Bever Fever Duathlon

It almost didn't happen. Sunday morning at 5am when the alarm sounded I was so close to turning it off and rolling back over. But I laid there for a second and thought about it. I knew if I skipped the race I'd check the results next week and regret not doing it. So I threw my feet on the floor and staggered to the bathroom. We arrived in Philomath just before 8am. I had just over an hour until race start. So I had plenty of time to set up my gear get registered and freeze my ass off. It was a chilly 38 degrees but sunny and clear. So the race started pretty close to on time. The first 5k was a loop around town with a couple rolling hills and one short steep climb. I came into transition in 6th with a new 5k PR(18:19). Once I got my helmet on I was off. Within the first 3 miles I had climbed up to 2nd and begin the hunt for first. The 18m course was nice country back roads with rolling hills and 2 pretty good climbs. I was able to get within sight of the first place guy but wasn't able to close the gap he had on me. My legs were not happy today after doing a tough ride the Friday night before with Grant. Typically in a race of this distance I should be avg'ing ~310 watts. Instead I was struggling to hold 290. Into T2 I was about 50 seconds back from the leader. But based on his run split on the first leg I knew my chances of catching him were slim. The last 5k was on the Philomath high school's XC course. It was 2 laps and had a lot of sharp turns and varying terrain. It was painful but fun and it went by fast. I finished about a minute and a half back from the leader but managed to hold on to 2nd. I was happy that even with tired legs I was able still able to crank out the fastest bike split. The downside was that I have beaten the guy that won in 2 other Tri's this year. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.