USN Dorney Lake Duathlon - Report

It was a lovely morning to race

This weekend I raced on the same venue as last week, Dorney Lake Olympic Rowing Center.  It was a perfect day to race and since my dad was in town for my young daughter's birthday I took him along.

Getting the bike ready

Got there with plenty of time, checked in and racked the bike before I warmed up a bit. We got our quick briefing before the gun went off and BANG, we were out on the road!

There I am on the top 10 

Feeling the pain!

The first 5Km were ok but not ideal! Not only was I not able to beat 20mins, I was also not able to beat my previous time from last weekend! Disapponted to say the least bu I cannot expect improvements in one week I suppose!

Pushing hard on the bike

T1 was looonnng!! I was a bit stuck putting my helmet on and it just felt like forever. 1m:01s is way too long for T1.

After I clock out of T1 I get on the road and I also struggled a bit to get my feet on the bike for the first 200m so some more time lost there! When i finally got up on the saddle I was able to maintain a good pace, passing most people on the course and only getting passed by, literally, 5 guys! Not bad, but my pace was down to 34.9Km/h from 38.5Km/h from last week! Tiredness? Disappointing....

Bringing it home after the 20Km

T2 was more of the same. Struggle to put the damn chip on the hand device the marshals had at transition entrance, rack bike, shoes on, and struggle to get the damn chip on the device again!!

Final 5Km. Chasing and being chased

Finishing...not so strong! 22nd position overall.

Almost home...

The second run was ok as well.  I managed to pass about 10 people, but there was a guy who passed me on the first run who I passed on the bike, but he managed to pass me again on the second run! B@stard! There was another guy who I got in T2 with and I managed to drop him in the first 2Kms. I have to constantly set my eyes on someone as a target in order to keep pushing myself, otherwise I let the pace drop, which is not ideal!

All in all I cannot say I was happy with the results, but I cannot expect improvements in one week, thats just not realistic. Taking into account the last time I rode my bike was at last week's  race, it serves me good to have a slower pace, it makes me pull my finger out of my ass and get the training done according to my TrainingPeaks.com schedule.  I finished 22nd out of 68 in my category, top 32%.

Next week I have my first triathlon of the season. The Thames Turbo was were it all started in 2010, and two years later I'm thousands of £s poorer, 14Kgs lighter, and completely addicted to this sport!

5Km Run     00:20:32 

T1                00:01:01 

20Km Ride  00:34:21 

T2                00:00:39 

5Km Run     00:22:58 

Total Time   01:19:31

Official Results Here