Canadian Standard Distance Championships - Duathlon

I've never done a duathlon so wasn't sure how to pace the run, especially with the uphill to start (I've also never run hills). I didn't want to go too hard, but figured it was only 2.5km so not enough time to do any real damage either. Settled on right around my open 5k pace. They had the water stations up and running which seemed a little ridiculous, but I took a cup and dumped it on my head.

Try running hills in training? I'm comfortable with how I paced it, though I likely could have gone a little harder.

Changeover from run to bike went relatively smooth, though I was making it up as I went along so made a few errors (left my wristband on for my garmin - a minor aero penalty, but still; took a quick squeeze of a gel since it had been almost ab hour since my last one - this would come back to haunt me later in the race)
I'm not used to having so many other people exiting T1 at the same time as me, and when I got to the mount line I literally had to stop and wait as there were 4-5 guys all clipping in and no way around them. It threw me off my whole mounting routine so that didn't go smoothly either. Easily cost me 10 seconds.

Visualize my T1 routine on the run so I knew what to do.
Pick up my bike and hop up on the curb in order to get around the other competitors? Very frustrating as I had been practicing my flying mounts and they were going well.

I had forgotten how crack and crater laden these roads could be, and it seems as though last winter was not kind to them. Rough roads and you had to have your wits about you in order to navigate the potholes.
Again, not used to exiting T1 with so many people around, and the closed course meant people riding 3 abreast, staying to the left and hugging the centre line, etc. Took the first 5km to get into the clear - I was blocked several times by other riders and once by an officiating motorcycle. After that the ride was mostly congestion-free, but I had some trouble with other riders - one guy kept passing me then immediately start coasting and drinking from his water bottle. He did this 3 times before I dropped him for good. Another guy would hammer up the hills and pass me, then coast on the way down and get re-passed. I passed a pack of 7-8 riders in a bunch going the other way and saw one of the guys arguing with an official - there were several penalties handed out so good to see that the officials were on top of it.

I was aiming to hold around 210W and I think I mostly did a good job of that, but I didn't account for the number of times I'd have to slow down in order to wait to be able to pass a group, or to wait to drop back before overtaking someone who had just passed me. When I was on my own and riding I was holding 210, but in the end my average power was 195 and nominal power was 201. I only had 3s power displayed on my garmin - next time I'll display average power too.

All went well with one hiccup - I had taken one gel with me on the bike, but it slipped out of my hands (with the rough roads, the lid had flown off my Torhans, so the gel was covered with Infinit), so I grabbed a gel in T2 to eat, but only once out on the run did I realize that it was merely the wrapper of the one I had taken in T1.

Make sure if I leave a gel wrapper in my area to put it well away from any other gels.

Before the race I was hoping to go sub-45 minutes. With the hill I wasn't sure if this was realistic anymore but I managed to average 4:19/km and did the whole thing in just over 43 minutes, which is pretty much the only positive I'll take from this race.
I alternated dumping water on my head and taking a swig of water at the aid stations, and this strategy treated me well.

Hill repeats.

Massage from Melissa and a stretch.


Properly managing the other competitors.


This race was well organized in several ways - the logistics were certainly formidable and they did a good job with the venue overall. However, it seemed as though they were unprepared for the swim to be cancelled. Way back when they announced this race, there were a lot of raised eyebrows in Ottawa - Dow's Lake is a shallow basin with minimal flowthrough in the heart of the city. There is no swimming there and for good reason. With the heat we've been having, of course water quality was going to be an issue. But they seemed to scramble at the last minute to figure out the duathlon thing, and refused to start handing out timing chips until 10 minutes before the first wave was set to go off. Why they thought they could hand out 230 timing chips in that period of time I don't know. Not a huge deal, but the delayed start did throw off people's warmup/nutrition routines.
Between the high probability of water quality issues and the rough roads, they really should consider moving to a different venue next year (Brittannia? Mooney's Bay? Gatineau?).