Gear West Duathlon - DuathlonStandard

this is my first duathlon and my first race not on pavement. I attempted to keep up with Drew. he was m goal pace for the whole race. i was about 4 seconds behind him going into transition.

I need more speed work. I felt like i could have ran that pace for much longer than this distance, but i had no more speed in my legs.

In transition i was quick. once i got to the nmount line is where it all fell apart. I am very used to jumping onto my already clipped in shoes out of transiion. However, i have always done this barefoot. this is my first and LAST attempt to do this with socks on. I have not run enough without socks to do a race without killing my feet. if it was a Tri i would have still gone without socks. I did not want to have to try a second run with blisters.

So when i tried to put my feet into my shoes while riding down the road, my socks stuck to the velcro straps and would not let go. it took me forever and much effort, to get them unstuck and then get them into the shoes.

Not wear socks. or put shoes on while on the ground then mount bike and go

After the horrible beginning with my shoes, I completely lost Drew. I did not see him again until the end. overall i cant complain. I felt like i could hold that pace much longer than the distance of the race. the hills were a weakness.

more speed work and more hill workouts.

once again my feet stuck to the tops of my bike shoes. might have been better to just leave my feet in the shoes. however with wet ground and me not being very stable in bike shoes, i was worried about hurting myself. so i got out of them on the bike.

not wear socks

my legs were a little tired, but not nearly as fatigued as i expected. with this being my first Du i did not know what to expect. By this time the course was very damp and trampled fairly well. for the most part there was still good traction,but i definitely was consciencous of my footing. Also when we went back into the woods the tree branches were low enough that i had to worry abou those smacking me in the face as well as watching my foot placement.

Again i felt like i could have gone this pace much longer than the end of the race, but i had no more speed to give. I need to do some more intervals and more importantly some good tempo runs. I need to get my run speed back up to last years and beyond.

ate a hotdog and talked to Drew. He finshed a little over 2 minutes ahead of me.


speed and power. I have plenty of endurance I just need more shorter distance speed.


I will probably do this race next year. I like to gauge my performances on same race comparisons. This was a good gauge of how much work i need to do. I am ahead of last year at this time for overall endurance and mileage, but behind speed. SO i need to switch gears a little and get some speed.