St. Marks Duathlon Post Race Report 2017

Sunday, March 12, 2017 marked the beginning of a revitalized race now organized by Gulf Winds Triathletes. The St. Marks Du takes place in St. Marks, FL about 20 miles South of Tallahassee. The race consisted of a 5K Run, 20K Bike and 2.5K Run.

Very thankful of the reminders I was! Time sprung forward the night before the race, this meant less sleep and setting up for the race in the dark. Who sleeps the night before a race anyways?!?! I rolled into St. Marks greeted by a volunteer telling me where to park. From that point forward I was so impressed with the level of detail, thought and attention put into this race. The volunteers were FANTASTIC and organization was Top Notch! Watch out IRONMAN, GWTC is coming for you!

Duathlon to me = replace my favorite sport (the swim) with my least favorite sport (the run). I said I needed to work on my weakness, well this race allowed me to do just that.

Run #1 - 5K: 23:19

My strategy going into this first 5K was to hold back enough to allow myself to bike strong. Looking at the data, I may have held back a little too much. I had 3% of my time in Z1, 7% in Z2 and 55% in Z3 with only 35% in Z4. I should have been around 40% Z3 and 60% Z4. Oops. However, I got to the bike ready to charge.

Stats: 27th Overall, 5th Female
I exited T1 (transition one) 22 seconds down on the 4th place female and 2:23 down on Jillian (Female Lead).

Bike - 20K: 34:31

Zoom, zoom, zoom! I am happy to report I had the fastest female bike split of the day and the 7th overall fasted bike in the field. I was on a mission to catch the lead. It proved to be too hard of a challenge. I worked my tail off but so did Jillian! Jillian is a good friend of mine and I enjoy the friendly competition we have together. I pushed the pace going out hard, averaging 22.1 mph. On the return I was able to increase the pace slightly to 22.4 mph, thanks to a very brief tail wind. I nailed my HR goals, riding for 41% of the time in Z4 and 59% above threshold (Z5). On the final turn I saw Jillian ahead of me and at that point I knew it was her race to win. Jillian is a power house of a runner and I needed at least a minute lead on her off of the bike. I am very impressed with her fight and drive on the bike leg! 

Stats: 7th Overall bike, 1st Female bike

I entered T2 about 10 feet behind Jillian and we ran out onto the final leg of the 2.5K run together. That was fun! 

Run #2 - 2.5K: 11:59

Within a tenth of a mile Jillian had already started to pull away. I knew I had put in some time on the girls behind but it wasn't enough to lay off the pace, I had super star runner Jamila on my tail. And sure enough on the only stretch that had an out and back, there she was looking like a gazelle getting ready to pounce. Motivation can sure make you move. My pace going out on the run for the first .66 miles was 7:42/mi, then I saw Jamila and thought.....oh shit. My pace after I saw Jamila to the finish was 7:08/mi. Thanks Jamila for pushing me to my limit! I still didn't hit Z5 though, so I definitely have room for improvement. I just need to push through the pain.

Stats: 21st Overall (improvement of 6 places from Run #1), 5th Female

Two weeks until Red Hills Triathlon. I get to replace the first run with swimming and the bike is longer and in the hills! Two more interval track workouts before the race as well. Time to push the pain tolerance up on the run. 

A huge congrats to everyone who raced!! We have such an amazing community of athletes, volunteers, supporters! It is all of them that makes events like this so much fun!

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