Kingston Du
After looking at my results from last years Kingston Duathlon, I felt that a couple of things needed to happen this year. The first being we were really rushed the morning of the race due to having to check out by 11 a.m. which meant immediately after the race having to rush back to the hotel. The second was my slow time on the bike course, this was a still a little up in the air but with my weekly time trials I was hopeful of improving my bike portion of the race.
We arrive in Kingston on Friday July 31st shortly after lunchtime and immediately drove to the local grocery store to pack up on what would be out breakfast and lunch staples for the next three days. Then it was back to the hotel, unpack the car and organize our room and then down to the hotel pool for some splash pad and water slide fun. The advantage of adding an extra day to our schedule is that we did not feel overly rushed. Saturday afternoon was the prerace bike check in. So with my kids and wife still enjoying the pool, I jumped on my bike and rode the short 15 minutes down to the bike check. Last year I arrived early at the bike check and had to wait in line for almost an hour. This year I arrived around 4:30 and was through the bike check in 10 minutes then the ride back to the hotel for dinner.
I woke up Sunday morning to the sound of rain on the hotel window. I was not looking forward to the warm up ride in the rain and the the thought of racing in the rain. The runs would be fine but rain on the road always ends up causing a few people some problems, hopefully not me.
I got my bike into transition and found a tree to sit under until the long course swimmers took to the water, the waves were crazy and the rain at this point had turned to a fine mist. I was hoping for a complete stop by duathlon start time.
By 9 a.m. the rain had stopped so the first run was dry. The start/finish is a little deceptive as the street it is on has a little rise to it so you are actually running uphill. The lead runners took off at a pretty fast pace. I settled in with a line of 4 or 5 runners and waited to see how the pace would hold up. Got to the park trail and noticed that a couple of age groupers were a little in front so decided to catch up to them. At this point a couple of athletes were whistling and hollering at the lead runners to turn around it appears that they missed the turn around due to no sign. Luckily, the kingston boys I was with knew exactly where the turn was. Got back into transition and had a pretty good change of shoes. The rain was still holding off so I was feeling pretty stoked for the bike ride. Got onto the bike and began to do a little spin just to get the legs moving. Got to the boat bridge and was waved down, a rider had gone down hard and looked pretty bad. I coasted across the bridge and then began to think about my race plan. I have been working hard on my hills and also trying to get a smoother pedal stroke. The bike course had a few rollers with a couple of steep climbs which were good. About 5 k into the ride one of the age groupers went by so I decided to just keep him in sight. Got to the turn around at 15k and felt really good, so I just kept on working hard. With about 2 km left on the ride the rain began but I was not too worried and just kept spinning to the transition for run number two.
Good transition and started the last run 7.2 km. I was a little worried about not having enough fluids in my system so I took eload at every aid station. The last 2kms before the turn around are basically uphill. I was still feeling very relaxed and finally noticed the age grouper from the bike. He was about 500 m in front of me, so I was not sure if I could catch him. I decided to just keep my pace and see what would happen. Got down the hill and onto the flat trail and could still see the age grouper, he was a little closer than at the turn around. I continued to run my own pace, go the the last water station and noticed I was still gaining. At this point I just decided to see what would happen when I got on the final street to the finish. I turned onto the street and noticed that the age grouper was just a few strides in front. So I ran up behind him and decided to watch for a couple of steps. I noticed that he appeared to be sruggling a little so decided to pull up beside him and do a little burst of 10 strides to see if he was going to come with me. He didn’t so I decided to throw in another burst of 10 strides and again he did not come. At this point it was only 3 blocks to the finish line so I decide with 2 blocks left to start my acceleration to the finish. Got to the finish line and immediately heard my family yelling . Greeting by the second place finisher who told me I was third. After the wards we headed back to the hotel and back for more splash pad and water slide action.
I was happy with my placing and result. My training this year especailly on the bike has really paid off.