Race Report - Cobourg Duathlons
Date: Saturday August 12 & Sunday August 13, 2006.
Location: Victoria Park, Cobourg, Ontario
Description: 5 km Run, 20 km Bike, 2.5 km Run (Sprint Du), 5/32/5 km (Regular Du)
Website: www.multisportcanada.com
With Cobourg being only 1 hr away “doing the double” (racing 2x in 2 days) was in the cards for this past weekend. Plus, it would be my final blast weekend before Ironman Canada.
I had planed a big training week (17-18 hrs) and then do the 2 week taper for Ironman Canada. That big training week never happened. I did manage 14 hrs last week, but I did not feel like doing a thing this week and pretty much didn’t. Heading into race day on Saturday, I had done just 4 hours of training for the week! I figured after doing IMUSA less than 3 weeks ago that things were finally catching up to me. The body was telling me to rest and who am I to argue. Better to be well rested than overtrained. So the next 2 days would be all about getting in some top quality training and intensity.
The Sprint Du (5/20/2.5) was a lot of fun. I did the entire first run with Kelly Anthony (big Clydesdale dude who is darn fast and funny too). We always seem to run a similar pace so when his heart rate monitor stopped picking up his HR, he asked me my HR and he figured he’d go at my pace for the rest of the run. We had a nice chat and our effort felt comfortable despite our heart rates being right up there. My average heart rate was 172 bpm for the first 21:22 split but it didn’t feel painful at all. I made a 39 second transition to the bike.
The Cobourg bike course is a hilly son of a gun. I rode the course with my Pyro Pedal platforms, which is not ideal for hilly courses but with only a 20 km bike, I can pick up at least 1 minute of free time in transition over most of the rest of the field so I made that strategic choice. Take at look at the race results and you can see the amount of time people spend in transition. I think I made the right choice. Good ole Gord Avann came flying by early on the bike (he would eventually smash everyone with a 34:30 bike split – he is crazy fast). I would finish the constantly rolling hill bike course in 40:25. Posting an average HR of 171. I took 29 seconds (fastest of the day) to transition to the run and off I went.
I pushed for the first kilometre and then shut it down (still have to race tomorrow) for the rest of the way when I realized no one in my age group was close behind and I was not going to catch the first place guy. I finished the final 2.5 km in 12:02 (avg HR 175). The total time was 1:14:55 (avg HR: 172, Max HR: 183, Calories burned: 1555 cal). This was good enough for 9th overall and 2nd in the 30-39 age group. I stayed for the awards, watched the Give It a Tri Race and headed home.
Date: Saturday August 12 & Sunday August 13, 2006.
Location: Victoria Park, Cobourg, Ontario
Description: 5 km Run, 20 km Bike, 2.5 km Run (Sprint Du), 5/32/5 km (Regular Du)
Website: www.multisportcanada.com
With Cobourg being only 1 hr away “doing the double” (racing 2x in 2 days) was in the cards for this past weekend. Plus, it would be my final blast weekend before Ironman Canada.
I had planed a big training week (17-18 hrs) and then do the 2 week taper for Ironman Canada. That big training week never happened. I did manage 14 hrs last week, but I did not feel like doing a thing this week and pretty much didn’t. Heading into race day on Saturday, I had done just 4 hours of training for the week! I figured after doing IMUSA less than 3 weeks ago that things were finally catching up to me. The body was telling me to rest and who am I to argue. Better to be well rested than overtrained. So the next 2 days would be all about getting in some top quality training and intensity.
The Sprint Du (5/20/2.5) was a lot of fun. I did the entire first run with Kelly Anthony (big Clydesdale dude who is darn fast and funny too). We always seem to run a similar pace so when his heart rate monitor stopped picking up his HR, he asked me my HR and he figured he’d go at my pace for the rest of the run. We had a nice chat and our effort felt comfortable despite our heart rates being right up there. My average heart rate was 172 bpm for the first 21:22 split but it didn’t feel painful at all. I made a 39 second transition to the bike.
The Cobourg bike course is a hilly son of a gun. I rode the course with my Pyro Pedal platforms, which is not ideal for hilly courses but with only a 20 km bike, I can pick up at least 1 minute of free time in transition over most of the rest of the field so I made that strategic choice. Take at look at the race results and you can see the amount of time people spend in transition. I think I made the right choice. Good ole Gord Avann came flying by early on the bike (he would eventually smash everyone with a 34:30 bike split – he is crazy fast). I would finish the constantly rolling hill bike course in 40:25. Posting an average HR of 171. I took 29 seconds (fastest of the day) to transition to the run and off I went.
I pushed for the first kilometre and then shut it down (still have to race tomorrow) for the rest of the way when I realized no one in my age group was close behind and I was not going to catch the first place guy. I finished the final 2.5 km in 12:02 (avg HR 175). The total time was 1:14:55 (avg HR: 172, Max HR: 183, Calories burned: 1555 cal). This was good enough for 9th overall and 2nd in the 30-39 age group. I stayed for the awards, watched the Give It a Tri Race and headed home.
Got up on Sunday and for some reason I was not sore. Usually my calves and Achilles area are sore as hell. Not today. That could all change once I start running of course. Got packed, did the new morning coffee routine and made my way to Cobourg.
Chatted with a Kent Parkinson and racked my bike beside his. Then my buddy Angus showed up (minutes before the race – as usual) and I started the trash talking early. “Are you doing the Tri today?” He replied, “No, doing the Du today.” I then threw the first dart saying, “So you’re looking to get your a$$ kicked today, eh!” This got everyone laughing. We started talking smack at Ironman Lake Placid. I played him a podcast of Macca being interviewed and Angus joking started trying Macca’s mind game techniques. The race was about to start soon so I hustled over to the start line.
I wanted to get out to a nice start to test the legs out and force Angus to keep up. The legs felt fairly good, and I ran alone clocking 22:35 for the first 5km (Avg Hr: 169). I chose to use regular cycling shoes today but still had the quickest T1 time of 39 seconds.
Like yesterday, the bike course was hilly, just more of it today. Last night I moved my saddle forward one inch to see how things would feel (verdict: good on the few flats, but my back ached on the hills). I bike along and waited for the “Freight Train”. It took a bit longer today, but the train came and Gord came zooming by. I yelled at him, “What took you so long?” Kelly came by too and joked that his legs were already finished. Yes, three of us crazy dudes were racing again today. I continued along and for some reason the chain came off 2x while I did my shifting. So now I’m losing more time on this hills. Damn! I did manage to catch up and eventually pass a group I was riding with (but no drafting). I was now not doing too much shifting because I did not want the chain to fall off again. I finally completed the 32 km bike in 1:04:57. Without the chain drops I would have averaged over 30 km/hr, so I was satisfied. I transitioned to the run in 40 seconds.
I came out of transition a few metres behind fellow Team Running Free athlete, John Yip, but he was doing the triathlon so I just kept my pace behind him and looked ahead at which duathletes I could catch. With no one to catch, I made sure to stay ahead of those behind, and achieve a goal of slowing down no more than a minute from my first run split. I finished the run with a time of 23:32 (goal achieved – Avg Hr: 175). The final time was 1:52:21 (close to one minute faster than last year and we rode and extra 2km this year). The average HR for the entire race was 169, I maxed out at 186, and burned 2249 calories. I was happy with how the legs felt on the run, and hopefully that translates well to a nice run at Ironman Canada in 2 weeks. By the way, my buddy Angus came in at 2:01:53 so that is 2-0 for me in the Back Up the Smack Competition. I look forward to our next meeting.
After the race I had some nice chats with John Yip, Alan Faulds (he always kicks butt at any race he enters), Paul Smith (OAT Official), Rico Medeiros (excellent race today), Gord, Kelly, Nigel Caseby (one of the fastest 60+ year olds on the planet), Jimmie Georgas (the fastest 80+ year old on the planet), and a quite a few others. Some people inquired about my bike (I put it up for sale), but no takers. I stayed for the awards (I still have not won a draw prize all season – I hope that means I win big at the end of season draw) and headed home at 12:30 pm.
Don’t forget about the cool Calabogie Peaks race on August 27th. Visit http://www.multisportcanada.com/ms/index.cfm for more details.
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