Niagara Duathlon

The day started out very well on my way to the Niagara Duathlon, the Grimsby stop on the Subaru Triathlon Series. I arrived in plenty of time again and went through the registration process in quick fashion. From there it was time to get changed and make sure my bike was ready to roll.

At this point Syd stopped by my bike before he made his way down to the lake for his triathlon and brought me a handy little belt to attach my race number. Thanks Syd! I then bumped into duathlete, Paul Gonsalves of team Blue Thunder, who had a few quick tips concerning my bike set up that really made sense (thank you as well!).
After the two visitors went on their way to prepare, I pumped up my tires (new pump with gauge so no excuses of underinflated tires), put the bike back on the rack and laid out my gear for a quick transition.

With my transition zone set-up, I headed out to the Duathlon start line and familiarized myself with the area. I always make sure I know all the nuances at each course as there is nothing worse than being confused during the race. Feeling confident of the layout, I began to warm up and stretch for the big race. I was heading into this one with a lot of confidence after Peterborough and really wanted to repeat that effort. Taking a look around I saw many of the top duathletes warming up so I knew it was going to be a battle for a top ten finish.

As the group of runners gathered around the start line we received our last minute directions form the race official and made our way up to the white line on the dark pavement. A quick count down from ten and out of the blocks we flew.

I wanted to stick very tight with Zachary Steinman (winner of almost every du this season) for the first 500 metres but was surprised when several other runners got out on his tail as well. Usually, it is only a group of four or so but today ten or twelve of us were in hot pursuit.

Our first kilometre was slightly downhill along the road and the pace was super speedy. We hit the turn around pillon and had lost a few contestants but I was able to stay near the front of the pack as we headed back to the transition zone. This uphill run along with the fact we were now on the sidewalk cooled the pace down a little and strung out the leaders as others, like myself, decided to save our legs for the bike and daunting Park Road Hill climb that loomed.

Getting to our bikes, I was in great shape hitting T1 in seventh place (6:41), less than 30 seconds behind the leaders. I had a decent switch over to the bike and headed out for our 25km tour of rural Grimsby. At this point, as is the case in almost all our races, we mixed in with the triathletes for the bike leg of their event so things started getting confusing. I was making very good time along the flats towards the big hill and must have been keeping pace with the du leaders. I could really taste a solid performance already and decided to attack the decent leaving the rest of the athletes on the hill in my wake. I was up and out of my saddle pushing the peddles hard and nobody was keeping that pace around me. I knew I was either going to make a statement on this climb or burn out my legs but that was what it was going to take to hit a top finish.

Roughly 5km had past and I was still holding my spot as nobody had passed my bike, yet. I was now among a new group of riders and we turned north and hit a straight away starting to pick up speed. I could not point out anyone from my section of the race so I picked a line on the left and pulled in one person at a time. This was going very smoothly and my energy was almost back from the climb. I continued to crank out the power and, at the eight kilometre mark (from my computer), put my head down to really push hard when my bad luck hit. All I felt was a horrible thud on my back wheel followed by a quick pisssss.

Damn! I slowed to dismount and walked back to the area of the disaster and found three large rocks across the road. Making sure nobody else suffered the same fate, I yelled at a few other cyclists before getting into the lane to kick them off the road.

Well, that was the end of my day. I really hoped to pick up some valuable points for my Age Group standings but ended up with a big donut. I will now look for a solid effort in Belwood to get me back closer to the top five but it may be too late.