2010 Duathlon Nationals

I always find April to be awfully early to perform at a National Championship worthy level, but that’s when they have it.  All I can do is go do what I can with what fitness I’ve scrounged up so far and try and pick up another national title (if the stars align).

After a series of high profile duathlons in Richmond with a wide variety of gross weather (snow, pouring rain, steaming heat), Mother Nature finally delivered a comfortably cool, overcast day. 

About the course:

The Runs.  Well, it’s not flat and we don’t finish downhill.  The final trip up that nasty hill was cruel indeed.

The Bike.  It’s not a fast course, but it’s a fun one with lots of twists, turns, ups and downs.  We cross a couple of bridges about 1,000 times each of the three laps, so it seemed like we were crossing bridges almost all of the time. 

About the race:

There was one very serious runner who took off very fast down the first super steep hill.  From there, she extended her lead while I tried to not overrun the first 5k and still keep her in sight.  By about a quarter mile in, I was alone, which felt strange.  I maintained about a 30 second gap between myself and the fast runner, then switched to bike gear with one of the fastest transitions of the day.  Actually, I tied with Kristin Villopoto for fastest T1 of the day.  Score!

I felt pretty good on the bike.  Well, I didn’t feel bad.  Not powerful like I will later in the season, but that’s April racing for you.  I passed the faster runner about a mile into the bike, which gave me a lot of confidence that I could pull off the age group win so long as I didn’t run into any bad luck, like so many of those I saw on the side of the road with flats. 

Here’s my Garmin output (I didn’t stop timer for a while after, so that’s why it looks funny).

The only bad luck  I had was trouble getting my left foot into my cycling shoe at the beginning of the bike.  The heel portion had folded over and I crammed my finger in to try and fix it.  No dice.  I do have a nice, purple sprained finger to show for that move though.  Rocket genius, I know.  Best of all, I finally just leave it and it works itself out on its own.

Transition #2 isn’t quite so impressive, but not terrible.  I run fine the second 5k, although I felt a little low on calories the final mile when I only got passed by one guy from the 35-39 men who started 15 minutes after us.  He was flying at 5ish pace, on his way to 2nd overall.  I still made it to the finish, although I wanted to puke finishing hard up that last, long hill.   I didn’t though.  I’m not talented like that.  Maybe I’m just not intense enough.

So, yeah, I’m psyched to win the age group!  I was also 5th female overall and 2nd masters female.  Ann Davidson from Oregon, 47, blew the doors off, but hey, I live near the duathlon legend Kristin Villopoto, so it’s not like I’m not used to getting beat by a faster, older thoroughbred racer like that.  

National Championship number one for 2010– Check!  Two more to go LATER in the season.

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