Duathlon Race Strategy

That does sound like a better plan to me. 

After looking my times last year and reading my own race report, I think your strategy sounds pretty good.

Thanks!

No amount of conditioning is ever going to get you to that plan.

Probably best to aim for about open-10k pace for the first 5k.  Ride steady, but very hard.  Unlikely you match the first 5k time on the second, but hold on as best you can.

More likely you would still end up running the first one faster.

I'd go with ~open 10k pace for the runs. First run should hit it, second will try, but might not quite get it. For the bike, do you know how you'd take an Olympic tri?  Maybe a little harder than that, but not much.

I never said I would match the first run, but I would have less of a gap.  YMMV.  I spent a fair amount of time talking to some top female duathlete's last year and that's how the majority of them race.  Their second time was within a minute of their first (overall).  My gap was a bit wider but I hadn't really been training that hard, signed up on a whim. 

I've only done one, when the swim leg of a tri was cancelled.  In the end it was 2.3 mile run, 23.6 mile bike, then a 6.2 mile run.

I ended up going out way too slow on my first run, but I didn't know any better.  I ended up doing 7:50 pace on the first run, had a "normal" pace for my bike leg, and then had enough in the tank to do 7:24 for the last 10K run.

I don't think I would have blasted it on the first run, but I will certainly not hold back nearly as much if a do another du.

Yeah, that is a harder one to pace.  I sure wouldn't run the first one as a stand alone but not sure how much I'd back off.  Not too much I'd think, you'd recover pretty good on the bike. 

How would you relate those paces to your ability? They don't mean much without some context in how hard you were pushing yourself to get them.

A big part of that is to help mentally push themselves as hard as they do. What do they actually end up with for each section compared to that goal? For example, with a bike that broke 20 miles, if I truly went like there was no run after I would not be able to unclip from the bike for a few minutes and might even fall over.

The Du was in San Antonio Texas. 

I won my AG 40-44 and 5th over all.

It was a great day.

Redundant but congrats Very cool. I love duathlon!

Brian.

I hope that is true and would be great. On the other hand USAT have sorta been saying that for years. I know I would do duathlons way more than tri's if there were more around and spread across the year.

I used a lot of the tips from here. 

I ran the first 5k at about 80%. I keep the leaders in sight but didn't try to keep up, I just stuck with my pace. My average for the 5K was 7:50. On the bike I went hard, probably harder then I should have but I wanted to make up some ground. Biking is my strongest part of Du/Tri so I kind of just went for it. I did averaged 21MPH for 21 Miles, on my second loop of the 10.5 loop course I passed people doing the short course they were still on their 10.5 loop. Off the bike I felt pretty strong and ran as fast as I could and could see the leader. He was almost a mile ahead of me. I would up running the second 5k average 7:51 per mile. 

Next Duathlon I think I'll stick with the faster runners as long as I can and try to distance myself from them on the bike and see if I can hold them off on the run.

Well I have a podium as a duathlete but the way I swim it's not likely as a triathlete I am and always will be a recovering runaholic!

I think USAT is more serious as I have been receiving emails from them regarding the program, committees, and organization. There are 4 major areas: a regional championship series, promotion and marketing, adult outreach and training, youth outreach and training.