Bob Marshall Report: Crystal Lake Duathlon

After battling a soleus injury pretty much all season, and even though I had been doing only one treadmill run per week over the last 10 weeks, I thought I would try an end-of-season Duathlon.

ABD newby, Mark Lemke, close friend of Andy Kerr, had mentioned a few weeks back that he had entered the Crystal Lake Duathlon. So, after testing my soleues (lower calf) with my first outdoor run last week, a 4.5 miler, with positive results, I entered the Du as well.

So, after picking up my race packet, I get the TT bike over to transition area, with TT helmet, etc. After, a short warmup spin on my Cyclops trainer, I get over to starting area.

The game plan was to hold back on first running leg, 2 miles 12:59 held back as planned, maybe way too much. Then over to transition area, put on TT helmet, shoes and proceeded out of transition onto bike course.

I felt very good, and was ready to pick guys off one-by-one as planned. Then ~1 mile out & notice a wierd sound comming from my rear disc wheel, so I tried shifting down a cog, no problems there, then continued on. I now realized something serious was wrong with the bike, as I couldn't get up to speed, and kept hearing an odd
sound comming from the back of the bike. So, somewhere around the 1.5 mile mark, I pull over to the side of the road, and take a closer look and notice my rear disc wheel is completely flat.

After blurting out some fowl language, similiar to the old man's on the movie, "The Christmas Story", when the dogs raid the turkey in the kitchen, I turn around and head back to transition area. I tell race officials what happened and then proceed over to my car, pull out my spare 404, and get it partially on, then notice it's very low in air as well. So, I pull my road bike out of my van and take off the CPX-30, and put it on.

Finally after about 10 minutes or so, I'm back out onto the bike course, and wieving in-and-out, around all kinds slower cyclists. Now I know how Rob Jungles felt a couple years ago, (we did a Team Du in Tinley Park) going around people at speed...very scary! After, completing the somewhat hilly 20k bike, I go back thru transition, change shoes, etc, and out onto the final 2 mile run leg.

I managed to finish the race, 85th place overall, and after reviewing the posted results, realized that if I hadn't flatted, the worst I would have finished was 3rd place overall, in fact if I had a hammered the bike leg, as planned, I may have won the race.

I did have fun, enjoyed the post race activities, spoke with Derrick Ungaro, WDT, whom won the Team Du quite easily with Brain Ackers on the bike leg. Despite the disaster, I'm glad I completed the race anyhow, after all, I just couldn't let ABD newby, Mark Lemke down, I had to finish this one.

So, what did I learn from this day..."there is always another day"! You can shuffle the cards all day long, and sometimes, you just get a bad hand!

P.S. - I couple weeks ago, I remember seeing a facebook post from Mike Sherer, regarding his disaster in one of his early Cross Season races in Wisconsin.

See ya next season,

Bob Marshall/
ABD Multisport