Paper Discovery duathlon - Duathlon


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Neenah, Wisconsin
United States
MidWest Sports Events
65F / 18C
Sunny
Total Time = 1h 20m 13s
Overall Rank = 48/524
Age Group = M25-29
Age Group Rank = 7/34
Pre-race routine:

Well, I got up at 4:00 am. Thursday and Friday night I pulled all nighters to get my week's work done(which is ridiculous -- who stays up all night doing work on a Friday?). Then Saturday afternoon I slept for 7 hours. Then I went to bed between 12:00 and 1:00 am. Strangely I couldn't sleep. So, I got about 10 hours of sleep over 3 nights, so all my goals pretty much had to go out the door.

I ate a McDonald's parfait and stole a banana from my ever-trusting-but-now-bananaless roommate for breakfast. Put on my tri suit for the first time in 6 months and realized I had gained quite a bit of fatness over the winter. My weight hasn't changed--it has just all redistributed to my stomach. Hit the road about 1/2-hour late, but I was in the 10th wave so I got an extra 20 minutes to warm up.
Event warmup:

Jogged for about a mile. Then I did some stretching, but not very much. By the time I was stretching I had about 10 minutes before my wave started. I ate a GU about 20 minutes before the start.
Run
  • 11m 54s
  • 2 miles
  • 05m 57s  min/mile
Comments:

Beat everyone in my wave, which was cool I guess. Actually I beat them by a lot. I definitely felt the effects of sleeplessness on this one. My breathing was more labored than it should have been and my heart was working harder, and then in the second mile my chest started hurting really bad. I decided I would be happy with 6:00/mile. Since the 1st mile was a bit under this, I got to back off for the 2nd mile. My legs actually felt pretty good when I finished. Oh yeah, a BTer cheered for me when I was getting close to the finish. That was pretty cool.

According to my watch:
Mile 1: 5:47
Mile 2: 6:05


What would you do differently?:

Nothing.
Transition 1
  • 01m 21s
Comments:

Not the greatest T1. I've had faster transitions with a wetsuit on! I put my aero helmet on over my sunglasses, which was awkward because there isn't much space. Normally I go sunglassesless but this would be a full hour on the bike so I wanted them.

After I grabbed my bike I had to squeeze it through the 2-foot space between racks on my way to the exit. Every bike in my wave and the later waves was there. Seemed stupid to put the later waves closest to the exit, and the racks were way too close. If they reversed the order early waves would move their bikes out of the way and no one would have any problems.

Clipping in wasn't real good. When I was finishing up the run I was watching all the people trying and failing to clip in. It was pretty funny, actually. So, I knew I was going to have the same problem. I guess running before a bike ruins your aim.

What would you do differently?:

Register early to get in an early wave.
Bike
  • 53m 55s
  • 20 miles
  • 22.26 mile/hr
Comments:

Again, I had to work harder than usual for a given pace, and I couldn't put out as much power as usual. I averaged about 200 W, and my FTP is 230 W. By definition I should have been up at 230.

Starting the bike 10 waves back was the most annoying experience I have had in a long time. I had to pass everyone, although that wouldn't have been inherently bad. The bad part was that people were all over the road, riding in crazy ways. People with the whole road to themselves were on the left half of the lane quite often. I'm a die-hard left-hand passer, so I had to swing way into the other lane a lot of times. I finally got annoyed and started doing right-hand passes at 24 mph. Not very safe in hindsight.

I have sciatica in my left leg, and it bothered me real bad for the 1st half of the ride. Eventually it went away, and the 2nd half of the bike was faster. Weirdly, my groin muscles were pretty sore after this ride. I guess I need to work those suckers out.

I thought that the course was 22 miles for some reason, so the end of the course surprised me. In hindsight I could have pushed harder. My goal for this race was actually to hit 22 mph for the bike leg, and that was before the whole staying-awake-for-days-on-end thing. So, it was cool that I hit that.

Miles 1 - 5: 14:02
Miles 6 - 10: 14:03
Miles 11 - 15: 13:16
Miles 16 - 20: 12:03 <-- wish I could do that all the time
What would you do differently?:

Do 230 W.
Transition 2
  • 01m 3s
Comments:

I didn't get to do a flying dismount, because the end caught me by surprise. That had a big impact on my T2 time.

Other than that it was pretty uneventful. All the bikes were gone now, so I didn't have trouble moving through the racks :) Apparently I was first in my wave in the bike too.
What would you do differently?:

Flying dismount!
Run
  • 11m 58s
  • 2 miles
  • 05m 59s  min/mile
Comments:

Gotta love the first brick of the season. My legs didn't want to move, but I think they started to improve about 1/4 mile in. After one mile my legs were back to normal. Probably my biggest problem was that my stomach felt a little bad. It was hard to be motivated to pass people, because they were from different waves. So, I just tried to cruise with a minimum of discomfort.

Mile 1: 6:16
Mile 2: 5:42
What would you do differently?:

Nothing.
Post race
Warm down:

Tried to jog but couldn't since my hands were full of food. So I did some stretching. Met a couple BTers, too.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Poor preparation this week.

Event comments:

I give them 4 stars because I don't like it when wave seeding is done 1st-come-1st-serve. Thanks to their seeding I no longer fear cat-5 crits. They really should have people submit times (I think they do, actually) and then put the faster people first (they definitely don't). It's just so much safer for everyone when you don't have faster bikers sneaking up on people going twice their speed.

Here are some good points. The bike course was flat, fast and fun. The post race food was really good. They did a very good job with that, and the shirt was good looking and true to size. And not cotton.




Last updated: 2009-04-29 12:00 AM
Running
00:11:54 | 02 miles | 05m 57s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/34
Overall: 0/524
Performance: Good
Course:
Keeping cool Good Drinking
T1
Time: 01:21
Overall: Average
Run with bike? Average
Jump on bike?
Getting up to speed and into shoes: Good
Biking
00:53:55 | 20 miles | 22.26 mile/hr
Age Group: 0/34
Overall: 0/524
Performance: Good
Wind:
Course:
Road: Smooth Dry Cadence:
Turns: Good Cornering: Good
Gear changes: Good Hills: Good
Race pace: Hard Drinks: Just right
T2
Time: 01:03
Overall: Average
Riding w/ feet on shoes
Jumping off bike
Running with bike Good
Racking bike Good
Shoe and helmet removal Good
Running
00:11:58 | 02 miles | 05m 59s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/34
Overall: 0/524
Performance: Good
Course:
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 5
Physical exertion [1-5] 5
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Too easy
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Good
Race evaluation [1-5] 4