Victoria’s Duathlon

Monday was a holiday in Canada, and the acknowledged opener of southern Ontario’s multisport season is held that day: Victoria’s Duathlon (run 4 km, bike 24 km, run 4 km), in the hilly country northwest of Waterloo, Ontario, about a 90-minute drive from my home in Toronto.

It was a challenging day: 20-knot winds from the west (so we faced into them for the first half of the bike), in the single digits Celsius (so in the 40s for our American neighbours), with scattered rain, even a touch of hail and snow.

Tri-Dead John Green was there & did well, 17th out of 70 in his AG. Other non-Dead friends of mine were there; my friend Paula even won her AG.

I raced according to plan: hard & steady from the start. The wind was dispiriting, and my legs got trashed, but I kept at it, and with the wind to my back I was able to bring my HR back up. On the last run I went as hard as I could, and the HR profile supports this feeling.* The finish-line photos (one shown above) show me suffering, which is good. :-) At the end of the race I had some dry heaves, and then sat in our car with the heater on full, shivering. All signs of a race worked hard.

I looked at the results when I got home. I was DFL in my age group!!! On the bike I made up more than 30 spots—I was passing people constantly—yet I was last in my AG even on that leg!

Yes, I’m not a “fast” guy, and a sub-2-hour event is never likely to be one where I do well, but I’ll admit I’m very disappointed. I feel fit, I fell I “suffered” in the race, but I didn’t do well in any comparative sense.

* My coach asked me to run my HRM so he could review it. I didn’t race “to” it—my effort was to feel.