Last sprint duathlon of the season. My 5th. Goal was to finish 1:55 or better.

Good weather. cool, sunny. The original venue in the conservation area was moved to another area due to water quality issues. Delayed the start as people were late getting there. Very congested.

1200 athletes, 175 of them duathletes. I'm in second wave - All women and men over 50.

Run #1: 2k My watch indicates 9:10. On pace here. I always find about 1k into my run, my upper arms hurt. I guess it's a signal I'm working hard and using my arms to propel me. At the end of 2k we have to go in the swim entrance where I noted there was no timing mat. Hmm, how do they calculate run?

Run up to my bike. I am close to bike entrance which is a small up and down endeavor. My goal for bike was around an hour. Have been really trying to improve bike speed this year. Turn my polar on. No HR reading for a few minutes. Then it reads 35 for AHR. Nice! Decide not to fiddle with it as it will take away from my goal. I decide to just go by cadence. Try to keep that around 100. Nice rolling course. Many pass me. But many block and are not moving to the side of the road when not passing. Very congested at times, but I vow not to go over the centre line of the road as many others are doing. Just keep shouting "On your left" to get those blockers to move over. I finish in around an hour.

Go to rack my bike. Ack.. no room! Squeeze my body in between some bikes, push a few bikes and wedge my bike in. Totally unprepared and totally annoyed at this scenario.

Run #2. Not a hard course, but I involved myself in a lot of negative self talk. We were running through a campground, so people had lit a few fires (smoke)and were cooking which made me feel so nauseated. Some guy behind me was talking about eating. Not exactly what I feel like doing during a race! Was planning on doing 7K in 35 minutes. Ended up being 39 and change.


1:51:33 W50-59 4/9

2k 3 90 10:14 5:07
30k 4 103 1:01:08 29.4 T2 1:11
7k 4 108 39:02 5:35

So it looks like they calculated running time by adding on T1 to run. At least I know what I am capable of for first run. 2nd run..seems to go well in training. I fall apart here in races.

There were about 12 DQs this race. Most were for going over centre line. One was for not doing course properly. She finished very quickly and was noted to have avg speed of 45kph! (shades of Rosie?) I 'm not sure how you miss some of course - it was very well marked.

One athlete went down at finish. They did CPR, paramedics defibrillated his heart. He actually got up and moved himself to stretcher. Amazing!

What I have learned is that I do enjoy being somewhat competitive (2 podium finishes) and I am looking to improve performance and racing for next summer. Lots of hard work over the winter. Will look at aero bars. Maybe wheels. Core work. More speed and endurance drills.

This summer was a great summer of racing after my inability to race last year.

"To infinity and beyond!"