A walk in the park!

er.. rather - a run, followed by a bike, followed by another run in the park..

Watching the TriBOB sprint biathlon a few weekends ago on Sentosa really got my fast twitch juices flowing again. It's been years since my last fast'ish effort, so going in to this very short, but potentially very fast, duathlon at the Upper Seletar Reservoir was a bit of an unknown for me. As the old fart in the 30-39 age group, my biggest fear was showing up on a day when all the young bucks decide to dust off their bikes and have a go at it..

The event consisted of a 3k run, a 15k bike and another 3k run. With those short distances, any mistake would be fatal - an extra 30 seconds in transition would mean having to run an extra 15 seconds per mile faster to make it up. In short, the shorter the race, the less room there is for slop.

I was lucky enough to start in the first wave (men 39 and younger), so after a quick out and back run at a roughly 6 minute per mile pace, I was fourth on to the 3 loop bike course with nothing but clear (smooth) roads ahead of me. Cranking through the first 5k loop at a hair under 24mph, I was no longer alone starting the 2nd lap as the folks just getting through the run started to make their way on to the bike course. For the next two laps, I was in a constant state of passing people and yelling for folks to get out the way. I finished the bike still in 4th place overall.

As I was slipping on my shoes again, the guy behind me on the bike arrived and left. Looking at the results, he had taken 15 seconds less than me to get through T2, which (in the end) made all the difference. I was passed by two guys, but then managed to hang on and make up some ground in the final kilometer to finish 7th overall for the day (4th in my division - my time would have been good for 2nd in the 40-49 division).

Next race is the TriBOB Sprint Triathlon in the middle of June! See you all there!