Cascade Lake Duathlon Report

On May 31st I raced the Cascade Lake duathlon.  The race takes place in Hampstead, MD which is about 1.5 hours north of Washington D.C.  I was talked into this race by a couple of friends (although it rarely takes much to convince me to race) and I was using this race primarily as training for an upcoming triathlon.  The format of the race is a 1.86 mile run, a 15 mile bike and a 5k run.  There is also a triathlon that runs concurrently with the duathlon.  

The day started off poorly.  It was raining and quite a bit cooler than I had anticipated, and I didn't bring a sweatshirt to stay warm pre-race (one more reason not to trust the weather report and bring more than you need for a race).  The race starts in a private park which is normally a farm of some sort, as evidenced by the mounds of animal dung everywhere.  This I could handle, what was less than fun was the lack of bathroom facilities.  This race is definitely in need of some port-o-potties!  The start was a bit disorganized as the duathlon entrants had to move after we warmed up to make room for the parking of a few fire engines.  Once the race started everything pretty much went off without a hitch.  The first run is essentially flat with a tough climb to the transition/finish. 

The transition area could have used some work;  right outside of the transition area was a very rocky,  grassy, uneven surface where you mounted / dismounted your bike.  It wasn't terrible but it certainly wasn't the best either.  The bike starts off with a fast decent for about a mile or so, after that the fun is over!  This is a very challenging 15 miles.  The hills are endless and challenging; while there are some fast descents, they were not nearly long enough to take the sting out of all that climbing.  If Hampstead wasn't so far away I would definitely consider going up there for more training rides. 

After the tough ride, you head back through the bumpy transition and then out onto the run for two loops of the run course.  The run finishes on a brutal uphill nicknamed Anaerobic ridge by the race organizer.  All in all not a bad race, but my plea is for the race organizer to add some bathrooms.

Miscellaneous race notes:

I finished 4th in my age group just missing out on a medal by about 5 minutes, that's still alot, so I won't let the near miss go to my head.  On a brighter note my good friend, Liz, whose idea this was anyway, won her age group which was very cool.  Congrats Liz!

A good friend of mine, who I encouraged to take up the sport of triathlon, chose Cascade Lake as his first triathlon.  This proved to be a questionable decision due to the severity of the bike course.  However, he managed to survive and finish his first race although he cramped badly near the end.  Congrats Cabha on completing your first race!  I hope you enjoy many more!

I have a 40K time trial and a sprint triathlon in the next two weeks and then I'm going to take a break before I start preparing for the end of the year.  I plan on switching over to a more run focused program including the Parks 1/2 marathon and the Baltimore marathon.  I'm looking forward to the challenge.  I hope to see you all there.

Peace and keep training..

Rob