Duathlon National Champs RR

I took the week leading up to the race pretty easy as I was feeling burnt out from the heavy volume the week before; I wanted to feel pretty fresh for the race on Sunday.

The race itself was a 10k run, 38k bike and 5k run.

10k - 37:07
I did some strides before the 10k and I was worried because I didn't feel that great just in that short bit of effort. It was SO hot out there; while we were standing at the start I was just sweating, it was awful.

The 10k started with a steep downhill and then was rolling the rest of the way with little to no shade. I started realizing that it was going to be a really tough day around mile 2. My HR never dropped below 180 and I was frequently above 190 going at what I felt was not a super hard pace. I was happy to see the end of the run but also nervous because I was worried about how much I had exerted myself in that run; I was hoping I could do 38-39 at LT (around 180 average) and that obviously did not happen. The course was pretty tough; there were some actual climbs but the worst part was the heat. There were stretches where we were just baking.

38k bike - 1:05:12
Started out and felt pretty good on the bike course which is 3 loops (mildly confusing loops with no distance markers but I did ok) and was pretty hilly. There were pretty much zero flat sections. I actually got into my smaller gears in a couple of spots, shameful (but I needed to). I really expected to be MUCH faster than this but I totally underestimated the difficulty of the course. I expected to catch Chris L maybe midway through the second loop but I didn't end up seeing him until the bike dismount, which means he had a really good bike ride. I caught Cody with 3-5 miles to go. I never felt zapped on the ride in terms of my power. I cramped pretty bad 2 or 3 times but that's b/c I made the mistake of only bringing 1 water bottle when I could have easily run through 2 or 3. Each time I cramped (both calves and my right hip flexor) I took some hammer gel and water and I had 2 lava salts on the bike. It really just wasn't enough water.

5k run - 17:39
Whew, this 5k sucked. It was SO hot and I was already dehydrated. My legs didn't want to go fast at all (and they didn't the course was short...). I had goosebumps all over (those actually started midway through the bike) and I felt pretty miserable. Oh well.

Overall time:

2:02:07
65th overall (65th male)
14th AG

Things I learned:
- I can hold a really high HR for long periods of time. (I AVERAGED 183 for 2+ hours)
- My bike LT might be closer to my run LT than I thought
- My max HR is at least 199
- I underfuel consistently
- Never go into a race without desire. I had basically written off this race after the half because I was no longer interested in duathlons and look what it got me. I get the feeling I would have been disappointed in this race no matter what my results were. I had no interest in a Worlds spot.
- Duathlons are MUCH harder than triathlons. Leaps and bounds.