Race Review: PhilDua Leg2 Clark

The good:

1. Great race venue that is Clark.
2. Nice finisher's shirt.
3. Great race org by Team Adrenaline

The bad:

1. Inaccurate race distance. The bike exceeded 1.2km and run2 was short by 400m as per my Garmin.
2. No finisher's medal. I heard that there was a mix up among the org people assigned to bring to the race venue.

My race:

I felt pretty confident going into this one as I was able to follow my pacing and nutrition strategy. 

1. Keep runs at 6:20-6:30/km

I felt that this was the right pace range to go in order to meet my sub-2:20 target. Anything faster than this will definitely see me wither away by Run2. I chose to just maintain this on the flat and downhill sections, and fight for it on the slight uphill part of the runs. 

                    Run1 average: 6:21/km

                    Run2 average: 6:26/km

2. Pace yourself on the bike

As I didn't (or wouldn't?) put my Garmin EDGE on the bike since I was already using my Garmin 920XT on my wrist, I had a problem monitoring my effort on the bike (which was expected). Thus I had to go with perceived effort and occasionally glance at my watch to monitor Ave3sec Power (to not go beyond FTP ---but mostly went over anyway), HR, and cadence (meet 90 as much as possible).

I would also not pedal on occasion at the downhill parts so as to recover from the previous climb or prepare for an upcoming one. This resulted to an NP value of 132W or 89% FTP which was a little above target which could've made my Run2 a struggling run-walk affair. 

I was surprised to see that I finished the 31km bike in 1:07:46 (27.6kmh average). I may have over exerted, I said to myself. Fortunately, there was only 4km (or 3.5km) of Run2 to left which I still had enough in the tank for. 

New gear helped as well too as it was the first time I raced a borrowed pair of aerobars and a new helmet, the Rudy Project Boost 01. Yup, my aero riding may have helped keep the pace especially on those pedal-rest periods.

Sleek

Looking back, I may have to find a way to slap my 920XT onto the bike so I can easily monitor my heartrate, power and cadence efforts for a more controled ride instead of just getting everything by feel.

3. Consciously hydrate and take gels

I purposely didn't take a gel at the start since it was only 6km for Run1. Instead, I was able to take a GU gel at the following points of the race:

1. km4 of Run1
2. 30mins into the Bike
3. 5mins before Run2

Hydrating as well with the race org's supply (water and Pocari) with the gel helped to bring the nutrients to my body faster for processing. This helped a lot (pushing me mentally even) as I didn't give in to bonking). I just kept pushing and pushing (especially on that long uphill on Run2) to keep me within race target.

THE RESULT?

Total time (per Garmin): 2:11.

This was within my sub-2:20 target. I have to say that it was my run pacing and better than expected bike performance that helped immensely in getting this done. Of course, my relentless will power in waking up at 5-6am in the morning to get my workout done to get in tip-top shape for race day was very instrumental. Just putting the miles in through sheer effort made this one possible.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Duaman in 2 weeks in  Nuvali. It's shorter (6k-20k-3k) but I'll probably force myself to beat my 1:56 PR.

;-)