COURSE: The race was advertised as a 3.1M Run, 28M Bike, 3.1M Run. The run portions were a little short and the bike course was a little long with actual distances being 3M Run, 28.7M Bike, 3M Run. The course was flat and fast with an elevation gain of only 30 ft for the run and 95 ft for the bike. Transition was located at the Whalehead Club.
The race started at 8 am and the weather was 52 degrees. By the end of the race it was approaching 70 degrees. My race goals were a 6:45 pace for run one, 21 mph on the bike, and 7:00 pace for run two.
RUN ONE: I settled into a 6:39 pace for the first two miles and found myself in sixth place at the turnaround point. It didn't take me long to move up to fourth as the other racers who went out too fast began to slow down. I caught up with third place in the last quarter mile of the run. We matched paces for a couple hundred yards and realized we had raced one another at the Naylor's Beach Duathlon last year. He took second overall at that race and I ended up in third, so it was a great feeling when I shifted into a higher gear and beat him into Transition One.
TRANSITION ONE: All that transition training paid off! I was in and out in 22.2 seconds, the fastest time of the day!
BIKE: The flying bike mount was a success! I leapt onto my saddle, slipped my feet into my cycling shoes, put my head down, and hammered away. This was my first race using the PowerTap P1 pedals and I used my 3-second average power reading along with cadence to manage my effort. My average power was 239 watts and average cadence was 103 rpm which resulted in an average speed of 22.3 mph! As I said earlier, this was a flat and fast course. For nutrition I took in one Gu packet, one packet of Gu chews, two salt tablets, a bottle of Tailwind and a bottle of water. Nobody passed me on the bike portion and I increased my lead over fourth place. I ended up with the third fastest bike spit of the day.
TRANSITION TWO: Not quite as fast as the first. I took a moment to dig around for another salt tablet in my top tube bag, but I wasn't able to find it. Total time was 36.6 seconds.
RUN TWO: I started the run off strong but my calves started to cramp after 5 minutes. I took three short walk breaks over the remainder of the course and the cramps subsided. Fortunately I was able to finish strong with an average pace of 6:53 per mile.
I couldn't be happier with the results! I was the first non-elite finisher and beat all my time and pace goals. I'm feeling strong and confident going into Nationals.
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| OBXDUO 2017 - Third Place Overall! |
