Sarah: I went into this year’s duathlon having hardly trained for the run at all, thanks to the springtime trifecta of bad weather, long hours at the office, and laziness.No personal bests were in store for me, so I went for a nice jog and a bike ride on the shores of Lake Huron, and learned some things along the way.

1) There is some weirdness in the final results. I assume this is of my own making – I started one age group late (with the 45+ crowd) so I could pace Sam for the beginning of her run, but ended up with a super slow result on the first 3km (26:30?!), and a guntime almost 3 minutes slower than Sam’s despite starting at the same time and beating her to the finish. I can only guess they used the “gun” for the start of my age group and added the difference between it and when I actually started. My inner competitor is frustrated that the result doesn’t reflect all the people I’d doggedly passed on the 2nd run, but if I really was just going for a leisurely run and cycle along the lake, I oughtn’t really care. Lesson learned, start with your age group!

2) Speaking of competition, I’m normally pretty anxious before any kind of race / performance test. Serious, focused, short fuse, can’t eat, etc. Kincardine is unique for me – staying in a tiny tourist cottage with Sam and Susan T, hanging out at the start with Susan F and Tara, meant eating breakfast and smiling while I stretched and warmed up. Lesson learned, the feeling of a community event built around supporting individual efforts is unique and to be treasured.

3) Sam passed me on the bike (no surprise there!) so I had a chance to play with my pacing as I tried to catch her. I had always supposed that I would be faster overall running 2-3 minute intervals with a 1-minute fast walk between – but I definitely gained more ground on Sam running at a steady (tempo run) pace. Lesson learned, worth it to just keep running if I can.

4) I’ve been learning that eating sooner and more frequently on long bike rides really helps to prevent the lulls in energy I start to encounter after the 1-hour mark, so I thought I’d try some quick nutrition (one of those performance energy gel things) during the transition from the first run to the bike. Lesson learned, there is no amount of water I can guzzle that will keep that gel from making me nauseated during the first part of the ride.

5) I also have trouble with my calves and feet cramping up – albeit on long ride more than running – and was curious to see if I would encounter them in the duathlon. I certainly did – at the beginning of the second run. Fortunately I had my usual cure, Endurance Tap (a Canadian-made salted maple syrup “gel”), in my pocket. I was able to walk off the cramps in a couple hundred metres, with (yay!) no nausea in sight. I think I’ll stick to these for future races.

6) For those nerds interested in numbers that remember Sam’s Sunday post about heart rate, here is my heart rate for the bike portion of the course – truncated a little because I didn’t actually start my Garmin until I was halfway up the hill that starts the course.

Average heart rate : 165

Max heart rate : 175

You can see that Sam and I both have maximum heart rates very close to the standard calculation of 220 minus our respective ages. I’m ten years younger and run 10 BPM higher. Our average heart rates were at 92-94% of maximum – even when I felt like I was “taking it easy” in the middle portion of the course to not completely wear myself out pedalling into the wind, I was still up over 90%. And otherwise you can see the effect of the hills on both our hearts.

Sarah is a duathlete that doesn’t actually like running. She is riding her bike from Toronto to Port Hope on the Friends for Life Bike Rally’s 1-Day ride with a few fellow Fit Is A Feminist Issue bloggers. You can sponsor her here.

Sam: For me Kincardine is one of those events that I seem to enjoy at any speed. I’ve been struggling with sore arthritic knees that get in the way of training for the run. Instead, I’m the Queen of Knee Physio. My goal has been to run slowly and pain free. And I did it. Sarah has been encouraging me to find a sustainable slow running pace and it seems to have worked. Her coaching efforts paid off at Kincardine and at the Pride Run a few weeks before that. As usual I had a blast on the bike even securing a couple of personal bests on the Strava segments on the course. Thanks tailwinds! But best of all this was doing the race with friends. Great to see Susan F, Tara, and Carolyn there. Susan T, Sarah, and I shared a funky little cottage nearby, so close we got to shower and clean up between the race and awards and prizes. Will I do it again? Sure. And next year, this Queen of Knee Physio even hopes to be able to train for it. Wish me luck.

You can read more race reports here and here and here.

If you want to do it with us next year, we’d love to have you along! You need to get up early on New year’s Day though. The registration sells out in the first hour or so.

Bookmark it now and mark your calendars! It’s the Kincardine Women’s Triathlon and join the Facebook group for added reminders, (Facebook) Kincardine Women’s Triathlon.