The fast and furious Duathlon was billed as an F1 (Formula 1) race which is a duathlon featuring two bikes and three runs. In this case i t was a 2.1 mile run, 10.3 mile bike, 2.1 mile run, 10.3 mile bike and finally a 2.1 mile run. Being the inagural race I wasn't sure what so rt of time to shoot for so I decided that I would aim for an easy first run and bike and then treat the last two runs and bike as a mini-duat hlon.

The morning of the race was thankfully much warmer than the freezing weather on the date it was originally scheduled. My wife, 9 month ol d son and I headed out just after 6:00 am. Our son thankfully slept until we got the race site just before 7:00am. While I prepared all of my stuff and transported it to the transition area my wife fed Jonathan. By the time I was finished setting things up in the transition area Michelle and Jonathan were set to go. We wandered around the transition area watching some of the speedy people prepare. We recognized a friend Tim from some other races He had beaten me by about 3 minutes in mini-duathlon the pr evious year so I knew it would be a challenge to keep up with him. Soon enough we had the pre-race speech and all 170 or so people lined up for the start.

I was planning on keeping the first run easy to try and keep a good pacing on all of my runs. It was somewhat difficult as loads of peopl e kept passing me. However my patience paid off at the 1 mile marker which I hit in just over 7 minutes. After the mile marker I stopped lo sing ground on other competitors. As I rounded the last turn heading into the transition area I saw Tim heading out on the bike meaning that I wasn't to far behind yet. I cruised in with a decent time of 14:45 on the first run.

T1 passed in 34 seconds. Once on the bike I opened things up a little but kept my pace pretty easy and under control. I quickly passed a ll of the runners who had passed me on the 1st run. The bike flew by without any incident as I continued to pass people the whole ride. As I neared the transition I saw Tim heading out on his run. I had actually gained a little on him. Encouraged I cruised into the transition area with a bike time of 26:45. T2 was a little slower than T1 at 45 seconds.

As I left on the second run I tried to up the intensity a little however I was prepared to have a lot of people pass me due to my slow run ning. My legs felt pretty good but I was a little slower as I hit the 1 mile marker in 7:50. Suprisingly for me only 4 people had passed me . I tried to speed things up a little on the return and was only passed by 3 more people as I finished with a time of 15:38. In the transit ion area as I got on my bike I set my goal for the final bike of passing at least the seven people that had passed me on the run. I exited T 3 in just 36 seconds

The second bike was a little more difficult as the wind had picked up. By the first turnaround I had only passed 3 people. It took anoth er 4 miles to reel in the next 3. As I completed the last turnaround and headed for home I overtook several other riders. I eased up a little and one repassed me but then slo wed immediately after he got in front. I cranked things up and quickly dropped him behind me. With about a mile to go to the transition are a I looked behind and saw that I had a pretty big lead over the next rider. I eased up a little to let my legs prepare for the final run. I finished the second bike with a decent 28:20 and a T4 time of 30 seconds.

I hit the 1st mile marker on the third run in 7:40 a little better than my second run but I was hoping for a little more speed. With just a mile left I gave it pretty much all I had and actually passed one runner and cruised into the finish with a time of 15:29 for an overall t ime of 1:43:35 good enough for 46th out 168 overall and 7th out of 29 in my age group just a couple minutes behind Tim in 4th place. Given the stiff competition in this race I was pretty pleased with my effort. It was also a pretty interesting format to watch. After the first b iker came back there were always people in the transition area which meant that there was always something for the spectators to watch.