I’ve run the Sprint Duathlon National Championships a few times, and qualified for the world championships by finishing near the top of my age group. But due to COVID and other factors, I’ve never managed to get to the actual world championship event. So this year I decided to try to make a world team and then actually go to the championship! The race this year is in Omaha, and for some reason I wasn’t able to convince my wife or anyone else to join me here, so there are not really any photos of the event. But being here by myself does mean I have time to write a post about the race, so if you like to read, you’re in luck!
I grew up watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on TV, so I was actually kind of excited to go to Omaha to race, which was actually sponsored by…you guessed it, Mutual of Omaha! They have a building in Omaha and everything!
[I was going to add a photo of the building but it turns out Blogger won’t let me do that on my phone. Just imagine a medium-sized building with a Mutual of Omaha sign on the top]
Anyways, I got to the race start this morning and set up my bike in the transition area. After a quick warm-up run we were soon lining up in the start area. The race has 3 legs: a 5k run, a 20k ride, and a 2.5k run. My plan was to run about a 6:45 pace on the first run. I wasn’t feeling great this morning but I hoped race-day adrenaline would carry me through. After I settled in to what felt like a good pace, I looked at my watch and saw I was running about 6:35 pace. Not bad. I wasn’t feeling great also passing quite a few runners who clearly had started off too fast, which is always a good feeling. Then my watch beeped and I glanced down at it: “Performance Condition: 11”. Eleven? I thought. Usually it doesn’t go any higher than three or four! Clearly something is wrong! I think the high performance condition was supposed to give me confidence but since I had never seen it this high, it was doing the opposite. I ended up running a 6:46 for the mile, but then things started to get tough. The same effort was showing up on my watch as a 7:00 pace. I did everything I could to bring the pace back down, but I didn’t want to blow up. I was still passing runners so I wasn’t exactly choking. Mile 2: 6:55. Now I just needed to hang on until I got to the bike. I was settled in behind a couple guys and I figured if I stayed with them we could team up on the ride, which was draft-legal. We cruised through Mile 3 in 6:59. Finally we were on the grass running towards transition. I stumbled and nearly fell on the uneven grass. My Hoka “supershoes” were not made for this!
My plan for the bike was to not change shoes. I had put flat pedals on the bike so I could save time in transition—critical in this short race. I quickly snapped on my helmet and ran with my bike to the start of the course. Then I heard a spectator yelling “number 639, your helmet’s on backwards!” Really? Me? It was a new helmet and I hadn’t used it much, so I guess it was a possibility. I stopped and took it off, and sure enough, I had put the *@$& thing on backwards. I probably lost 30 seconds fixing it, losing any advantage I had gained by riding in my running shoes. Finally I got on the bike and got to riding. There were a couple guys near me so I decided to try to stick with them and see if we could work together. Unfortunately when we got to the first climb, both of them slowed way down, so I had to pass them, and they couldn’t keep up. I decided to ride on my own. At least there wasn’t any wind so it wasn’t terrible keeping up a decent pace. I was hoping for at least 20 mph on the ride and I was pretty close to that. The course features three U-turns, and you have to do three loops, which means you navigate these turns nine times. When I reached the second U-turn, a group of riders caught me so I decided to try to run with them. I could stay with them fairly easily until we reached any corner. Then the group would break apart and I would really have to work hard to get back with them. But I decided the trade-off in easier riding when we were together was worth it.
Eventually the group broke up again and we lost two riders off the back, but there was still a solid trio that I was able to stay with for the entire ride. I finished the ride with a 20.7 mph average on a fairly hilly course, with 430 feet of climbing over the 20k. I definitely don’t think I could have done that riding solo, so I was glad for the assist.
The nice thing about cyclists who catch you from behind is that you can probably beat them on the run—after all, you were ahead of them on Run 1! Also, my strategy of no shoe changes meant that I was first in our trio through transition. Run 2 was another out-and-back, and I went out at about a 7:00 pace. Once again, 6:45 pace wasn’t in the cards, but at least no one passed me on the run. I saw my two riding buddies at the turnaround and determined not to let them catch me in the final half of the run. I was able to pick up the pace slightly and pushed as hard as I could through the finish. I ended up averaging a 7:12 pace for the run, which was better than my last duathlon, so I was fairly satisfied with that.
Overall, I ended up in fifth place out of 17 in my age group. I was over a minute behind the guy ahead of me, so I don’t think my helmet gaffe cost me a place, but it was still pretty ridiculous!
This placement is good enough to qualify for worlds next year, is in Abu Dhabi, so that’s pretty cool! I’m definitely planning on going, so I’d better start practicing that all-important helmet mount!
Here are links to my Strava records of the event
