Strava Data - Leg 1 Run 2 miles - Leg 2 Bike 20km - Leg 3 Run 5km
My son, Angus has been competing in the Kids Tri for Kids series of kid friendly triathlons based in & around Indianapolis. So far this year he has entered 5 of the races which all feature a mass swim start for a 100m swim, a 2-2.5 mile bike and a 0.5-0.7 mile run. It's been a lot of fun and a great Father-Son bonding opportunity as many of the races we just go as the two of us with an early morning start, leaving the rest of the family sleeping soundly. The latest round of the series was organized in conjunction with the "grown ups" race at Tri-Indy and included the kids swimming in the downtown canal, just like the adult race! The timing of the kids race meant that the whole family would come and join in the fun, having a picnic in the park and cheering him on and this opened up the possibility of me competing in the adult race earlier in the morning.
There was a duathlon race as part of Tri-Indy (run, bike, run) which fit really well with my training being only 1 week ahead of the Columbus Challenge Triathlon & Duathlon where my Quaff ON Racing team mate Danny Fisher and I were going to have a repeat showdown after the Firetower 15.3 race earlier in the year. There's no way to truly replicate the race intensity in training so I was excited to go out & push myself, get comfortable with the transitions under race pressure and to be part of what is always as well organized and fun event in downtown Indy.
One great aspect to racing the duathlon is the mass start - most non-Ironman tri's are now time-trial starts for the swim with racers starting at 3 sec intervals seeded by expected swim performance. Because I'm such a terrible swimmer, I'm always way back from the front of the race and never know how I'm doing or who I'm racing - with the duathlon starting with a run, we all toe the line, just like any regular 5k race, then the gun goes off and you can see the whole race unfolding around you. I enjoy this a lot more, it's motivating to be amongst all the other competitors and there's even the opportunity to think a bit strategically about how you race (maybe I should just get better at swimming...).
Leg 1- Run 2 miles
We lined up outside the NCAA headquarters and went on the gun at 7:45am. There were a lot of people setting out really hot and I settled in to an uncomfortably fast pace keeping the front of the race in sight. Through the first mile, much of the early enthusiasm had faded and there were 5 people ahead of me and a pretty good gap behind me. I made a conscious effort to slow down a bit & recover my heart rate through the second mile. The two really fast runners looked like high schoolers and I doubted they would have my speed on the bike. Judging the time gap against land marks, it was about 30 secs to the front which I thought was fine to control & overcome once we got out of transition. Despite slowing up myself I passed 3 more people in the 2nd mile of the leg, finally entering transition in 3rd place overall, about 40 secs down on the lead.
Leg 2 - Bike 20km (12.1 miles)
In transition there seemed to be some confusion - the first two runners hadn't found their bikes and I wasn't certain where we'd entered the transition area - luckily I had made a mental note of the bright orange backpack at the end of the rack where I'd left my bike and I found it easily, and was quickly heading towards the exit.
On the bike, I'm still getting used to the feeling in my legs after the run - it's completely different to the sensation of starting to ride after swimming. I settled into a pace and allowed my heart rate to come down after the somewhat technical start to the bike course. Not long into the bike, Paul Smith passed me and this was a bit of a wake-up call. I dropped out of the draft zone to avoid a penalty and assessed how fast we were going & how hard I was trying then made the decision to push harder and take back the lead. I did this as we hit the first of two rail road crossings on the course - they're a little unnerving and break the rhythm, so I sprinted briefly after this to create a gap then settled back down and concentrated on maintaining my effort.
With about 2 miles to go, Paul passed me again, clearly my increased effort hadn't been enough to shake him off completely but now I was committed to reducing my effort a bit in order to prepare for the run. It took a lot of self control to drop back & let the gap grow slowly as we approached the end of the course. I guess there was about 30 secs between us as we turned off the road into the park and negotiated the pathways to get back to the transition area, maybe by luck or stupidity, I closed a lot of the gap by carrying more speed through a couple of turns and we hit the dismount line with me still in 2nd place, but only a few seconds apart.
Leg 3 - Run 5km (3.1 miles)
With almost identical times in transition, we headed into the run together and I had no idea how fast Paul was capable of going over the last 5k. I took the lead as we ran over the bridge toward the Indy Zoo, as we turned along the river, my legs started to feel OK and I increased the pace to what I thought was sustainable for the rest of the race - worried that if we stayed together to the end that I'd have nothing left to sprint with. The breathing & footsteps stayed right behind me for about another minute but then started to fade as I sustained the pace. By the time we turned onto the bridge to cross back over the river at about 1.6 miles I was able to look back down the course & see a big gap had opened up - I was pretty certain at that point I had the win. Thinking ahead to the next weekend and the race with Danny, I knew I would need to run as fast as I could through the final miles, so I set about maintaining & even increasing my effort through the final section of the race even though I could have relaxed and maintained the gap I already had - no training like racing, and I put an image in my mind of Danny running me down over the final mile to spur me on! I crossed the finish line with close to 2 minutes gap, Paul finishing a strong 2nd.
It was a fun race with lots of other friends competing in the Sprint and Olympic distance triathlon races. The kids race got underway a couple of hours later and Angus had a blast racing on many parts of the same course.
Things to do differently next time (only a week to make it happen!):
- Always rehearse the entry to transition from the run and bike, knowing where to find your rack is critical
- Transition is part of the race, time lost here has to be made up on the race course where it's much harder
- Probably go a bit harder on the bike, I think I was being conservative, but I was very pleased with the final leg run pace
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