The first time I crossed a duathlon finish line, I felt that the cost of my bike was well worth it already. Why? I never saw myself as a Duathlete nor even an athlete. My Daily Collage Duathlon reminded me of the few years I’ve actually been active in both running and cycling.
Duathlons
When it comes to being an athlete, a duathlete or even a fitness enthusiast, I wasn’t born to be one. In fact, I spent my childhood as usually the “taya” on street games as I was among the slowest and the weakest. Well, I still am not the fastest or the strongest but I’ll always look back on the days that I tried to be a stronger version of myself. Every finish line, every medal and every little feat is a bonus to me as this hasn’t been my strong suit. Being passionate and smart has made me cross so many finish lines I was never meant to cross if I was not crazy enough to try.
Peer pressure! That’s what led me to be a duathlete. As my running friends slowly evolved in multisports athlete, I ended up buying a bike and just go with the flow. My duathlon journey happened in 2012 and 2013 before my first marathon and before finding my comfort zone in the trails. One duathlon after another with each race showing improvements, which was surprising for me. It was a short career as when I started training for my first and second marathon, I had less and less of saddle time. My Daily Collagen was a chance to go back to those days of doing duathlons. I may not be as fast as I used to but I might as well give it a really good try, well, just for fun.
My Daily Collagen Duathlon had a unique concept of doing the duathlon virtually and the fun category allowed us to do each segment separately over a 3-day period. Well, I wanted to spend my weekend on trails so I did all 3 segments one after another on a Friday morning. I might as well feel the pain of a usual duathlon since I don’t do this frequently.
Run
When I was doing duathlons in 2012, the run part was always intense. At that time, multisport is just starting to blossom and most people are competitive withe barely any recreational duathletes. I usually run the first leg at around 6 – 6:30 minutes per kilometer pace and I’d still end up laging behind the pack. MDC uses a different format with a 3K run, 20K bike and 5K run. It’s usually the longer run segment that starts the race. Since it was late, I tried to do it as fast as I can on my usual 1-kilometer neighborhood loop. I left my water bottle at the lobby so I can do a quick sip after every kilometer. I ended up finishing the first run leg at 21 minutes.
Bike
Short as my duathlon career was, I had a lot of funny memories in the bike leg. From my first time feel of being overwhelmed by a pack of riders on my first race to struggling on the first 6 kilometers of the bike leg in ASTC duathlon because the brake was on on the metal part of the wheel. Those mishaps made each race memorable. I was always conservative on the bike but for this one since I had to do it using Zwift, I knew I could do better. I opted for the flattest route I knew, Tempus Fugit at Watopia. I just tried to maintain a 30 kph and I finished it at 41 minutes. Oh yes, my room is in the 4th floor so I had to add 4 floors on the climb to my transition.
Run
The first time I transitioned from the bike to run on my first duathlon race, my legs were literally on brick mode as it was really stiff and can barely move. It improved after I made my first few steps. Out of my excitement, I accidentally entered the finish line instead of the transition area beside it. Despite the stiff legs, I was able to have good times on my run legs in my races. Transitioning back to the run leg reminded me of the struggle on the transition. I started the first of my 5 loops just to feel out my legs and slowly adding speed on the succeeding loops. Pre-race plan was just to walk it off so I was surprised that I was able to run most parts with just recovery walks in between. I still consider a 4o minute 5K of the transition a decent finish.
I finished everything at 1:42:59, 4th in my age group; which was good enough since I was expecting to finish last. It was a brief duathlon race but its was nice to go back to the fun and crazy days racing duathlons. I’m glad I still have enough legs for another back to back days on the trails for the weekend. Thanks My Daily Collagen for coming up with a first-of-its-kind virtual race and letting me experience the fun and the pain of doing duathlons once again.