This last weekend I had the opportunity to race U23 World Duathlon champs in Ottawa. This is an ITU event and brought in quite a lot of talent. Only being 8.5 hours from my house, it was a great chance to get in an ITU race. It even had a local feel as my mom, girlfriend, and her family came out to support.
Ottawa is a beautiful city and it was great to get there a few days before the race.
Onto the race. I had put in some great workouts heading into this race with a recent 3k just under 9:00 feeling comfortable and thinking that would be the pace for the first 5k of the race. I was a bit off as we took off and the first run was 14:35 for the leaders. I ran mid 15:20s and was left in a bike pack of 6 that worked pretty well but we were unable to bridge up. I could feel similar calf cramping to last year's world du champs, so I was determined to stretch that and not let it lock up.
The bike had a very technical section each lap (3 lap course) with a crit style 4- corners and two chicanes and a 180 all rolled up together. We could not ride this before the race, so it was a bit difficult seeing the scene for the first time. As each lap went by, the turns felt more comfortable and it was a nice technical reminder. At one point, a seagull was right on the apex of a corner we were coming to. Thankfully nobody hit it, but I thought that bird was about to get popped.
On the second run, I could feel my calves hurting a bit, so I eased into it. It was only a 2.5 km run though, so that slow start certainly hurt my chances at a great split. I finished up 12th overall for the U23 elite world champs. Not the result I had hoped for, but not a bad day.
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