My First Duathlon is just 4 days away!
Posted February 17, 2010
picture via paynedesign
Suddenly it’s upon me. How does this always happen? I have an idea about entering a race months before it starts, and in a moment of madness I sign up for it. Well it’s now just 4 days away. The weather is set to be cold and raining. Not much I can do about that. But am I prepared?
Well, it’s just a sprint duathlon (2.5km run / 12km bike / 2.5km run) so the distance is no problem, however the speed might be. I think I’ll be ok on the bike, I’m fairly competitive over distances less than 30 miles. Although 12km is so short on a road bike that it will be difficult to establish any kind of rhythm. I suspect most people use it to recover from the first run and prepare for the next run – taking on fluid etc.
So how’s my running? Well, I don’t know if it’s good enough but it’s a lot better than it was. I have clocked up over 91km on my nike plus wristband (which - by the way - is awesome). And my pace has gone from around 5 minutes per km on Christmas day to around 4 minutes 35 seconds per km now. OK it’s not exactly record breaking pace, but I’m quite pleased with it given that all my training has been focused on cycling for the last couple of years.
I have also been doing a few brick sessions in the gym, where I go straight from spinning to running. At first I found this quite hard as the blood struggled to get round to the different muscle groups. But now I can cope with it, hopefully this will really help come Sunday.
Above all, this race is supposed to be an introduction to Duathlons. I’m sure I will learn a lot. I know I'm going to struggle to do the transitions quickly, despite my elastic laces. I’m still deliberating over which pedals to choose – the SPDs will enable me to move quicker with the bike coming in and out of the transition area whereas the Look pedals will give me a little more speed on the bike. And then there’s clothing – finding something suitable to wear for both running and cycling when its cold and wet is tricky to say the least!
Of course you guys will be the first to hear of my successes and failures. Wish me luck :)
