Despite strongly focused on the bike this season, I just can't fully part with my running background (yet?). The Pitch Pine Duathlon/Triathlon at White Lake State Park in Tamworth, NH is put on by a great race group (Tri-Tek Events) and starts just a couple miles from my folks place so got a free place to stay, dinners and personal cheering squad.
They offer both an Olympic distance triathlon or duathlon. I don't swim (well, I know HOW to swim but that's as far as that goes) so opted for the Oly Du.
Leg 1: 2 mile run: They bussed us 2 miles out from the transition area to start the initial run. My intention was to let anyone running sub 6:30's to go. Otherwise, would just stay with the lead runners. Turned out everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing and that was use this initial run more as a warmup. I was totally fine with that and came into transition with the first few running 14:18. Perfect, no discernible effort.
Leg 2: 26.2 mile bike: Coming into the race, my focus was on as hard a bike as possible. Based on last year, the overall competition was much higher in the triathlon where most of the real solid bike times came from, so I was gunning for a top 3 overall bike split time between the Du and Tri. Took my time in transition to make sure everything set perfectly and even took extra time to throw on the MRC jersey for the bike. This was going to be a real good test of my TT fitness and also of how the new "road aero" Madone (and no clip on bars) could match up against full TT bikes. Two loop course, mostly flat. Pancake flat start and finish. In middle a moderately rolling section into a 1.9 mile 4-step climb followed by scorching descent. Got my rhythm down and keeping a good steady HR. Coming into the final mile of lap 1, decided to slightly up the tempo for lap 2. Able to hold that and finished strong, stopping the clock with an official split for the 26.2 of 66:01. 2nd lap was 20 seconds faster than the first and all intermediate segments were equal or faster on lap 2, including tying my own KOM on the climb!
Leg 3: 10K run: Again my transition was comically slow but I really didn't care. I knew the run would be slow. Swapped the shoes, off with the top layer as getting warm, some extra fluids and some Skratch chews and off I went. I was first person out on the run of all Du and Tri people (but the Tri-guys had to swim .9 miles which put them already well behind time-wise). It was a course where you double backed twice, so I could see the numbers of everyone behind me to know what division they were in. On the first turnaround the only guy I saw close was the leader of the Tri (who I would later find out put in a 17:30 swim!!). Had a very comfortable cushion on 2nd place Duathlete, so I just continued my slow cruise pace. Ultimately got passed by the 1st and 2nd place triathletes. Stopped the clock with a 46:50, so 7:40's (bit short of full 10K) and took the overall Duathlon win.
Now for the waiting part (splits). My 66:01 held up for 2nd fastest on the day by 32 seconds. The guy who finished 2nd in the Tri put down a 63:29! Maybe I'll add a TT bike at some point to the stable..
Awesome food spread after, great place to go for a post-race cool-off dip. And personally an excellent test for me for a team multi-sport, multi-leg relay I'm doing in two weeks (two separate bike legs, both TT style, 21 and 18 miles about 70 minutes apart).
**Warning** Multi-Sport report; Pitch Pine, 9/12
**Warning** Multi-Sport report; Pitch Pine, 9/12
Dave Mingori
