So we had our second competition of the season today (first was 2 weeks ago), both were Sprint duathlons (5-20-2.5)).
Most of us are starting to get back into shape, as our first peak is coming up in a little over a month. The weather today was extremely bad for a duathlon, hot winds, 40 Degrees C, with dust in the air and just over 30% humidity.
The race was divided into two main part: the Junior Sprint + Elite Sprint (who had a draft legal race), at 7:55, followed by all the other people (who weren't allowed to draft draft, even though this didn't seem to be the case) at 8:00.
Being only 15, I started at 7:55, trying not to take this race too seriously as I am coming back from a dislocated vertabre in the neck. I did my best to stick with my teamates, as we planned to form a small chase back and reel in the early leaders. We ran mid 18:00's on the pretty flat course and I was satisfied.
My friend (who's 17) ran a 16:05, 20 seconds behind the first two elite athletes. He opened up a 40 second gap on his nearest competition, but was soon caught because he was working on his own, while they switched off in their mini-chase pack. Later we learned they planned this before hand. They knew he was going to beat them in the first run, so they worked together on the bike and by the 10k mark they caught him. I was just going in the other direction at the time, so I saw it happen. When they reached him both when full turbo, going around 47 kph, and passed him on each side, not giving him the oppritunity to stick to either of them. I gotta admit it was pretty cool looking, but it was also dangerous and mean, but atleast he'll know better next time.
By the time we finished the bike leg we had averaged around 37 kph (same speed as my friend who was alone in the front). Around 1k from the finishing I started to pick up the pace because I didn't want to get jammed in the middle of our pretty big pack (of around 10 people). I opened up a small 3 second lead, which was enough to get me out of T2 first. I got a little dehydrated on the run, so I ended up 3rd in my category.
Now back to my friend. By the time his two chasers hit T2 they had a 1:30 minute lead on him. They averaged around 40 kph while he only 37. He really needs to work on his bike, because if he can stay with the leaders on the bike he's got a killer run to finishing them off. All in all it was a good day for everybody (and one of the two people that passed him sort of apologized for not letting him stick with them).
I had lots of fun, even if the bike did feel like we're inside an oven. Got a training camp next week, then it's taper and first peak. I might write up a little sum up of that when I'm thru it, but for now I'm going to sleep.
Most of us are starting to get back into shape, as our first peak is coming up in a little over a month. The weather today was extremely bad for a duathlon, hot winds, 40 Degrees C, with dust in the air and just over 30% humidity.
The race was divided into two main part: the Junior Sprint + Elite Sprint (who had a draft legal race), at 7:55, followed by all the other people (who weren't allowed to draft draft, even though this didn't seem to be the case) at 8:00.
Being only 15, I started at 7:55, trying not to take this race too seriously as I am coming back from a dislocated vertabre in the neck. I did my best to stick with my teamates, as we planned to form a small chase back and reel in the early leaders. We ran mid 18:00's on the pretty flat course and I was satisfied.
My friend (who's 17) ran a 16:05, 20 seconds behind the first two elite athletes. He opened up a 40 second gap on his nearest competition, but was soon caught because he was working on his own, while they switched off in their mini-chase pack. Later we learned they planned this before hand. They knew he was going to beat them in the first run, so they worked together on the bike and by the 10k mark they caught him. I was just going in the other direction at the time, so I saw it happen. When they reached him both when full turbo, going around 47 kph, and passed him on each side, not giving him the oppritunity to stick to either of them. I gotta admit it was pretty cool looking, but it was also dangerous and mean, but atleast he'll know better next time.
By the time we finished the bike leg we had averaged around 37 kph (same speed as my friend who was alone in the front). Around 1k from the finishing I started to pick up the pace because I didn't want to get jammed in the middle of our pretty big pack (of around 10 people). I opened up a small 3 second lead, which was enough to get me out of T2 first. I got a little dehydrated on the run, so I ended up 3rd in my category.
Now back to my friend. By the time his two chasers hit T2 they had a 1:30 minute lead on him. They averaged around 40 kph while he only 37. He really needs to work on his bike, because if he can stay with the leaders on the bike he's got a killer run to finishing them off. All in all it was a good day for everybody (and one of the two people that passed him sort of apologized for not letting him stick with them).
I had lots of fun, even if the bike did feel like we're inside an oven. Got a training camp next week, then it's taper and first peak. I might write up a little sum up of that when I'm thru it, but for now I'm going to sleep.