2020 99-Duathlon

<Race Report>

<Before the race>

So long time has passed since I finished the last race, almost a whole year. Before the COVID 19 pandemic happened, my target race was Ironman 70.3 Victoria, it would have been held in May. But it was canceled like many other triathlon races. After I came back to Japan, it was the same. I registered for one middle distance race and some others, but they were also canceled. Then, finally, the 99-triathlon got the first and last race in this season.

Despite such unexpected events, I have continued really good training without any serious injuries. From January - April, I accumulated high volume of running and biking training. Due to COVID 19, most of the training was done by sole, but for the middle distance race, I continued such kind of base training for several months. After I came back to Japan, the crazy hot, Japanese summer welcomed me! It suffered me at first, but it seems I am really a Japanese, I have adapted the summer really soon :). Anyway, I mainly did 30-minutes short running or biking training on weekday and a little bit long run, bike, swim training on weekend.

Actually, I was not sure about my condition because there was no race. But I did several running TT. They were pretty good results, so I really looked for this race!

<The race day>

Due to (thanks to?) a typhoon happened in the race week, the 99 triathlon was forced to be changed to Duathlon (1.5km run - 40km bike - 10km run). The typhoon was leaving Japan on the race day, but still, it was a really strong windy day. The road was wet and a little bit muddy.

<My result>

Total 1:54:20 (6th/ 674, 1st/ 58 in my age category)

1st run (1.5km) 0:05:17 / bike (40km) 1:05:33 / 2nd run (10km) 0:40:23

<The race>

1st run, 1.5km

I've never done such a wired distance duathlon, so I had no plan for this race. Besides, as the measure for COVID 19, 2 athletes started every 3 seconds (rolling start). Then in the race, every athlete had no clue about their position. Anyway, as for this 1st run, I focused not to run over my threshold. So I tried to keep my running speed like a weekly interval training. Obviously, it was too fast compared with my usual interval pace, but this was the race effect! 

*By the way, it was good to see the Japanese Olympic triathlete, Yuichi Hosoda, and Olympic swimmer Takeshi-Matsuda at the start line. They were invited as gest athletes!

Bike, 40km

The bike course is on a high way road. So it was almost flat and there were just 2 corners and 1 U-turn. But thanks to the typhoon, the first half was a deadly headwind and the last half was a heavenly tailwind. One annoying thing was that there were several drafting groups. I know the wind was so strong and there was almost no gap among us due to the short first run, but the drafting groups looked like they were cheating intentionally. I found many university athletes were in the group. They might be serious about the result because the all Japan university championship is coming soon, but I hope they should have followed rules and observed the athlete's spirit! As for me, I was passed by one of the drafting groups around the halfway point. I tried not to get away from them, but they were faster than me, obviously...

2nd run, 10km

When I finished the bike part, most athletes in the cheating group were left for running from the transit zone. I really got irritated about it but tried to stay calm, and focused on running efficiently and fast as much as possible. The running course was also on the high way road, so I was able to see the front runners far away. At first, I felt catching up with them was difficult. But my running performance was so good and the other athletes' one seemed not so good. I started passing them very soon! Passing the cheaters felt soooo good;) In the end, I crossed the finish line at 4th place! This result means that I can compete with university athletes, so it makes me more confident about my training methods. Woohoo!

<The next race>

Shonan International Marathon - Feb 28th

It's been a while since I ran a full marathon! And the race held in my hometown, Oiso. So I've got already excited about the race:)

These days, it gets much cooler so it's nice timing to increase training volume for the marathon. But before that, I would like to participate in some half marathons or duathlon race as milestones.