I am 33 and going to Duathlon Nationals this year ( as long as the knee holds up) and I am am having trouble deciding whether to signup for the sprint or standard course. They seem like very similar distances to me. My run time for 2 miles is around 11 minutes and my 5k is 18:30. The bike is my weakest point but I recently did a 20 mile ride with a 20mph avg on my old trek 1000. My pb in race is 18.7. I just got a giant tcr c2 with aeor bars and clipless pedals so that should help with the bike. Just wondering which distance I would be more competative at.
Do both! Prior to 2014, USAT did not allow athletes to do both races but last year they did. The only stipulation made was that if you qualified for Worlds in both races, you had to pick one or the other to sign up for since ITU doesn’t allow athletes to do both.
For your AG (30-34) in the standard-distance, only 15 men did it. For the sprint, only 10. The top-18 in each AG qualifies for Team USA. You’ll have to apply the “age-up” rule racing as a 34 year old next year if you are trying to get a Team USA slot.
Set the standard-distance as your priority race and then do the sprint a couple of hours later to see what’s left in the tank.
The run is pancake flat and fast. The bike has a couple steep but short climbs with quite a few turns. They had to alter the bike course due to flooding and it may be different in 2015.
Sounds reasonable… It is still a distance away and I have a few training races between now and then. I’ll have to wait for the schedule and see how far apart each race is.
Last year, the 18-39 AGs went off at 7:45 for the Standard and then it was a mass male start at 11:45 for the Sprint. Not positive if they will space it the same again in 2015.
I’m signed up for the Sprint. Tend to be better at suffering at max HR than to pace myself, so sprint it is. Not that I will be competitive, but hey, why not give it a shot!?
is it still in arizona? I forget where it is…
It’s June 6 in St. Paul, MN, I believe.
Yes June 6, St.Paul …my kids will still be in school. I hope to be competitive. Really concerned about the bike. On the trainer everyday. Hoping to improve to around 23 avg. But from 19 in October at my last race that may be a stretch.
Not a stretch, but run 2 might suck! Haha
You’re right…I hate run 2…plenty of energy but your legs are like… screw this.
I would put money on the bike course being significantly different this year. Of course, I would bet on which blade of grass is going to grow taller.
I hope both courses have a few steep hills. I love hills…just not long gradual ones. Short steep climbs seem to get me fired up and I tend to pass the most people before or after climbs because I always turn it up a notch. The long gradual ones are like…What the heck is wrong with me? Is it over yet?
I would put money on the bike course being significantly different this year.
Agreed! They had to change up the course last year due to river flooding damaging a lot of the original roads. Plus, I’m sure lots of people complained about the scary under-road, downhill, pot hole filled stretch. I almost lost it on that descent.
I have interest in this race also. more specifically the sprint race. Anyone do this race last year? Thoughts? I know they will probably change the bike course this year due to the flooding, but what were your thoughts on the bike course overall? Rollers/Flat? Lots of turns? Any information would be great, and a bike mounted video would be awesome!
I am 33 and going to Duathlon Nationals this year ( as long as the knee holds up) and I am am having trouble deciding whether to signup for the sprint or standard course. They seem like very similar distances to me. My run time for 2 miles is around 11 minutes and my 5k is 18:30. The bike is my weakest point but I recently did a 20 mile ride with a 20mph avg on my old trek 1000. My pb in race is 18.7. I just got a giant tcr c2 with aeor bars and clipless pedals so that should help with the bike. Just wondering which distance I would be more competative at.
If you do 2 miles in 11:00 minutes, your 5K should be a lot faster than 18:30.
As far as what distance, I don’t think it matters. You are not going to be “competitive” in M30-34 at Nationals with the kind of time you are looking at, on either the bike or the run.
Might as well just do both and enjoy the experience.
FWIW, I really enjoyed the bike course apart from the 2nd St tunnel descent. I am heading back again this year, to do both races this time (despite not being eligible for awards). I bet it will be changed this year to include the parts that got washed out by the floods last year, but it was a good mix of technical sections downtown with lots of turns and long, fast flat (~6-7km done 3x) along the Mississippi on Shepherd Ave. The bridge across the river from transition to the bike course is a deceptive climb, and the downtown section has some abrupt ups and downs. The long stretch on Shepherd is dead flat. My power file was a lot more variable than I would have liked as a result. The road conditions were not great (ie. large potholes), but I suspect at least some of that was unavoidable flood damage.
The one section that had me leery was the downhill in the tunnel on 2nd St (just after the climb across the river). Very fast and low visibility. I almost slipped off the front of my flat pursuits twice, a weight stop would have been good piece of mind. I’ve added some Felt Tri-tip grips specifically for this race next year after toying with upturned grips. I don’t trust my handling in aero enough to stay down on that descent…
Looking at times from last year I would beg to differ. But that may have been because of its first time in St Paul. And I’m pretty sure I will improve a lot this spring as I started last year being my first year with 9 min miles…and I’m not talking about podium when I say competitive. …just not back of the field.
Looking at times from last year I would beg to differ.
No offense, but then Du Nationals is now a joke. I last raced a Nats back in 2008. I was running 34:00 for an open 10K at the time and only finished 4th in my AG and I knew that was only because the competition was getting weak. Here are some results from a regional races that I did 10-15 years ago
http://www.athlinks.com/...8&courseid=55569
http://www.coolrunning.com/...y23_Saturn_set1.html
You needed to be running sub 18:00 and 22+ mph on the bike to even be in the running for an AG podium for a regional race,
for Nats if you weren’t running sub 17:00 and 24+ mph on the bike forget about being competitive.
I raced a duathlon this fall, the day after a CX race and came in second after leading for a substantial portion of the race.
The winner told me I was racing at a “national class” level should go to Nationals. I was kind of chuckling to myself because I ran a 19:00 opening 5K, and
averaged 23 mph on a hilly 20 mile bike course, both of which would be pack fodder back in the day, but in this race put me 30 seconds from first and 12 minutes
ahead of 3rd place.
I’m mostly racing bikes now, but maybe I should race Nats, because it sounds like I would do better now even though I am in worse shape.
I started looking at times again from last year and the top guys are really fast as you said…(didn’t do the math for the splits) …but bottom line is I think my competitive (being able to finish somewhere near the middle depending on the amount of guys that show up) and yours (podium) is where the difference is. No hard feelings just wanted to clear that up lol. 
I started looking at times again from last year and the top guys are really fast as you said…(didn’t do the math for the splits) …but bottom line is I think my competitive (being able to finish somewhere near the middle depending on the amount of guys that show up) and yours (podium) is where the difference is. No hard feelings just wanted to clear that up lol.
Hey , I would like to apologize because I was kind of being a dick in my last post.
Two observations. “Back in the day” (now that I am almost 40 I feel like I can legitimately say that). The “standard” duathlon distance was 10K/40K/5K (basically equivalent to an Olympic tri) and the shorter
distance was 5K/30K/5K. There was also no such thing as “sprint” duathlon nationals as I recall.
It looks like now, the “standard” distance is 5K/35K/5K (I have no idea why they would water down the standard distance, especially for nationals) and now they run a “sprint” nationals the same day. It also looks like for last years nats the standard distance was shortened and they were barely running over 4K. Basically the standard and sprint distances are hardly different at all, making the need for two different races kind of baffling and frankly I think it diminishes the event. Someone will win the sprint (and avoid racing a bunch of fast people) and get to call themselves a “national champion”. I guess somebody needs to win it, but I think it is a little silly.
In any event (IMO), the point of racing nationals is not to worry about being “competitive”, but just to compete against the best to find out how good you are. In general, I would assume the “standard” distance will have a higher caliber field and is the real nationals (even if they watered down the distances) in my mind. Have he pride to race the standard distance against the best racers and then you can feel good about putting it on the line and seeing how you stack up against the best, regardless of what your actual finishing time is.
I also had suggested racing both distances, because I assumed (incorrectly) they would not be on the same day). I think duathlon is the toughest of all multisport events, so if you are doing it right there is no way you are doing to be able to double up races in the same day. You can do that on the track, you can do that with bikes, with duathlon, fuggedaboutit.