Fall Classic Duathlon RACE REPORT: Both Henry and Me!

Yesterday was Henry's first duathlon!! We headed east early in the morning after a fun afternoon the day before the race at the neighborhood block party where we ate lots of tasty junk:

Four tables of food, plus someone frying burgers on their front lawn...


... plus all the shaved ice that kids could make for themselves!

We left extra early to drive the bike course ahead of time. It was going to be a smaller race, and I couldn't rely on just telling Henry to "follow the person in front of you" because there could be gaps of athletes. (And athletes have been known to make wrong turns now and then...) We cleared up any confusion, rolled into the race site, and got our spots in transition:

Henry and his bike!




Oh, and there's cat barf on my running shoe. Great. Good luck maybe?...


Traditional pre-race bathroom selfie.

Much like the Spring Classic Duathlon, we learned that this would be the last running of the Fall Classic Duathlon - there just aren't the numbers coming out to race anymore. Charlie was there to cheer us on, so he took my phone and snapped some pics as we lined up and had Judi give us some final instructions:

Me on the right, and someone pooping on the left??


Waiting for a few more athletes, then it's time to go!


OFF WE GO!!


Randy (race timer) in the background, as I'm laughing at one of the
volunteers (who likes to tease me) telling me to "SLOW DOWN!" :)

• RUN 2.5 MILES:

We looped out of the lot and then came back near the start, so Charlie walked a few feet and snapped a few pics about 0.2 miles into the run:

Someone on the far left, but already starting to run away on the first run.


Bald spot and funky butt.


GO HENRY!!!

I kept it pretty strong in the first run. I was quite happy with my first half-mile split of 2:54. Could I keep that up for a bit? It was downhill to the first mile marker:

- MILE 1: 5:48 (2:54 and 2:53)

I tried to keep it fast in the 2nd mile, but it was more uphill (and it's hard to push without a threat from behind), so it was a bit slower:

- MILE 2: 5:59 (2:59 and 2:59)

I knew it was less than a half mile back to transition, so I tried to keep this strong without sprinting too hard. (It ended up being 1:51 for 0.32 miles, or 5:48 pace.) My Garmin pace map shows it was NICE AND EVEN throughout:

Charlie's pic of me entering T1.


Beautifully awkward shot of me leaving T1.


Close-up. It was chilly, but I was also SWEATY.


Henry coming through T1 WITH THE 8TH FASTEST FIRST RUN!!!


Helmet on...


... and off on the ride in a thin coat.

• BIKE 15 MILES:

Well, my Garmin didn't freak out because I was "leaving my phone behind" like it did in June at this race, so that was good! But a piece that sometimes slips out of the ear piece of my aero helmet came loose, so I spent a few seconds riding while stuffing that back in my helment. (Which reminds me... I still need to glue that in better.)

The wind felt like it was out of the south, and my opening average wasn't great because of that. I haven't been biking much lately, so I was hoping this was just a temporary slow-down and not going to be a big drop in overall speed. I climbed the "big hill" 3 miles into the race and hit the top with a 19.8 mph average so far. But then we turned north onto NEW ROADS and I flew. Here's a pic of the new roads from our pre-race course preview:

Three miles of this!!


Bike route, clockwise from the middle. Slow hill heading to the SW corner,
then FAST heading north (under where it says "Inwood Ave N").

The back stretch of the course was pretty uneventful. My average went from 19.8 to 21+ pretty quickly after that better stretch of road. I turned south over half done with the ride with a quick glance over my shoulder for the first time: I couldn't see anyone yet, so the race might be in the bag! But I still need to run HARD as a final good hard "tempo run" for the upcoming TC 10 Mile.

But the race wasn't done with me yet! As I started heading south, I heard a loud noise, and I realized there was a train crossing the road up ahead! It was moving, and I was REALLY HOPING it would finish flying by before I got up to it. But nope... that didn't happen. I was stopped for a train crossing the road.

I kept looking over my shoulder, but no other cyclist was appearing. My lead was getting smaller, but I still felt pretty safe. Finally, I saw the end of the train in the distance, and I quickly shot around the "stop arms" as soon as the train cleared. I was stopped for about 1 minute and 40 seconds.

See the RR tracks? See the DARK BLUE? (That's slow... or STOPPED in this case.)
See the little curve I made around the stop arms when the train went past?


My bike speed. A SWEET GAP IN MY PACE DATA AS I WAS STOPPED! D'oh.

I wasn't angry. I was barely even annoyed. Once I got going, it was kinda funny. It's a thing that happens. Oh well. I took off hard and glaced that my overall speed had dropped from nearly 22 mph to 20.3 mph. Now to get that back up!

I had 2 more quick slow-downs on the bike. At the SE corner, a car wasn't sure what it wanted to do, so I really had to slow up turning that corner (the little dip at the 33:xx mark in the graph above). And then turning into the park, I was behind a horse trailer that I think pulled to the middle of the road to let me pass on the right (which seemed like a HORRIBLE idea), but then it finally just sped up to get out of my way. I had worked my way back up to a 21.3 mph average, which dropped to 21.2 mph as I entered T2. If I take those 100 seconds off my time, my average "moving" speed was 21.9 mph.

I came back to T2 happy to be racing and ready to make myself suffer on the final run in the name of TC 10 Mile training:

Ready to hit my Garmin as I crossed the timing mat.


I look super slow here.


Running off as the first bike left in transition!
(The bikes on the other side of transition were from the "reverse" du: bike-run-bike.)

• RUN 2.5 MILES:

It was the same run as the first run. Charlie grabbed a pic as I was in the distance, gave me some sweet cheers, and sprinted with me for a minute:

This run was HARD. It was hard to keep the effort at 100% knowing it was now like a "training run" as I wasn't afraid of being caught. I shouldn't be winning races like this - there are lots of people faster than me in our local community. But now it was just up to me to suffer and get in a "good push."

Unlike my first run, this one was SPORADIC!! Look at my pace jump all over the place, especially when compared to my first run way up above:

Especially that last 3/4 mile: faster, then slower, then faster, then dying...

I wanted to try to keep similar splits, and it ended up being about as good as I could have hoped:

- MILE 1: 5:59 (3:04 and 2:54)
- MILE 2: 6:00 (3:00 and 3:00)
- FINAL 0.32 TO FINISH: 1:50 (5:43 pace)

Charlie sprinted with me to the finish, and then gave me a big hug. We turned around to go wait for Henry to get off the bike. And before too long, we saw him coming!!

GO HENRY!!


With another cyclist on his tail.


A foot down for a fast corner. :)


Oh, and the race for the lead female went by, and it was TIGHT!!!


He was moving decently!!


Go Henry!!!

Charlie and I cheered on all the finishers (and the "reverse du" athletes heading out for the final ride), and then we saw Henry turning into the parking lot behind 2 other athletes. But he was MOVING, and he blew past them both!!

Henry about 0:20 from the finish!!

Henry was 11th overall and 2nd in his age group!! And he had the FIFTH FASTEST FINAL RUN!!! Nice job Henry!!

OFFICIAL RESULTS:

Steve Stenzel, M, 44, St. Paul

- 2.5 MILE RUN: 13:39, 5:28 pace, 1st in AG, 1st overall
- T1: 0:36, 1st in AG, 6th overall
- 15 MILE BIKE: 42:10, 21.3 mph, 1st in AG, 1st overall
- T2: 0:33, 1st in AG, 6th overall
- 2.5 MILE RUN: 13:51, 5:33 pace, 1st in AG, 1st overall

1:10:47 total
1 out of 29 overall
1 out of 2 in the M 40-49 age group

[Garmin: 2.32 mile run (5:53 pace), 14.86 mile bike (21.2 mph, or 21.9 mph "moving time" if the train hadn't stopped me), 2.32 mile run (5:58 pace)]

Henry was 11th overall out of 29th overall. He had the 8th fastest first run (19:47, 7:55 pace), then a slower 22nd fastest ride (1:02:24, 14.4 mph ave) on his big ole' mountain bike. Then he hit the final run really hard, passed a handful of people, and ran nearly 2 minutes faster (17:36, 7:03 pace) to have the 5TH FASTEST FINAL RUN! He finished in 1:40:48 overall.

Henry and his medal!!


Henry and me!


Henry getting his 2nd place ribbon from Judi during the awards! Nice work, Henry!


I lost some leg hair from where I crammed my use GU under my shorts while biking.

So I started the duathlon season with a 7 minute win at the Spring Classic Duathlon, and I ended with nearly an 8 minute win here at the Fall Classic. And now those races will be no more. Dang.

I'll have a bit more on the race in an upcoming post, and some race photos from the official race photographer when they come in, so check back for those. In the meantime, I'm off to REST so I can be ready for the TC 10 Mile this weekend!