break out the transition, but for the first one I clicked in my own splits and it was 1:15 from the time I crossed the run chip mat until I was clipped in and riding.

My legs didn't feel too well when I first started out on the bike. As noted a few days ago, I was riding my plain old Specialized from the eighties. This was not as bad as it sounds. On the back I had a HED disc wheel. The freewheel (yes, not a cassette, an old fashion freewheel) had only 7 cogs on it, but this was 4 more than I actually used. Since this bike has 6-speed downtube shifters, I had to put it in friction mode because I was too lazy to swap out the cluster. The first 10k or so I rode in the 16 cog, over a few little rollers, passing several riders, and searching for my legs. Around mile 3 I could see a small group of 6-8 racers who looked to be blatantly ignoring the no drafting rule. It took me a few miles to catch this bunch. When I did, I made sure to fly by them decisively to keep them off my wheel. I never looked back, but they all finished the bike leg with amazingly similar times, about 30 seconds behind me, so I have to think the TTT kept going right until the end.

The course then led to Route 1A, where it traveled along the beach in Rye. The fog had not yet lifted along this section, where it was noticeably cooler than the more inland road. I got it rolling in the 15 cog and just left it there. I thought the bike leg was 18 miles, so when I passed mile marker 9 at 21:35 I started calcing in my head that if I doubled my transition time and added it in, I would end up with a bike/transition split of nearly 46 minutes. I knew the fastest from last year was 45 minutes, so I tried to pick it up. I do a lot of that kind of thinking in a TT, or whenever I ride for that matter. Along those lines, I considered that since the run/bike/run was "symmetrical" then in theory anyone I passed from that point on would likely catch me on run 2, and anyone I had already passed would not catch me. Of course this only works out in theory, or else we could just stop at halfway and call it a race.

The last few miles of the bike course headed back inland. There was a slight wind and grade over this section, and near the end I cooled it a bit to get ready for the run. I forgot to self-time my second transition, as I was more concerned with wowing the transition crowd and obtaining maximum style points for my full speed side-saddle cyclocross dismount. Applauding my grace, agility, and athleticism (anyone who has seen me stumble my way around a cross course should be laughing pretty hard right now) they told me I was in 7th. I was out of there quickly and I crossed the chip mat marking the beginning of the run with an official bike/transitions split of 45:23, which ended up tieing for 4th fastest, 2:23 off the best. Subtracting my transitions, I think this works out to around 38 kph (23.5 mph) average, depending on what the actual length of the course really was.

Heading out on the second run, I was immediately passed by a Dartmouth College kid. I could hear others right behind me too. I wondered where they came from, as no one had passed me on the bike, and I had flown by most of the competitors early on, even though I came from a minute or two behind them. So it stood to reason I would have taken considerable time out of them during the remaining 2/3 of the bike leg. Maybe I should have ridden harder, and some of them may have preceded me into the transition too. The second run was the same loop as the first, but run in the oppposite direction. Four or five guys passed me right away on the out and back portion across the now broiling vacant lot. The Dartmouth kid had troubles here too, and when I re-passed him, he looked like death. Heading back into the woods, I found my legs and started to run pretty well. I was all alone most of the way through. The trail was too twisty to see those who were ahead, and no one was behind me. Eventually two runners came up from behind. I tried to hold them off, but then right at the end of the woods, there was one unmarked turn and I went the wrong way, then had to backtrack a dozen steps to get back on course. I tried to stay with these guys, but back on the pavement for the finish stretch, they pulled away. My second run split came out to 21:14, which like my the first split was 34th. My official finish time of 1:26:50 put me in 13th overall, 9:03 behind winner Corey Boilard. Dr. Bigs finished just a few seconds behind me.

I was hoping for a top 10 overall, and a first or second on the bike portion, but I had to be satisfied with where I ended up. With no duathlon experience, this was probably more than I should have expected. These competitors were tough, much, much better than me on the runs, and they held their own on the bike. I was drained, but the feeling was not the same as after a 40k TT bike TT. It would probably take a lot more experience to determine just how hard I could ride and still be able to finish the second run without falling apart. Maybe I did this just about right. Thanks for reading!