Binbrook Duathlon Race Report – Saturday June 8, 2013
It took a little over a year and a few attempts but I’ve finally done something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while and that all came to pass at the Binbrook Duathlon.
As far as the race is concerned,
The foot issues continue, so as usual (and it may be the way I will always have to do things) I treated the day as a bike race with a 5km run to warm up, and a 5 km run to cool down.
The first 5km run went better than expected, I ran 27:48 and at this point anything under 6:00 min/km is great. On the bike, I climbed aboard my QR CD0.1 and cranked out the 30km in 49:56, which is an average speed of 36 km/hr. This might have been a personal best on this course, or close to it. Back on the run, I felt pretty good and ran a comfortable 28:14. There was no use in smashing myself especially since the speedsters in my age group were well up the road.
The real goal of the day was finishing the race with my daughter. Last year it was pouring rain and cold, and the little one was fast asleep and under the Recharge With Milk Recovery Zone Tent all nice and dry. This year, the weather was perfect for racing, and as I entered the finish area, I heard my daughter yelling “daddy” repeatedly, I ran over to my wife, scooped up the little one and we finished together. I don’t know who was more excited, her or me. We will finish another race again together for sure.
Binbrook remains one of my favourite places to race. I like the mix of terrain on the run, although it was better and much tougher in the early years, I obviously like the bike course, the park offers some great play areas for kids, and its not too far of a drive. Make sure to add this one to your race calendar for 2014 and beyond.
Welland Half Iron Swim/Bike Race Report – Sunday June 23, 2013
After last year’s struggle on the run (my knee was injured and figured I’d go out and tough out a half marathon but with zero success), I selected to do the Swim/Bike event and run on my own afterwards if I really felt like doing so.
The last time I swam was 10 months ago, and I needed to at least get one swim in before I do an Ironman this year — yep, I am going back to my minimal swimming training plan because my right shoulder is toast. Any swim training at this point will only mess me up more and any improvement will not make me an age group contender so this will have to do. My goal was to feel comfy in the water and key in on a maintainable pace for the Ironman race later this year. So why swim at all? Trust me, I have no desire to, but I am projecting that I need to do at least three more Ironman races before I stop doing the long stuff, at least until my kid gets older.
I ‘tugboated’ the swim in 50:24, slowest swim ever but no big deal. No more zero training and knocking out a 40 min swim for me. I did start 2-3 minutes behind my wave start — you’d think I’d want to be in the water on time take advantage of every second. Oh well.
The bike was definitely the windiest I’ve experienced in all my years at Welland. Regardless I pushed hard right through it. I figured if it felt tough for me it surely felt hard to others. I noticed this was the case when I passed someone and they were not able to hang on to try to draft. I keeping pushing into the wind and all the big gear and lower cadence work started to take its toll on my knees. I also thought I’d pay for that effort so I backed it off a bit but it was still a big effort. I wanted to make sure that once I headed back in the other direction to T2, the winds would stay the same and I’d get a tailwind. And that all came to fruition, for the last 45 minutes it was hammer time and I average 40 km/hr plus heading back to T2. I completed the bike in 2:35:01 — including a 1 min plus stop to fix a dropped chain.
Compared to last year I was 24 seconds faster with a lower average heart rate (10 beats lower). It makes sense because last year I was in poor bike shape due to the bum knee.
Welland is another event I love because of the bike course, even in the old days when it had that steep hill, the local volunteer group is like what you get at an Ironman race but on a smaller scale, the swim is in a calm canal, and I love the run course that goes into Merritt Island – hopefully next year I will actually get to run it.
Congrats to all the Team Running Free athletes that raced. Special kudos go out to the new triathlon age group phenom, Phaedra Kennedy, she notched another age group win in the sprint triathlon. And bested her hubby once again 🙂 Please stay with triathlon and don’t bring your fast running over to the duathlon.
Catch you at the races. Look for the Pink or Purple Butterfly socks.
