Beaver Fever Duathlon

A few weeks ago, I was scouting the late season racing opportunities looking for a late season TT. Not really sure why, but I was, and low and behold, I found something similar right in my backyard. The OSU Tri club was going to be holding the Beaver Fever Duathlon on the 23^rd of October. For those of you like me who are unsure of what exactly a Duathlon is exactly, it’s generally a run, bike, run event. Not being much of a runner, and really just wanting to TT I thought this would offer a great chance to team up with someone from my department, who would prefer to run and enter the Duathlon as a team. Enter Johanna, when I first asked Johanna if she would be interested in running I had no idea that she was an Olympic caliber marathon runner, well it turns out she is.

All of a sudden, I started to look at the previous race results, and quick math said that if I didn’t suck it up, we might just be able to take the course record for the top Team Duathlon, besting both a three person men’s and three person women’s team times. I had total confidence that Johanna’s times would be easily on target, but could I hold up my end?

The 5k of the Duathlon started with a mass start. A little over 17 minutes later, the first two runners were coming in, some how I knew, that I wasn’t going to have anyone to chase on the road course. Johanna and I slapped hands, and I was off, running to the starting gate, jumping on the bike, and zipping out onto the 30k course. Having no one to chase, I just focused on my heart rate and speed. About halfway through the course while slogging up a extend climb my pace dropped a bit. Coming down the back side of the climb 45+ mph in my aerobars, I recovered, brought my pace back up and started to bring it in. I was feeling good, I was motoring. Soon I would be in.

When I had started the TT, the course was dry, but while I was out it had begun to mist, and the road was now quite damp. Three corners from the end (~2) miles out, a corner marshal was signaling a right turn. I entered hot, and while going through the apex of the corner, my rear tire slid, and then the whole bike went, and I hit the pavement. DAM! DAM! DAM! Everything had been going so well! I hurt a little but ignored any discomfort, jumped up, and spun the wheels. Thank god the zip’s were still true and no brakes were rubbing. I went to mount the bike, shit! The chain had come off, two attempts at mounting it and I was back on. I tried to kick it back up but couldn’t get it to where I had been prior to the crash and I was much more cautious through the next two turns. I brought it in, slapped Johanna’s hand and she was off, and I was off to see the EMT.

It took 17 minutes for the EMT to finish cleaning out my right thy, calf, and arm or just enough time for Johanna to finish her second 5k. Of special note the EMT found a metal staple I’d picked up in my arm. Oh joy.

So how’d we do? Well we’d trounced the previous co-ed course record and beat the previous men’s and women's team relay records. I would like to take more credit for our great time, but with my crash I only finished a little less then a minute faster then the previous all men’s record.

Course Records:

Team Category			5K Run	30K TT	5K Run	Total
Male	J Xtream, Xavier Garcia and Jeremy Long		0:19:11	0:47:51	0:19:45	1:26:46
Female	Rising, Kirsten Norgaard and Rebecca		0:21:23	0:54:03	0:21:34	1:37:00
Co- Ed	Johanna, and Kenneth		0:17:49	0:46:01	0:18:36	1:23:08