One of AFC's newest members: Mark Johnson recently competed in the Lums Pond Duathlon. Alex Driscoll was also there!
Here is Mark's Race Report:
last Sunday I participated in the Lum's Pond Duathlon in Middletown, DE. We were greeted by Mother Nature's warm embrace of heat and blanket like humidity. The venue hosted a Triathlon as well so in total there would eventually there would be about 650 people on course cycling and running. These are cool events as it merges a diverse population of disciplines, talents, and gear. I saw several familiar faces - the ever popular "Baby Sugar" and companion Cleo, a dude I use to race with regularly on the roads 30+ years ago and folks I know from the cycling world.
The race -
We started with a 2 mile run - giddy up as the leaders rolled out and would come in around 9:37-40. I was certainly in their wake as I "rolled" through the 2 miles in 12:58 (yeah that's 2 miles guys - wait until you get old). I was happy with the 6:29 pace as I haven't even done that in training lately - muscle memory I reckon.
Next was the transition to the bike - chaos in the pits as people are gasping for air, whipping off their flats and getting into bike shoes, helmets, and running their carbon fiber, aero barred, 2 wheeled machines on the bike course. 19.5 miles of flatish roads. I have to admit there's nothing like the sound of Zipp wheels in the morning as some leg shaved, bullet headed elite blows by you...sweetness. I assumed the position of trying to be extended onto the aero bars of my Dolan carbon fiber, time trial bike. I "looked" really fast. The efforts netted me a time of 54:43 for 21.4 mph avg, Not too bad.
Transition 2 - dismount the bike, run through the maze of people and bikes and rack the bike, throw off the helmet, and slam into the flats again!
Off on the final 3 mile run - your body is screaming "I wanna go home, haven't you done enough to me today"? The runners wobble out trying to find the running legs - I immediately got a cramp in my left hammy and thought this would not be pretty. Continued on and thankfully the run course was mostly shaded to lessen the suffer a bit. Ended up running 20:24 for a 6:48 pace.
Baby Sug and Cleo allowed me to hang with them afterwards as we both thought we medaled in our age group. Seems we both need some remedial work in reading. We hung around to accept our 3rd place awards... but both ended up 4th in the age groups! We both slipped away from the awards area and I for one called myself a dumb ass.
A good day, great event, looking for more DUs.
-Mark Johnson
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