Maxifuel Duathlon - Race Report

I am a bit late on the race report but I have been waiting for the event photos which I just got yesterday.

If you read my previous post you will have noticed that I barely had any sleep before this race, which is never ideal.  In this situation, I had this race on the schedule since last year, but my wife decided we needed to go to a school fund raising event, which ended up being quite good fun I must say!

Anyway, this weekend the clocks went forward with the arrival of spring, which meant we all lost one hour of sleep.  I went to bed at 2 and woke up at 7 so I could be at the venue by the 8am check in time!

I get to the venue and proceed to register and the I can already feel the buzz... just not so much as other times (when I'm fully rested). It was a beautiful day to race and it was great to be back though.

I racked my bike on the transition area and went out to do some stretches and a few short runs to get the blood going. I started having problems with my 310XT but it finally started working properly.

After a few minutes it was time to line up and we got given the race briefing. All 200 of us were ready to go and the gun went off! I started hard with the first 5 guys in the lead pack for the first 5Km.  As expected, my body gave in and after half the first initial 5Km. I was really tired due to the lack of sleep and it was showing. I got passed by about 10 guys on the first 5Km and I was short of my goal of 18ms or better and ended up with a time of 20mins. Hopefully this weekend I can beat it as I am racing at the same venue again.

T1 was not bad, but I can improve it. In and out in 48s.

It was now time for the Argon to go to work, and boy did it work!! This piece of machinery flied out there on the course. I must have passed about 100 people or more, and only got passed by a handfull, including a chick on a Cervelo P3.

This was the very first time I was racing on my Argon and I was actually quite comfortable on the saddle the whole time. I need to work on my power as the few people who passed me were spinning quick on a high gear, and I need to be at the same level if I want to improve my bike and overal times.  The Speedfill water bottle was great as well.  The tube fits perfectly well between the bars and I was able to get my drink comfortably on the aero position. All in all, great first experience competing on the Argon E118.  I finished the bike section in  01:02:17. More details below


T2 was a bit quicker and I was in and out of transition in 38s. Gotta beat 30s next time.


As I exit T2 I make sure to grab my gel for the 2nd half of the 10K, put my cap on and hit the tarmac. At this time I was ahead of many on my category (Male Olympic Distance), but I was conscious that I was not at 100% due to the lack of sleep.  Strategy was to get passed by as few guys as possible! My pace was slower than the virtual partner on the 310XT, but I was still managing to pass some people on the way home.


The final 100m were a sprint! I was already pushing myself to get across the line, when I heard some footsteps behind me and I started sprinting event faster! It was number 60 who finished in the exact same time as me as we crossed the line. 


All in all it was a good race.  Better yet, I look at it as a competitive training session allowing to focus on my goal which is to prepare for the half IM in May 


It took some time for the results to come up but I was surprised to find out that I had the 5th fastest bike split in the Olympic distance race!! We weren't that many (50) but I still see it as an accomplishment.  I finished 9th across all categories (Super Sprint, Sprint, Olympic) and 7th in my category (Olympic).

I have copied the results straight from the F3 events results page.

Position Overall	9
Gender Position	9
Category Position	7
Race Number	19
Name	MIGUEL VIEIRA
Category	M-SEN
Club
		Avg. Speed	Avg. Pace
Run Time	00:20:13(18)	14.84km/h	00:04:03
T1	00:00:48	-	-
Bike Time	01:02:17(4)	38.53km/h	00:01:33
T2	00:00:38	-	-
Run Time	00:47:28(32)	1.26km/h	00:47:28
Overall Time	02:11:25