T-Gator Series Duathlon - Duathlon

The run started off really fast. It broke into two groups in the front and I was trailing the second group. Slowly started picking off the runners that had went out too fast and hoped I wasn't one of them.

Included in bike time.

Started out kind of hot on the bike and then settled down into a nice rhythm. I love this bike course. The roads are great and it has small hills to keep you from zoning out too much. I pushed the bike pretty hard and was very happy with the time. I was over 31 minutes last year so all the work I have been putting in this winter appears to be working. When I took my feet out of shoes before T1 my hip flexors felt like they were going to cramp. I had to stand and pedal for a few seconds to ease them up.

Included in bike time.

It is hard to tell how fast you are going on second run. I don't run these short races with HR or GPS because it psychs me out. If I am going fast I will think I can't hold it and slow down. On the way out to the turn around I was wondering what place i was in. When the runners started coming back the other way I found out I was in 10th place. There was a guy about 25 yards in front of me that was running about the same pace as me. After the turn around I guy eased by me and I tried to stay on his heels. I did for maybe a couple hundred yards and then I fell off. It had closed about half the gap to the guy in front of me so I was happy and thought I may be able to catch him but when the faster guy ran by him, he jumped on his heels and took off. Oh well.

I missed 10th place and 1st in my age group by 14 seconds but I can honestly say that I didn't have 14 seconds anywhere in the race to pick up. I will just train hard again this coming winter and try again next year.