Monday, August 8, 2011

Doing a Duathlon - Just for Fun

Came across my debrief notes for Coach Dave after the JD Duathlon in June.  Even though it's a couple of months old I thought I'd post it here as it provides a really good reminder about how sometimes we need to get outside our comfort zone and do something different.  No matter what the experience, there's always something to learn and gain from.  So, this is my email to the coach:


Yesterday was pretty awesome - exceeded my expectations :)

I guess my main goal was to not come last (because that was my biggest fear) ... which I achieved, so that was all good!  I remembered what you said about staying within myself and did that, but tried pushing my pace as well.  The aim was to stay strong and steady.  I intentionally started out at the back and it was a good mental boost to be able to chug my way past a couple of women.  And then at the end of the run I found myself caught up to the last male and so gave it a burst to get past him as well and that also felt good (nope, not competitive at all!).

Looked at my time at that 1km mark on the run and it was 5:45 so that was good.  Didn't have my Nike band on so don't know what my pace was for the rest of it, but it felt much the same.

The bike was a blast.  I went hard and passed pretty much everyone that came into my sights.  Got passed by some of the blokes and 3 of the girls but that was about it.  Had an average cadence of 90, av speed of 32.2km/hr, max speed of 37.0km/hr and max cadence of 102; wasn't wearing heart rate monitor.  Pete took a quick video of me going down the main straight on one lap  ... woohoo!





One of the best things about the bike leg is that I nailed the art of taking out my drink bottle and drinking while pedalling AND staying on the aero bars.    Haven't managed to do that before, so was really happy. Because I was riding so aggressively I took a swig from the drink bottle a couple of times on each lap - really wanted to make sure I could maintain my pace and not die from lack of energy.






I got back into the second run and my hard ride was telling on the legs but I knew I only had to do 2.4km so pushed it again and tried to maintain a reasonable pace (for me).

I did feel strong to the end but also completely stuffed by the time I crossed the finish line.  And while I was a bit tired last night I've recovered well again and had no aches or pains today.  We did an intense wind trainer session at Andi's this morning (Time Trial Power session on DVD) and my legs did remind me that they had raced yesterday so I flagged a little bit midway, but overall I've felt pretty good.  After our bike this morning I also did an easy 30min aquajog session with Pete - a bit of active recovery.

So, despite my scepticism and complaining, I'm glad you convinced me to do it.  And I can see I should be doing several more of them ... for training purposes :) A race definitely keeps the pressure on, that isn't there in a training session, and that's got to be good for me - right?
Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments:

Post a Comment