Weekend Racing Update - Part 2

The Turtle Pond Road Race was only half the story this weekend. Up next on Sunday morning came the Wrentham Duathlon. This event is put on by Fiske Independent Race Management, a local company that partners with Lions Clubs and other civic organizations to produce regional multisport events. FIRM, as it's known, has an annual Grand Prix Series, of which the Wrentham race is a part of. This forces the participation of all the triathletes interested in the series competition, who might otherwise skip a duathlon, or at least that was the grumbling and scuttlebutt I heard around the parking lot. Not that it mattered to me. The end result was a pretty strong looking field lined up for the start of the 3 mile run - 11 mile bike - 2 mile run event. There were about 300 individuals and 20 teams of two entered.

Luckily for me, the event is held in nearby Wrentham, MA, so I am a bit familiar with the area, as it lies within my extended training radius. With an 8:30 am start, the short trip over was much appreciated after a long day Saturday. The weather was perfect, a touch cool in the morning but quickly warming into the 70's. I wasn't sure what to wear, as I don't own any multisport specific clothing. In the past, I've experienced some pretty nasty ass rash from running in cycling shorts. All my new stuff have pretty hefty chamois in them, so I had to be cautious. I decided to go with the long-sleeve BOB skinsuit, but to protect against chamois diggage, I liberally coated the affected areas with BodyGlide, then took out extra insurance in the form of a pair of UnderArmour compression shorts. I BG'd all the seams on those too, as well as those in the skinsuit. For such a short event, this unconventional setup was comfortable enough, and post race I'm happy to report my perfect hairless ass is rash free. I'm sure you're glad I shared this.

Registration was pretty messed up, as they didn't have the "day of" applications on a separate table, they had them where the registar was. The woman working registration had lots of friends too, and spent most of her time chatting it up with them while the other latecomers filled out their applications at the head of the line. After about twenty agonizing minutes, the six people ahead of me got finished and I made it up with my downloaded and pre-filled form, picking up my chip and numbers.

My legs were pretty toasted from TP on Saturday, so I really wanted to run to warm up, especially since the run legs were so short. However, I'd just thrown my new Vision Tech aerobars onto the race bike in the morning, and so I needed to try them out. I kitted up and rode the first few miles of the course and back, and all seemed fine, so I took the bike to transition. At least there was plenty of room, and designated spots. There was some pretty serious hardware in there too. I just had my alloy Shimano DA 7701 wheels and clipons, and I racked my bike amongst the flotilla of carbonary before going off for the shortest of jogs. By now it was nearing race time, and everyone was lining up so I headed over. They then announced a short delay, so I got to run a few hundred meters with some of the others before shuffling back into the pack a few rows behind the front. This bunch looked serious, and with my lack of warmup I figured I would not be nearly as fast at some of them, and I was right.

The run course was very flat. The gun went off and I immediately suffered while trying to hold a decent pace. It felt really hard, yet tons of runners were surging ahead of me. I was dieing, and we weren't even a half mile into it. Then I remembered that some of these people were on teams, and I probably wasn't really forty people back, it just looked that way. There were some mileage notes painted on the road, but no signs, so it was hard to be sure of my pace. The announcer had stated confidently that the course was exactly three miles, but I've seen some pretty suspect distances at other FIRM events, so I remained unconvinced. During the middle of the leg, nobody passed me, but I didn't catch anyone either. In the last third of it, a few more surged past me. I did not feel too good. Heading into the chute and over the timing mat, 19:39 showed on the clock. OK, it wasn't that slow.

My bike was in one of the nearer racks. I ran right over and started looking... It wasn't there! I frantically ran to the end and checked the sign, yes 300-306. Where was it? FUCK! I'm searching back and forth, scanning the racks, nothing. After about what seemed like thirty seconds, but was probably less, I looked down in front of me and there it was. I couldn't have been any closer to it unless I was riding it. Dumbass. I've still got something to learn here. I sat down and pulled off my running shoes, and slipped into my two strap Carnac MTB shoes. I'd swapped out my Speedplays for the MTB ATACS so that I could use these shoes for the mandatory runs in and out of transition. We were on grass anyway, but this was still better. By now I had sweat running in my eyes from my panic, so I took a few more seconds to pull off (huh-huh) my glasses and towel my face before trotting out.

Once on the bike, I now had to be behind at least fifty people, maybe more. At least I felt great. I quickly got in a rhythm and started flying past people one by one. Having ridden the first few miles of the bike course, I knew what to expect here. Once onto the uncharted part of the course, there were a few rollers, but I just geared down for them and kept blowing by people. I had a 12-27 on, so a 52x24 was at my disposal should I need it, with no thoughts of ever needing the small ring. There was, however, a pretty decent little climb at about the four mile mark. This had me off the saddle for twenty seconds or so. It was about a half of the Turtle Pond climb. Once over the top, there were still riders everywhere, and we were on the long descent they'd warned us about. Well, it was residential, and two cars squeezed out of a side street in front of us, only to quickly get stuck behind more riders ahead who were spread across the road.
It was a pedal downhill, and I soon caught the cars, and with a right hander coming up at the bottom of the descent, I was worried about what they might do.

Luckily, I and another were able to blow past the cars on the left just before the turn, and scoot through the intersection in a nice arc without losing too much momentum. Now we were out on a wider, flatter road that I recognized from training. There were a few rollers on it. By now I'd worked my way up into the front 25 or so riders, and they were more spread out and moving faster. Yes, it's enjoyable blowing past people on full aero rigs when you're just riding your road bike with clipons. No, nobody passed me. I continually ate up riders all the way to Norfolk center. There was one more little rise that had me off the saddle, but most of this was 52x15 and 14 stuff. After Norfolk there was another descent and I was in the 12. The riders were now very spaced apart. Checking my watch, I saw about 40 minutes had passed since the start. Having flashbacks to the run leg #2 suffering at the Eliot Duathlon back in the fall, I planned to cool it on the bike for the last five minutes or so of the ride. I passed the two lead women, one of whom was pushing the limits of the drafting rule, following the leader only about four bike lengths back. A short distance later I started to ease up, as we were now back on the run course and only a mile or so from transition. I heard some shifting back there and noticed I had a female in tow... There was one guy 50 meters or so ahead of me, but he was going well and I was going to just hold my spot into transition, but he started to slow too, then Miss Sortofdrafting comes sprinting by. After all, the two women were in a fight for the win, so they weren't just messing around like me. But, I didn't want a crowd in front of me to spoil my quest for style points with a cyclocross dismount, so I put on a big Cipo sprint around all three of them before doing my best Roy Rogers one legged side saddle flying leap off the bike and across the mat.

This time I tried to remember to time my transition, as the official timers would not break them out (T1 is included in the bike split, and T2 in the run 2 split). Things went a little better this time. I clicked my watch as soon as I got to my rack, then again when I left the fenced area, and it was 47 seconds. Out on the run, the two women had beaten me out, along with another, who I think was part of a team. There was also a big guy, who ended up winning the Clydesdales.

I tried to keep pace with these people, but they were out of my league. The women just pulled away. After about a mile, another trio passed me, and one of them looked to be 45+ for sure, maybe older. Despite his bizarre stride, no doubt brought on by years of endurosport torture and injury (you know the type, it was painful to watch), I had no response to his passing and he pulled away. Turned out to be second place in my age group, and first wasn't far ahead of him either. I think this guy knew the leader was just ahead, and was putting on a chase. I just hung on for dear life and crossed the line with a run split of 14:07 (including T2) and an overall of 1:03:10, 24th individual, holding off 4th and 5th in my age group by just 10 and 20 seconds respectively.

Later I was happy to learn my bike split was best in my group, and 7th overall, with the six who bettered me coincidentally taking the first six positions in the overall. Considering my equipment deficit, the over-cooling it in the end, and the hard race in my legs from Saturday, I think I've got that part pretty well covered. If I can find 20 seconds/mile in my runs, I might have a shot at my age group in one of these things. There are still at least three more on deck this spring, although the next one also has a hard bike race the day before. That's the scoop, no time for proofing, just clicking publish, thanks for reading.