Steve Mcrae ran the Bluewater Olympic Duathlon 10k and finished with a time of 2:01:51, which was a PR!
First Olympic Duathlon. I’ve done 3 sprints before though. Warm and humid to start with some lightning and thunder, (they ended up canceling the swim for the triathlon and they did a bike run). The race was a qualifying race for the Canadian Age Group national team to go to the World Championships in Ibiza Spain next year.
I finished 4th overall, 2nd in 40-49 age group, 1st in 45-49 age group. (The overall winner was 41 and fast). Although I finished first my my 45-49 age group and would have qualified for the national team, (2 qualifying spots in each 5 year age group), there’s no way I would have been able to afford a Boston and Spain trip in the same year so I didn’t fill out the paperwork that was required ahead of time to make the team. I just wanted to see how well I measured up.
The first run was fine, about the pace I wanted, 2.5k in 9:02.The bike portion was raining for the first third or so of the 40k and the roads were still wet for the rest of it. Averaged 35km/hr on the bike which was exactly the speed I wanted despite the wet conditions. 1:01:35 for the bike.
The 10k run was hot and humid, the sun came out some after the rain which added to the heat. Temp was 26/79 after I finished, but felt like 35/95 🥵 As much as running a hard 5k sucks, this felt like a really loooong 5k, the rest of the race felt good though 😁 Had a hamstring starting to get tight early on and considered stopping to stretch it out but didn’t. I ran through it and it went away. I knew I was close to the overall podium but wasn’t sure what position I was actually in. The was a guy about 50 metres ahead of me who I thought was also in my race so in the last km I tried making a push to catch him, this made the hamstring cramp up and I had to stop and stretch it out about 500m from the finish, this cost me 30-45 seconds on the last k, but better than having to walk it in I guess. 🙄
Final 10k was 42:58. Garmin has me at 4:22/km for 9.86km. Overall time with transitions was 2:01:51 which I am very happy with. I was thinking 2:10 ish would be good going into it.
