a fantastic venue, a challenging course, a sunny, beautiful day. today i was racing the sprint duathlon in peterborough and found myself amidst all three of those. held at beavermead park, this was one of the prettiest racing venues i've been to. massive fields of green, bridges, rivers, a lake and recreational trails. and those are only the things i saw while on course. this was a quick sprint consisting of a 2k run, a 20k bike, and a 5k run, we were racing alongside the sprint triathletes and the long course tri/du athletes (2k swim/85k bike/21.1k run for long course triathletes, 2k run/85k bike/21.1k run for the long course du).
the first run of the duathlon looped around the soccer fields in the park. the course was sketchy in a few parts because of the soft grass and muddy ruts but, before i knew it, i was already at the turnaround point on my way back to transition. in the lead off the start line and for most of the first run, i came into t1 with two other athletes at the same time, barely two seconds separating all three of us. i'm skeptical about the actual distance of the first run. it was supposed to be a 2k run and i finished it with a time of 5.59, and i've never run a kilometre in less than 3 minutes, let alone two of them back-to-back.
with a quick transition i was off on the 20k bike ride, just behind jason lacombe, one of the two other athletes i came into transition with. i got held up in the no passing zone by a slower athlete so jason got ahead of me right away on the bike, and i didn't see him again until the turnaround at the 10k mark. i also got passed by david frake, the third athlete to come into t1 with jason and me. i didn't see david again until post-finish and, for some unknown reason, he was disqualified from the race. my guess is that he was either caught crossing the centre line of the road while riding (the bike course was PACKED with slower triathletes and the lead duathletes had to weave through all of the traffic), or else he passed someone in the no passing zone. anyways, the bike course was a challenging little ride. it was fast going out for a little bit thanks to a nice tailwind, and there was a nice variety of tough-but-not-too-tough rollers that kept you on your toes. this was my first real opportunity to test out my new aero position and, making my way through all of the triathlete traffic and battling the headwinds on the way back to t2, i started the last 5k run roughly a minute behind jason.
this ended up being a race between jason, david and myself. at the halfway point of the second run i spotted jason ahead of me and realized that i'd made up some ground. i tried pushing it for awhile to see if i could catch up to him but he was just too far ahead. jason (1st place) got me (3rd place) by about 40 seconds, and the next closest competitor was behind me by almost two minutes. because of david's DQ i officially ended up with a 2nd place finish, but david was fast out there and beat me to the line. i don't know why he was disqualified but, regardless, he's a much faster athlete than i am. i would have happily accepted 3rd overall and given him his 2nd place finish.
but i'm very happy with my time of 58.38. my next race is my big one for the year and it's almost exactly double the distance of this race. i would love to finish my next race in gravenhurst in a time of less than 2.05.00 and, according to my results today, i may be able to do that. however, gravenhurst is a very tough, technical course with lots of hills and very few flat sections, and over the past couple of years winners of the event have been crossing the line with times in the 2.10.00 range. i think that a time of less than 2.15.00 would be respectable so that's what i've set my sights on. i'm not sure if that time will be good enough to qualify for the national team but i guess we'll see.
so for now it's back to training for the national qualifier in two weeks. i'm giving myself almost no downtime after my race today so that i can keep my momentum going. i've had great races back to back and, hopefully, it only will only get better from here.
