Paper Discovery Duathlon - Duathlon

at the end of this segment is where the troubles began: something was goofy with the timing mat so they didn't have a time for T1, they just added 2 mins to everyone's run time. Unofficial run #1 by my watch: 20:06 (06:17 min/mi). It's a good run course. Scenic; the water running behind the Paper center was raging; looked very scary, would not want to fall in.

I hadn't been on a "real run" for three weeks trying to rehab my ITBand in time for this race. Didn't feel it at all during this segment; could have pushed a little harder, but didn't know the course and wanted to save as much as possible for the bike (which I really wanted to hammer).

they didn't give an official time for T1 because of the mat screw-up, but unofficially on my watch I was in and out in 30 seconds. Which sounds great (I had my shoes clipped in to my pedals, pulled off the running shoes, strapped on helmet, and was off). Getting into my shoes on the bike was abysmal: I had one foot in my shoe, and the other riding on top until I got to the top of the hill (there is a steep hill right out of transition). Lost time on the bike segment b/c I was screwing around with getting my feet into the shoes.

practice this transition more on the actual road. I had practiced a lot on the bike trainer, but when you don't have worry about balancing on your bike, the sensation is really different. T1 time (again unofficial) was great, but in practice it was horrible.

OK; this was really disappointing. The 5 minute wait for the train to pass was horrible; just kept circling and circling until I saw the tail end of the train and then tried to hit corssing the railroad tracks with some speed. There was a great big peloton of riders (30+?) waiting on that train and we all started off in a pack. I wanted to get to the front as soon as possible because I was afraid of the race officials handing out drafting penalties. I pushed up to 3rd place in the pack and stayed in back of some young kid (early 20s) by the required 7 bike lengths until about mile 9, then I passed him on a gradual hill. He looked very pissed off. The lead guy in the pack was about 200 yds ahead of me and I tried to stay that far behind, but could tell he was slowly pulling away. I never caught him, but the pissed off kid did catch me with 2 blocks left in the bike segment and beat me going into transition. He muttered something stupid as we crossed the timing mat and I just said "Nice job catching me"; if he needs to feel good because he caught up to a 43 year old guy, then I hope I made him happy.

Unofficial time by my watch: 00:59:35 (22.37 MPH) - 2nd in AG, 15th overall

I lost focus when we got back into town and left the aero position too often. I kept thinking the final turn was right around the corner. Should have stayed focused through the whole bike segment. I had pushed really hard on the bike through the headwind and was not confident with exiting my shoes while on the bike, so I un-clipped at the dismount line. I need to practice getting out of my shoes while on the bike. Again, doing it on the trainer is nothing like the real world.

See above. Not bad given that I was clomping through the transition area in my bike shoes. Would have been half this if I had been able to exit the shoes on my bike.

Practice this transition.

Hurt a whole lot; missed my turn up the hill because I was focused on my knee (pain returned in the ITB during this segment). Some kind soul told me that I missed the turn and I doubled back; added about 60-70 yds extra to the course. Not what I needed. Did no thave my usual kick at the end. I like to sprint for the last 10% of the race, but did not have it on this day.

Pay attention to the course markers better.

Ate some stuff, stretched what I could. Collected gear, tried to get race official to tell me what they were going to do about those of us that had been stopped by the train.


I did not feel comfortable on the bike. Kind of like my body was not in alignment for maximum power output. Even before the train incident, I just didn't feel like I was using my legs properly. The inability to do real run training for 3 weeks prior to the event was not helpful. I am not good at rehab; I want to come back too soon. I probably shouldn't have even done this race as now my knee is hurting again and I'm suppose to race at Galena in two weeks.


OK, so they can't count on getting the freight trains to stop for the 2 hours it takes to run the race, but I think they need to plan for this better: have a few volunteers stationed at the tracks to take down numbers and "stoppage time" for the riders that get stuck behind the trains. Test the timing mats befor the race so that they can be counted on.

Still don't know why the race official deducted time from other participants overall times for being stuck at the train, but didn't do so for me (she said she was phoning it in right after we spoke). Probably has something to do with the fact that deduction would have placed me in the top 3 for my AG, and I hadn't stuck around for the awards ceremony. Oh well, I was looking at it as just a training day, but would have been nice to walk away with something after the 6 hour drive to and from the race.