Oakdale Duathlon Race Report

Another race???  Maybe not the best idea I've had, but yes, another race.  Katie and I teamed up as The Nerd Herders for the Oakdale Duathlon (which, strangely, isn't in Oakdale, but in Lake Elmo).

The last time Katie and I teamed up for a duathlon, it was super windy, so Katie got the tough job having to bike through that.  This time it wasn't as windy, but it was colder and rainy.  So Katie got the tough job AGAIN.  As she handed the chip off to me after her ride, all she could say was "I can't feel my feet".  The weather may have been ideal for running, but not so much for biking.

We also made a major strategic error leading up to the race.  You see, we encouraged some friends to do team up and do the race.  We did Lakefront Days with them last year, and Mike and Katie S. are all-around good people, so why not get them to do it?  Unfortunately, we forgot the number one rule of race recruitment: Only recruit teams you know that you can beat!  Oops.

Nevertheless, we planned on racing as hard as we could and see what we could pull off.  The race was a 3 mile run, 14 mile bike, and a 2.5 mile run.

"The Nerd Herders" before the race

The race was organized into waves, and the first wave was elite men, elite women, and teams.  This was problematic.  Just after starting, I was already at the back of my wave and throughout the first run, all the speedy people in the next wave were passing me.  Once Katie got on the bike, all the rest of the speedy people passed her, so it was a demoralizing setup for the both of us.  We really didn't get a chance to pass anyone and we were passed more times than we could count.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our wave starting.  I'm on the far left in the red shorts, and Mike is in the middle with the Navy (note the capital 'N') jersey.

Once we started, I knew that keeping Mike in sight was out of the question.  I just wasn't as prepared as I should have been, and had to accept that.  About 1/2 mile in, I fell in behind a woman wearing a purple top and ended up sticking with her for the rest of the first run.

Odd side note: This woman in the purple top is wearing number 392, but 392 doesn't appear anywhere on the results page.  Thus, I don't know if we beat her team or not.

Near the start after having fallen in behind the woman in the purple top

Here's Mike about 3/4 mile in to the first run.  If you look in the background for someone wearing red shorts, that's me.  This is when I decided that I couldn't catch Mike.

I may have been wearing the same clothes that I did for the TC 1 Mile.  Don't judge me—most of my racing clothes are in Michigan right now.

When I got to the first mile marker, my watch said 6'22".  Considering I did the TC 1 Mile in 6'01, I'm 100% sure that the mile marker was in the wrong place; as was the 2nd mile marker.  For most of this run, I pulled out an old cross-country habit where I tucked in behind the woman in the purple top's shoulder and breathed a bit louder than normal.  I used to do this to psych out the competition so that when I would eventually blow past them they would be as inclined to give chase.  On Saturday, the woman in the purple top had a good pace that could pull me along.

I'm going to write a more detailed post for tomorrow about this, but at one point during the run, 2 duathletes from the wave that started after us came by and did the jerkiest thing ever.  To find out what it was, tune back in tomorrow.  (That, folks, is what we call a teaser).

Run 1 (3 miles): 20'55" (2nd place co-ed team)

Coming into transition, we traded the chip and Katie was off on the bike.

Not sure where on the course this was, but Katie has cool new purple bar tape

Hanging around transition, I chatted with Steve and Mike while keeping the muscles as warm as possible.  As we were chatting, I noticed a woman go up and down the rack of bikes a few times as if she was searching for something.  The third time she came by, I asked her if she needed help.  Turns out she couldn't find her bike.  It was a purple Trek next to a brown Adidas bag.  (Just wanted to say that there had to have been 15 purple Treks there.)  We helped her search for it, and after Mike pointed out that there were 2 other rows of bicycles, she found it and was off—after a probably 5-6 minute transition time.  Hope she did well after that!

Transition eerily empty

Katie S. somewhere on the bike course

Once again, no idea where this is, but I'm going to say that it was near the end.

Katie S. came flying in the bike, and Mike was off to do the 2nd run.  Not long after, I noticed another co-ed team handing off to a woman with a black and green top.  I knew I would have to catch her if we wanted a chance at placing.  Thankfully, Katie came in about 30 seconds later, and it was a race!

Bike (13.5 miles): 47'19" (5th place co-ed team—Katie's speed was within 0.1 mph of Katie S.!)

Ok, it wasn't a race.  The woman that I had to catch kept the gap at about 30 seconds and I couldn't close it no matter how hard I tried.

With about 150m to go, I started my kick

Crossing the line

Run 2 (2.5 miles): 17'52" (4th place co-ed team)

Overall: 1:27 (4th place co-ed team)

We didn't place.  The runner for the team I needed to catch was fresh (they had a 3-person team, so she hadn't done the first leg), and I just didn't have the training to pull it off.  But we still had fun and ate some great hot dogs after the race.

Mike and Katie S. accepting their medals for the 1st place co-ed team.  Great job, folks!

Results Analysis and More Pics from the Falls Duathlon

It's now been 1 week since team Wait, This Isn't Badminton? competed in the Cannon Falls Duathlon.  The results were posted quickly after the race, but there are a few issues with them.  I don't know that they will (or can) be fixed, so I'm going to go with what I can, and give some analysis.

6th Place Team Overall
Katie and I took 6th place out 13 teams.  That's the top half!  We were about 6 minutes behind the closest team, so I'm not sure we could have caught them anyway.

Run 1 — 4th out of 13
In the first run, I took 4th place out of all the teams' first runners.  My official time was 14'19" and the next closest was 13'40".  Could I have pushed a bit more and taken 3rd?  Maybe, but I'm really happy with my run.  The fastest time was 11'34", which is really fast.  I'd like to say that I don't trust that time, but looking at that runner's time for the 2nd run, it's very believable.

T1 — Tied for 2nd
Katie and I had the 2nd fastest T1 time out of all the teams.

Cycling — 9th out of 13
Here's where things get a bit funky.  Officially, Katie was the 9th fastest team cyclist.  The 5th place team doesn't have bike split listed, and I just don't know where the time went.  So, it's possible that Katie took a higher place on the bike segment.

T2 — 1st Place
We had the fastest T2, but once again, there's some funky data going here.  I think we really were the fastest, though, because we were very efficient in trading the chip, and Katie booked it on foot with her bike.

Run 2 — 8th out of 13
The data from run 2 is less than reliable.  2 teams had Run 2 times of less than 10 minutes, which is not physically possible.  Another team (placing 11th overall) had a 2nd run time of 18'56".  That's much too fast for someone who ran the 1st run in 20 minutes.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I had either the 5th or 6th fastest run, accounting for these timing errors.

I'm really happy with our splits, and really proud of Katie for hitting a 16.3mph average in that terrible wind.  There is also proof now that Katie did the race:

Look at her pass the fast-looking dude!

Cannon Falls Duathlon Race Report

The title of this event should have been: Don't Get Blown Awaaaayyy!

This morning, Katie and I drove down to Cannon Falls, MN for the Cannon Falls Duathlon.  A duathlon is an event with a run, followed by a bike, and finishing up with another run.  In this case, it was a 2 mile run, 14 mile bike, and a 3 mile run.  Katie and I decided to do the team event, so she biked and I ran.

We knew it was going to be a windy day, and that was a bigger problem for Katie on the bike than it was for me on the run.  Winds were 20mph and gusty.  But, it was sunny, and the temperature was ideal, so it could have been worse.

The drive down was nice—it was about 45 min south of St. Paul.  We got there, ran into Steve and his crew, and got set up in transition.  We picked a nice transition spot, but realized the "team exchange" area was someplace else and moved closer.  Our transition area looked like this:

Don't you like Katie's fancy new bike?

We got there early so we had a bit of time to kill (I'm chronically early to everything—I inherited that from my mother).  There's a pre-race instruction meeting, and then we head to the starting line and get the show going.  (Note, the times below aren't official.  I'll have those sometime this week)

Leg 1 — 2 mile run, 14'15"

My goal for this leg of the race was to push it pretty hard since I would have a chance to recover between runs.  I also needed to make sure I didn't go out too hard on the first mile.  I wanted to do 6'45" for mile 1 and 7'15" for the second mile putting me in at 14 minutes.  There weren't any mile markers, so I have no idea what my splits were, but the total time was pretty close to where I wanted it.  I also noticed that my hill-work and speedwork have been doing me a lot of good because I was really able to hammer it up the few short hills and pass a lot of people in the process.

Steve also said to look for the waterfall around the first mile marker.  Well, I totally missed the waterfall because there weren't any markers.

Leg 2 — 14 mile bike, 51-ish minutes

I passed the chip off to Katie, and she was off on the bike course.  I don't know the details about her ride, but I can offer some thoughts.  First, the wind was awful.  Really, really awful.  I didn't envy her at all.  The wind was in her face the entire 2nd half of the ride.  Second, Katie was on a new bike, so this was its first race.  She's still getting used to it, and does not yet have things like clip-less pedals (which, oddly enough, have clips).  She did say that she noticed a big difference though by having drop handlebars.

During her ride, I just chilled in transition.  I made sure to keep my muscles as warm as possible and snacked on some trail mix and pretzels.  While there, I saw the lead duathlete come in:

Ponder this: Even with the wind of doom, he came in with a chance to break the course record.  (As it turns out, he ended up breaking the course record by a minute or two, which is just rather amazing considering the conditions)

I also saw Steve come through transition.  He has an exciting bike jersey that is made to look like a leisure suit:

I downed a Gu, and figured Katie would be coming soon.

Leg 3 — 3 mile run, 21'34"

Katie handed the chip off to me, and I was off.  I had already seen 5 teams go through transition, so I knew we were out of the running for top 3, but one team had come in about 30 seconds before Katie, so I made it my goal to catch him.

I caught him—within a half mile.  Ok, time for a new goal.  It was a little awkward the first mile or so because the real duathletes were moving pretty slow because of the awful bike ride, and I felt bad for going by them so quickly with my fresh legs.

The second run course was different than the first.  It was mostly and out-and-back along the Cannon River Trail.  It was relatively flat with a few ups and downs, but nothing major.  I also got to see the waterfall this time!

Mile 1: 6'49"  Whoa!  Too fast!  As it turns out, I was wind-assisted for this mile.

Mile 2: 7'22"  A little slow this mile.  But, as I hit the 1.5 mile turnaround, I hit the wind, and that's what slowed me down.

Mile 3: 7'21"  The last mile was also windier than the 2nd one.  I kept passing people though, and knew I was going to have a strong finish.  With the finish in sight, I kicked it, and finished really strong.  Here's me about 15 meters from the finish:

I finished this run with a time of 21'34".  (Probably more like 21'40" since I hit my watch a few seconds late heading into the run)  This was a fast run for me.  My 5k PR (post high school) is 22'59", so I'm pretty sure that if I needed to do that extra 0.1 miles, I could have still broken 22 minutes for a 5k.  I felt great on this run, and I'm really happy with my performance.

After I crossed the line (I'm pretty sure my finisher photo will be me hitting my watch), I turned around to see a high school age girl coming up to me and commenting on how strong my finish was.  I was flattered, but as it turns out,  she was just saying that as something to get my attention because I ran right past the people taking the chips!  So really, she didn't care about my finish, but wanted my chip.  Doh!

I found Katie afterwards, and we chatted with others and watched a lot of the finishers come in.  They had a BBQ afterwards with hot dogs.  These weren't just any hot dogs—they were Thousand Hills Cattle Company free range organic hot dogs.  Really, quite possibly the best hot dogs I've ever tasted.  They were that good.

We stuck around for the awards ceremony (we didn't get any), and they gave away some door prizes.  Katie was really hoping for the wetsuit, but she didn't get it.  (Actually, a guy got the wetsuit, which was clearly a women's wetsuit.  I hope they let him exchange it!)

We packed up, and drove home—even hitting a traffic jam in rural Minnesota!.  I had a great time.  Katie had a great time.  We told ourselves that we wanted to enjoy this race, and we sure did.  Katie most definitely had the toughest job of the two of us with the windy bike ride, and I'm really proud of her for du-ing so well.  I don't have any pictures of Katie on the bike, but maybe we'll find one when the official photos are ready.

Do You Do Du Too?

(I really get a kick out of the title.  Ask Katie if you don't believe me)

So, coming up this weekend is something completely different.  Katie and I will be du-ing a duathlon.  What's a duathlon?  Well, try this on for size:

triathlon - swimming + more running = duathlon

Yup, it's a triathlon where the swimming leg is replaced by a running leg.  The race we're du-ing this Saturday is the Cannon Falls Duathlon in Cannon Falls, MN.  It is a 2 mile run, then a 14 mile bike, then a 3 mile run.

Of course, you may be asking: "But Matt, do you bike competitively?"  The short answer is "no".  The longer answer is "not yet".  This isn't a problem, though, because this weekend is the world debut of team:

Wait, This Isn't Badminton?


Yes, Katie and I will be du-ing this duathlon as a team!  I get to run and she gets to cycle (on her fancy new cycle—wouldn't if be cool if Katie had a new penny-farthing?).  I'm excited.  Katie's excited.  Since there aren't a whole lot of teams, we may even have a shot at placing!  Check out my blog this weekend for the skinny on how things went.