This report is a bit late in coming as the race was back on Saturday October 16th and sorry for all the text, Sarah was away in the UK and so no photos :-( I jumped into the Hagerstown Duathlon at the last moment at the request of Pat who also wanted to race and with it being a sprint distance it didn't really matter that I had been sitting on the sofa since the Savageman Triathlon in late September!
It was a nice little local race with about 160 people signed up as well as a 5km run/walk that was going on at the same time. The race format was a 2mile run, 10mile bike and a 3.1mile run to finish....just about an hours worth of pain!
Standing on the start line it was difficult to scout the contenders as some could have been running just the 5km and some could have been doing the duathlon as part of a relay. That meant that the plan was just to go out as hard as possible and see how the cookie crumbled. I got away from the line and to the first corner where the trail narrowed in first place and it was quickly just a couple of us out front. The other guy was wearing runners shorts and vest so he was either doing the 5km race or was a relay member (of course he could have been doing the duathlon solo...but in those shorts!).
I came into T1 just a couple of seconds behind, in 2nd place, for a 10mins 59secs split and was 25secs ahead of third. It worked out that the 1st place guy was a relay and so in T1 I lost a few more seconds as they were outta there quickly.
The 10 mile bike was a tale of two halves. The first 5miles were with a massive tailwind and dead flat and we were cranking along. The 2nd half was rolling and had a huge headwind. I hung on for 2nd place until mile 9 when we headed back into the park and a relay team just pipped me as we came into T2. Total bike split was 25mins 20secs for a 23.7mph average. Fortunately that gave me a 2 minute lead on the individual racers as I headed out onto the final 5km run.
Just in front of me was the 2nd relay team and the first team on the road was about a minute ahead. The wind had picked up big time and the few weeks of sofa sitting was making itself known! To the halfway turnaround I was sitting a few meters behind the 2nd relay team and then made the pass for good at around mile 2 at the slight incline. Coming back down the course I could see that the 2nd individual was a ways back and I came into the finish with a 17mins 36secs 5km and first individual overall (2nd on the road 80secs behind the winning relay team) in 54mins 52secs, which was actually a course record as well. Even better was that 2nd place was just under four minutes back :-)
So it ended up being a good little race and a great result for the overall win. To top it off, Pat was 2nd in his Age Group and fellow ABRT'er Wade was 2nd in his Age Group. Three ABRT'ers in the top 20 and three podiums :-)
Now it's time for some winter base building......
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