moments after the start. the guy that eventually won is directly behind me.
not wasting any time after my win in kingston, i headed to ottawa the following weekend to see some family and, while there, compete in my second duathlon of the season, the sommersault early bird long course duathlon. the distances of this race were 5k, 34.4k, 5k.
i was looking forward to this event because it was taking place on an amazing course. the race started and finished at carleton university, the run portions were on the shores of the rideau river, and the bike course was three laps on colonel by drive, a beautiful road that winds its way along the rideau canal. except for a nasty headwind on a few portions of the bike, the course was fast and flat.
i took the lead early in the race but the eventual race winner caught up with me at about the 2k point of the first run. for about another kilometer we were toe-to-toe and i was thinking, it looks like we've got a race here!, but he eventually outpaced me and came into the first transition ahead of me. i had a terrible transition because i had placed my bike on about the furthest bike rack from the run entrance and had to circle around the entire transition area on my way in and out, costing me very valuable seconds.
three laps later on colonel by drive, i had lost even more ground to the race leader but was still in a strong second position. the bike ride was scenic and windy, but rough in some patches because of some construction. which was actually pretty annoying because there weren't any signs on course to warn the athletes about the bumpy terrain. one bump was so big that the top of my water bottle popped off and all of my drink mix spilt all over me and my bike. that was on my first lap so i had nothing to rehydrate with for the rest of the ride. coming into transition 2 i was thirsty, annoyed and sticky from drink mix.
the race leader got me again in the final run, and ended up winning the race ahead of me by more than a minute. i chatted with him afterwards and he was actually a pretty nice guy, in town from vancouver for the week visiting family with his girlfriend. for this race i was hoping for a time of 1.35.00 or better so i was psyched with my second place time of 1.34.57.
before this event i had decided that i wasn't going to race again until at least two weeks later in milton, perhaps even skipping that race and taking an additional week off to prepare for a race in lakeside. this was my third race in as many weekends so i was looking forward to some well earned time off of competition.
