Race Report: Powerade National Duathlon Open Leg 2

The July 18 edition of the Powerade National Duathlon Open was a training race for me which meant there wasn’t any pressure for me to perform better than the previous edition. Since my brick workout fell on the same day, I thought of joining this race before I go on my active recovery week. This was also the launching race of Team Endure, my new team.

My legs felt heavy from the very moment I woke up due to my swim-bike brick the day before. I was just going to “cruise” throughout this race so it was okay.

I arrived at the venue around 5:30 a.m. Got marked and proceeded to rack my bike. This also was my new frame’s baptism of fire so I was excited in a way.

Getting marked

After making sure that I had all my equipment in its proper places, I proceeded to the starting line with my team. As expected, the start gun went off suddenly, catching most by surprise. ( I guess this has become Powerade Duathlon’s trademark )

I paced myself comfortably, harboring between 5:30 and 5:45. I felt strong in the run but controlled myself from speeding up. I wanted to experiment and do a negative split and for the first time, I succeeded. I’m a natural positive splitter and no matter how hard I tried to do a negative split in the past, I always failed. When I finished the first run last Sunday in 34+/- minutes, my first 3K was slower than my second…yes!

Finishing the first run with more than enough to do the bike

After Rick Reyes checked on my helmet’s strap, I proceeded to mount my bike and start on the bike leg. It felt good being mounted. The bike leg was another experiment though. That time around, I wanted to pedal using the big chainring throughout the whole bike leg and see what happens.

After the first half of the bike, I realized being on the big chainring has both its advantages and disadvantages. I was faster on the flats but slower on the climbs. However, since the climbs were short, I decided not to change chainrings anymore.

I was faster on the flats but slower on the climbs.

After about 56+/- minutes ( with a 30.5kph average on the bike ), I was at T2. Once again, I made the booboo of going the wrong way enroute to transition, costing me about 30 seconds. Not good!

I cramped about 200 meters into the 2nd run and had to stop for about a minute, after which I ran slowly just to shake off the stiffness on my lower calves. After about a kilometer, the cramps were completely gone. I was back running at a comfortable pace.

After about 22 minutes, I crossed the finish line. My time: 1:57:10, more than 2 minutes faster than the previous edition. I was surprised to go sub-2. I was expecting my time to be between 2:00 to 2:05. Thank God!

After the race with Julius, Ronald, MJ and Raff

Proud of my new steed!

Team Endure

The 2nd leg of the Powerade Duathlon series is a race of experiments and realizations for me. First, this was the first race I joined coming from a heavy workout the previous day, and for whatever reason, I performed better.

Second, I experimented on taking it easy on the first run and comfortably hard on the bike and this resulted to a better finish time.

Third, I learned the power of the big chainring in races. It made me accelerate faster on flats but slower on climbs. I guess for longer climbs, the small chainring would fare much better.

Lastly, it made me realize that my new team, Team Endure, is composed of members who will live up to the team’s name. Two of my female co-members crashed on the bike and still continued to finish the race. You guys are awesome.

Now, its a week of active recovery before the TriKing Matabungkay Tri. Am I ready? You bet!