Early season sprint duathlon fun
I'm running a draft legal sprint duathlon the day after tomorrow. I live in Italy so pretty much everything short course is ITU style draft legal. My race plan should be pretty entertaining.
The race is 5k run, 20k bike, 3k run.
I'm going to run the 5k 30 secs off my open time. I'm going to start the bike with 2 mins of "let the legs settle in" time, then go at just over FTP. With about 5k left in the bike I'm going to empty the tank and go for it like the finish line is at the beginning of T2. I figure that the 3k run is so short that if I've got 1 min on anyone behind me then I'll just do as much damage control as possible and try to hang on.
I've always felt like I've had something left in the tank on short course races so this is an experiment. It should definitely be interesting.
I'll comment on this thread in 2 days to let you know if it ended in carnage or glory or both.
Comments
So here's the report of my first duathlon, first multi-sport race of the year, and first draft legal race all in one shot.
I had to ride a borrowed road bike that I thankfully was able to get a decent fit on prior to the race. I will be buying a road bike soonish because about 80% of short course races here are draft legal.
First of all, draft legal hit me smack in the face. As I said above, the race was 5K run, 20K bike, 3K run. Super super short. I ran the 5K in about 18:20 which put me in between the 2nd and 3rd groups starting the bike. The first group was composed of about 12 speed demons who ran the 5K in the high 16s. The second all finished the 5K in the high 17s and the third was about 20-30 secs after me. It didn't work out perfectly like that, but that is how they ended up grouping on the bike. I struggled miserably for the first 5-8 mins trying to bridge up to the 2nd group and failed miserably. I was averaging about 24-25mph at like 115% of my FTP and spiking like crazy on hills trying to catch them. I eventually gave that one up and the third group caught me. I settled in and the pace was wicked. From the point that I landed in the group (15ish people), I averaged just under 30mph for the rest of the bike leg. It was a crazy fast pace line with each person spending like 10 secs up front just hammering. There was litterally zero chance of anyone making a break off the front. Coming out of every corner was a sprint, and up hills people were just killing it with most of the group standing just mashing pedals. Due to the fact that I was on a borrowed bike, I have no power numbers, but I'm sure my VI would be off the charts.
I haven't mentioned this yet, but I live in Italy and speak very little Italian. I parle enough to get around, order food, and have the short casual onversation, but in a pace line going 30mph on a winding course, I definitely felt a bit of the language barrier.
I ended up having some of the fastest transitions in the race with T1 at like 30 secs and T2 at like 28. I ran the last 3K pretty fast at like a 5:45 m/mile pace.
I still didn't finish the race feeling like I emptied the tank. I need to figure out how to really push to the point of exhaustion. I'm not that much more tired than my open 5K last week, and my 5K time for the first leg of the race was only 20 secs off that pace.
Overall I was pretty pleased with the result as I finished just off the top 3rd in my first race of this kind and it was a good test of a part of my cycling fitness on a super short course. Also, draft legal is so so fun that I can't wait to do my next race.
Another thing I've noticed is that Italians don't race just on a whim. Everyone shows up trained. The slowest 5K (men and women) was 28 mins. With 90% of times below 22 mins. It was a 250 person race.
YEAH - that sounds way better than sitting inside watching Milano-San Remo on my computer (or at least the last hour), which is what I did yesterday AM. Nothing like a wicked pace line to test your legs and up your fitness; and your run afterwards shows you are ready to rock.
Yeah and the best part is that, at local races in Italy, instead of giving out T-shirts and water bottles, they gave me a bottle of wine, a 750ml bottle of olive oil, and a bag of penne pasta as part of my race packet.
That sounds like an awesome experience.
And a wickedly high-performance field overall.