Doug runs and mountain bikes in a duathlon!
Doug and Chad take 2nd place!
Saturday October 3, 2009
EX2 Day of Endurance!
I traveled to Maryland this past Saturday for a duathlon race with my Ironman friend Chad Holderbaum. (He is the genius who talked me into biking to DC, 320 miles in 2.5 days!)
We entered the Duo Male team of “Big Rig’s Toona Express”. We devised a plan where we would place off his strength early-running, and my strength later in the race – mountain biking. This unique race brought trail runners and mountain bikers together as teams and solo racers competed in one of three different relay races: a 3 hour trail running race from 9am-12pm, a 6 hour mountain bike race from 12pm-6pm, or a 9 hour endurance duathlon from 9am-6pm. Racers churned out as many 5.4 mile trail running and/or 9 mile mountain biking laps as possible in their respective race.
When the race began Chad and I calculated that we would need to do 3 maybe 4 laps of running. He would run first then me then him again for 2 more if need be. As he completed his first lap (36 minutes) within a minute of the leaders I headed out for a painful lap. I caught up to the 1st and 2nd place runners midway through the course and stayed with them throughout my first 5.4 mile lap. Chad was excited to see me come through the exchange tied for first place (39 minutes), so he ran off to do a second lap, as he finished the second lap he called for me to run again, citing that the leaders might fit in 5 laps so we needed to keep up. As he passed our pit area I grabbed my shoes and quickly put them on as I took the exchange and headed out for what I felt was my day ending run! Really, I haven’t ran a mile in 3 months, and now I’m heading out to do a second 5.4 mile lap? Crazy… I managed to keep steady pace and come in under 50 minutes. Chad went out for our team’s fifth lap (his third – giving him over 15 miles of trail running). As the run portion ended we were sitting in 3rd place some 20 minutes behind the leaders.
My legs sore and cramping but I readied for the mountain bike loop I would do, 9 miles of pure rocky hell on my recently “Todd tuned” single speed hard tail mountain bike!
Chad completes another fast run lap (giving him over 15 miles of rocky trail running) – Way to go Chad! I headed off into the woods. The single speed proved a good choice as I passed several of the mountain bike racers who started their race at Noon, nearly 10 minutes ahead of us! I turned in a pretty fast lap gaining a few minutes on the leaders. We were still sitting somewhere in top 3 almost 20 minutes behind 1st place. Chad (who has ridden a mountain bike only 6 times EVER and certainly never raced one!) headed out and kept pace with the leaders every lap, even taking some minutes out of their lead. His ironman conditioning and quick learning curve on the mountain bike served us well here! Because Chad did 3 run laps, I had to do 4 bike laps (36 miles), after cramping and having what I felt was a horrible first bike lap I managed to cut into the leaders each lap thereafter. For the next 5 hours Chad was flying around the 9 mile course and so was I.
Chad and Doug's September bike trip from Pittsburgh to DC
Last lap… First place was only 4 minutes ahead of us… I headed out for what ended up being the fastest mountain bike lap of the 9 hour event! Wow my legs felt great and I felt like I could catch the leaders. After all in previous 5 laps we had chipped away their 20 minute lead. I chased and chased for the entire 9 miles, never seeing the lead rider until I entered the finishing straight away. First place had just finished 52 seconds ahead of me. It was an exciting 9 hour race that was fueled by Chad and I constantly chipping into and passing other racers only to come up 1 minute short of overall victory.
Teamwork is truly a valuable thing in these races as I ran above and beyond what I could do and Chad raced out of his mind beyond what he could do. Thanks for all the support!
Ex2adventures.com is a well organized race promoter out of Virginia, and we look forward to racing in their events again next year…
Cheers,
Doug Riegner
