Cascade Lake Duathlon Race Report

The Cascade Lake duathlon has had a place in my race program for some years now.  The race suits me.  It's small, short (2 mile run, 15 mile bike, 2 mile run), and has a hilly bike and a flat run.  Just how I like my sprint races.  In years prior, when I did little or no run training the flat run just insured that I would not die during the run portion.  I more recent times (since I actually started to do run training) it has become a way for me to maintain any lead I can create coming off the bike.

This year I had special motivation to do well.  I won my age group last year so I considered myself a defending champion of sorts.  Even though I "aged up" this year I still felt like the title was mine to defend.

It's been a rough few months for me. My first race of the season was marred by looking for a new job and fighting illness, along with all the other day to day realities of life.  If that was not bad enough, I lost my Dad about 4 weeks prior to the race.  The constant travel and need to support my Mom made training that much tougher.  Whether by pure luck and / or coincidence, I came into the race with perhaps my best 2 weeks of training that I had all year.  For the first time all year I was actually feeling fit, and while my training data has been reasonably good all season, for the first time I felt like I had that extra gear I so desperately need when racing.

Good weather was forecast for the weekend so I went about preparing early in the week.  Picking out my race kit, packing my gear, drinking plenty of water and getting some sleep.  I also checked out the winning times in my new age group from the year prior.  Sure enough the guy who won my age group had finished ahead of my time last year so I knew I had a race on my hands.  One nice thing about the Cascade lake race is they post pictures of the racers so I knew what my rival looked like.  I could now keep an eye on him.  Of course, the rest of the age group field was a big unknown, but you can't worry about something you know nothing about.  I would just need to be watchful.

Run #1

I know the course well having raced it so many times, and knowing the first mile is completely downhill I reasoned I could run 10-15 seconds faster than my normal 5k pace.  This translated into a 7:05 - 7:10 pace for me.  I reasoned anyone running much faster than that I would need to catch on the bike.  After a good warm-up, I arrived at the starting line with a nice sweat going.  Since the run is so short, you don't want to waste 10 minutes getting warmed up in the race!  The announcer gave us a 5 second countdown and we were off.  I felt smooth and looked around to check out where the other 50+ guys were.  I saw the guy I was most concerned about (let's call him JD) he was up ahead of me by about 5 seconds or so.  That's fine I thought, if I can keep him within 15 seconds on the run I felt I had a good chance to beat him.  Then I notice a guy with silver hair some 20 to 25 seconds ahead of JD!  This guy was motoring!  Let's just say I was hoping he was over 55!  The turn around comes just after the mile mark and you start running uphill back to transition.  Now my strategy was just to maintain my pace at 7:30 or so and keep my heart rate from getting out of hand.  JD started to pull away a little, but nothing too scary so I let him go.  Silver hair guy was now a good 35 seconds up the road, "He could be a concern." I thought.  1/4 of a mile before you get to transition is an absolutely brutal hill.  It's named anaerobic ridge, and it will put you into an anaerobic state if you are not careful!  Just as I got to the base of the ridge another guy in my age group passed me!  "Well now we have a race!", I thought.  So into transition we went, 3 guys in my age group (possibly being led by another guy in our age group), and so now I tried to make up some time in transition.

T1

My transition have been really good the last year or two.  A few things I have learned:  Don't sit down!  Run into transition!  Run out of transition!  I noticed a lot of athletes treat transition like it is a recovery period!  It's not, it is part of the race, and you can easily lose a podium spot with a bad transition.  Normally I place my shoes in the bike pedals and do a flying mount, but here is where knowledge of the race course can come in handy.  The transition area at Cascade lake is a good ways from the actual mount / dismount line.  In that expanse is gravel and rocks.  I tried to run shoeless to the mount line one year and I am sure I looked like someone walking barefoot over hot coals.  I was not going to do that again!  I put my bike shoes on in transition and did my best penguin run imitation to the mount line.

Bike

Knowledge of the bike course informed my choice of equipment for this race.  I chose my standard road bike with my light climbing wheels, as opposed to the tricked out TT bike which, though more aero, weighs a good pound more.  The road bike also has a few other advantages like slightly lower gearing, a better climbing position,  and is generally more comfortable.  I saw lots of tricked out, disk wheeled, bikes as I passed them on the climbs, and I am happy to say only a few passed me.

The bike course is deceptive because you start off flying downhill at 25 - 28 mph.  However, as soon as you make the first turn, you get a feel for what the course is really like.  The first turn is about a mile in and I could see JD and the other guy in my age group not far ahead (the silver hair guy was nowhere to be seen so I just stopped worrying about him).  Up the first climb I passed both JD and the other guy.  This made me feel good.  I wasn't particularly pushing it, I was just following my race plan courtesy of Best Bike Split .  If you have a power meter I HIGHLY recommend this site.  Best bike split will calculate your power numbers for the course based on your FTP , length and elevation profile of the course, and details about you and your bike (and other factors too technical to go into here).  The next five miles followed this pattern.  JD and the other guy would overtake me on the descents and I would then overtake them on the next climb.  This continued until about mile 6 or so when the other guy made a strong charge on one of the flatter parts of the course.  I followed. Around mile 8 or so I noticed that JD was no longer passing me on descents.  Never one to look back, I kept my focus on my power numbers and the other guy who was about 10 seconds ahead.  On one of the biggest descents, I bombed it and hit 40 mph and caught up to the other guy.  For the rest of the race we remained within 10 seconds of each other on the bike.  We steamed into transition at virtually the same time.

T2

Uneventful and that's the way it should be!  Dismounted, got my shoes off, put the running shoes back on and got out of there in under a minute!  The other guy was right behind me.  JD rolled into transition as we rolled out.  I would have to keep an eye out for him...

Run #2

Bike for show, run for dough that's what I have always been told.  Now I understand why!  The other guy went right to the from as soon as we hit the main stretch of road.  I was running maybe 5 seconds behind him.  He picked up the pace.  I didn't want to give him any confidence so I got right up on his right shoulder.  I am sure my breathing in his ear must have annoyed him!  I checked my watch, 7:30
pace, I can hold that.  He made a small surge just before the turn around, 7:20 pace, I can hold that, I think.  I still felt OK.  Not great but OK.  I was UBER focused.  I thought about upping the pace, but I was bit worried about my recovery.  If he countered would I be able to respond?  We are now running back uphill.  As I think back on it now, I did not noticed anyone else but this guy for the entire last 30 minutes of the race.  I mean this was a REAL RACE!  There was now about 1/2 a mile left.  I was still glued to his shoulder.  All I could think about was anaerobic ridge.  I decided I would make my move there.  I would either have it or he would.  This is where race strategy goes out the window.  The other guy decided to make his move about a tenth of mile BEFORE anaerobic ridge.  I tried to go with him.  It worked for a moment.  He pushed just as the grade steepened and I had no response.  I was at my limit.  I wanted to go but I had nothing extra.  He pulled away as we hit the ridge and then the real pain started as I tried to push with everything I had left.  I STRUGGLED to the line.  As soon as I crossed the line I put my hand out to congratulate the other guy (his name is George by the way, and a nice guy at that), he grabbed me and hugged me.  "Great race." he said.  "You really pushed me."  I take some solace in that, but I see some hill sprints in my future!

Post-race

Turns out the silver haired guy WAS NOT in our age group (whew!).  More interesting than that was he was 64!  Dayummmmmm.  After the race I had some thoughts.  Should I have attacked on the bike?  I had a few opportunities to try and really get away from the other racers, but I rode the race like a triathlete and not like a bike racer.  I often wonder if a little experimentation might have changed the result.  Might have to try that next year........

While it is AGONIZING to come that close to winning I can't be too upset as I annihilated my best time by over 8 minutes, which is huge for a sprint distance race.  Now if I can just drop these last 4 pounds.......

Keep training and have a good race!

Robert