Short Biathlon - A Race!

The end of July saw my attending my first Riyadh Triathletes event. It was only a short swim, run race of 500m/4k. A 7:55 swim was ok for me. With the fastest swim a swift 6:15 I had no chance of catching the leader with such a short run. However, he was not a great runner and constant 3:45 kilometres saw me catch him after 2k for the overall win. Most enjoyable race! I have some photos and will post these shortly. Following this race I attended the next event last Friday at the funky named Ranco Farm, which is South of Riyadh in the Dirab region. This was my first race with a bike involved since the Outlaw Ironman in July 2014! Where has the time gone. I have no idea what shape I am in for cycling but I have been able to string together 3 weeks of decent power based sessions on the turbo. Using the vector Garmin pedals - did I report that I now have these? - I am now trying to scientifically train myself to decent bike form for the Challenge Half Bahrain Triathlon on 20 Nov 15. Anyway, I digress.

The Duathlon consisted of 6k run, 25k bike, 4k run. The bike course was technical and hilly comprising a 4 lap route. I felt ok on the first run and wound up the pace to finish in 22:29. This 2 minutes faster than the next guy; so I had quite a lead. I probably nailed the first bike lap too hard but I was just enjoying the race really. By the 4th lap I was in the groove and was sure that nobody was catching me - then it was time to dismount. The second run was that familiar yuk feeling and I felt like I was crawling. I had such a lead that I was never really pushed. I was surprised that I maintained 6:20 per mile pace really. Racing in Saudi is hard due to the heat. It gets so hot that you struggle to breath and it hits you like a slab of concrete when you get off the bike. Anyway, a most enjoyable race. The next race is a double Duathlon of 4k/10k/3k/10k/2k/10k/1k. Now that sounds like fun!