Paper Discovery Duathlon - Duathlon

Was a bit crowded going out of the start, but spread out pretty good. Decided that I wanted to go 8:00-8:10 pace and stuck to that. Actually slowed myself down a bit. In first mile I started out at about 7:15 pace and thought I would burn out too quick. felt very comfortable.

Probably push the pace a bit. My fear of burn out was overrated.

This was the first multisport race with the Garmin and as I thought, I was having a tough time figuring out the multisport function (user error) So I focked around with it a while, then I realized the time was a wasting. I was at the back of the transition area and had to run up hill, on pavement. It was a mess.

just about everything. First transition of the season and it showed.

getting out of town sucked. we were confined to a narrow bike lane and being in a late wave it was crowded. Both car and bike traffic was heavy. Also there was a racer down and being attended by emt's. This really slowed things down and gave me a bit of a lump in my throat. The first two miles out I was still messing with the garmin. I didn't realize that I had stopped it in transition. So I was looking down and I thought it said 16.4 mph, and I thought I was going faster than that. Then I realized that I was looking at my heartrate (164) duh! So I only had data for the last 20 miles. Good news is for the 20 my avg. was 18.3. It was really windy (20 mph with strong gusts.) Somethimes it was a headwind, sometimes tail and sometimes cross. I was not going to let that wind get me this year. I just tucked into the aero and plowed ahead. I love my new bike (Cervelo Dual).I passed a ton of people. Each time I repeated to myself "look out Donkey on the edge coming through" This made me smile. People must have thought I was nuts as we pushed through the wind.

not much. maybe pushed even harder. I was still pretty fresh when I arrived in transition. My avg speed for the bike last year when I did it this race(also windy) was 15.56. It is tough not to be happy with this improvement.

Would have been even shorter, except I drank in transition. With the winds so strong, I was afraid I would loose my balance if I drank on the bike. So this was the only chance I had. I can't do that again. I got away with in cool temps, but I would have been in trouble with a longer or hotter race.

drink on the bike

Felt strong on this run. Typically you (at least I) lose sometime on the second run (last year was a 4 min. diff between 1st and 2nd run) But I kept pretty much the same pace as first. Never really hurt on this one. In fact I think I could/should have pushed a bit more at the end. Supposed to a 5k, but the Garmin had this at 3.18 for both legs.

pushed harder, redlined it a bit.

stretched a wee bit, but not much. Had a family obligation, so we were packed up and out of there within 15 minutes of finishing.


the usual: genetics, not quite pushing hard enough at end, wind


Wore my Team Turbo Donkey jersy and got lots of positive comments both from other racers and volunteers. EEEEAAAAWWWW!! Overall satisfied with this effort for an early season race. Still lots of work to do, but I'm making progress.