Pacific Coast Duathlon
September 11, 2016 – Newport Beach, CA
Masters 40-44 – 1st – 1:02:12 (8th Overall)

Run 1 (0.8 miles) = 4:55
T1 = 2:27
Bike (20K) = 33:10
T2 = 1:21
Run 2 (3 miles) = 20:17

In the words of The Onion’s Jim Anchower, “Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya.” The blog has been silent for some time for several reasons, but I’m back to training and racing. In fact, I got the crazy idea to do my first duathlon in 10 years. WTF!!?? The good news was that I was in decent biking shape, and the course was only 15 min from my house. The bad news was that I had exactly 3 runs in the past 3 months. Great idea, huh?

The Pacific Coast Triathlon/Duathlon bills itself as one of the most scenic in America, and I totally agree with that claim. The entire course overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The duathlon course consisted of ~1 mile run along the beach before a steep climb up to the transition area. The bike was a rolling 20K course with 2 loops and was closed to traffic. The final run leg was ~5K with the first portion along the bluffs before descending to run along the beach with another steep climb before the finish.

I got to the race with plenty of time to set up in the transition area. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that rack spaces were assigned by number. Thus, I didn’t need to fight for a spot and knew immediately where my stuff would be. Since the race was so short and it wasn’t too hot, I decided to only have hydration in the transition area. I had also gotten speed laces for my shoes to get them on and off quickly. Regarding shoes, I opted for trail shoes given that so much of the course was on beach.

The duathlon started after all of the triathlon waves got into the water. I ran back and forth a little on the beach to warm up. The sand was deep and soft, so this was going to be a hard run. Once we started, I didn’t overly hammer in the sand. I was more worried about the 5K at the end. I passed some people on the climb. My pace for the run was 7:25/mile, which wasn’t bad considering the sand and steep climb. However, my transition was a little slower than I wanted.

I wish the duathlon had started first, because we would have had the bike course to ourselves. Once I got out on the bike course, it was covered with race traffic. This isn’t an organized bike race, there were people all over the road. I ended up yelling “on your left” (or “on your right”) many times. I found myself having to get out of the aero bars to ride on base bar to brake on several occasions. Oh, well, I guess that’s one of the compromises of doing multisport races. The trick for me was not going 100% on the bike like I would in a TT. Doing the Piru TT a few weeks before the duathlon really helped. It gave me a good idea of bike fitness and helped me pace. I was pretty happy with my bike. My normalized power was 270 watts with an average speed of 22.7 MPH. Not bad considering the “obstacles” on the bike course.

My second transition went a little smoother than my first, but I was still doing stupid things like hydrating while I was in transition vs on the move. Note to self…next time just take the water bottle with you when you run. I forgot how tough the run was on the top of the bluff. You don’t feel the rolling hills as much on the bike, since you can coast going downhill. After a little over a mile, the course descended to the beach. This is where it got fun. I had some triathletes ahead of me so I had someine to target. Passing them gave me motivation. At times, I had to choose between trying to dodge the waves coming in or just run through the water. Thankfully, the sand here was wet and more compacted. A little after the 2 mile mark, we did the steep climb back to the top of the bluff. I couldn’t believe how many triathletes were walking at this point. Even though I was really hurting, I opened up the last 0.5 mile. I ended up averaging 7:34/mile pace for the second run.

Ouch! That was hard. I forget how difficult it was to combine hard running with hard cycling. I was pretty happy with my performance, especially since I ended up winning the Male 40-44 age group (8th overall)! I’d like to do more duathlons in the future…but train next time. Overall, this was an amazing event and I highly recommend it!