Tomorrow, March 25th, will be my 4th ever duathlon and 27th multisport event at the Powerman Alabama Duathlon at Oak Mountain State Park just south of Birmingham, Alabama. I am "seeded" 6th as my bib number indicates; my first time ever being a single digit number in a large race.
I seeded myself at an expected time of 2:55:00 for the 10k run - 60k bike - 10k run event which breaks down to a pair of sub-38 minute 10k's and a 1:38-low 60k bike. That may be fairly challenging, but sub-3 hours is definitely within my grasp. My aim is to pace the race perfectly such that I negative split all three legs, and therefore, negative split the race overall with my 2nd run faster than the first.
I have little knowledge of the competition, and past results vary widely with the inclusion and exclusion of professional athletes. Ultimately, all I can do is my best and see where that lands me. I did notice that one of the 4 runners who beat me in the GHS Half two weekends ago is also racing, so it will be interesting to see how we fair against one another in this race. Unfortunately, being on different sides of the age distribution (me at 20 and he at 46) means that we will be in separate starting waves and on different overall times for the duration of the race.
On the positive side of things, the course sets up very nicely to really be able to race against the other competitors. The runs are each two 5k laps, the far end of which is an out-and-back segment. On the bike we will race three 20k laps that are entirely on an out-and-back stretch, 10k out, 10k back. In all, it will be possible to see the competition close by at 9 separate places.
Ideally I'll run just under 38 minutes for the first 10k with very close to even splits (19:00 / 18:50). Hopefully that will be followed by a very fast T1 before descending my 3 laps on the bike around 33:30, 33:00, 32:30. Another quick transition and I'll be onto the second 10k to really race to the finish, hopefully going sub-19 for both 5k's and the last being my fastest of the race.
Races are run for a reason, though, so we will find out how well the strategy works tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment