“I was ecstatic to clinch 7th in my first duathlon!” — Darrion Mohan

Ed’s note: Reader Darrion Mohan, 15, of Raffles Institution took part in the youth category of the MetaSprint Sprint Series Singapore Duathlon. He shares with us a first-hand account of his race.

By Darrion Mohan

Sengkang West, Sunday, April 1, 2012 — I woke up at 6 am on race day, having gotten a good 7.5 hours of sleep the night before. Though my race flag-off was only at 9:40 am, I wanted to get to the race venue early so I could rack my bike as close as possible to the bike in/out transition entrance. As I sat in my father’s car, I closed my eyes and tried to visualize my race strategy as I psyched myself for the upcoming challenge.

Despite feeling rather nervous at the prospect of participating in my first duathlon, I was able to force down a couple of slices of bread for breakfast. I also took a gel as I wanted to keep my blood glucose level high from the start.

After arriving at Sengkang West at 7:15 am, I headed off to set up my transition. The transition area was on grass and was extremely muddy due to the torrential downpour the day before. By the time I exited transition, my socks and shoes were waterlogged and heavy. Fortunately, I had brought a spare pair of socks and changed into them, before heading off to examine the bike course.

I began a 15 minute, 3km warm-up jog 50 minutes before the flag off. I ran two loops of the 1.5km run course to familiarise myself with the loop and did some striding before moving to the start line. As I headed there, I ran through my race strategy in my mind. I had confidence in my running ability so I planned to stick with the lead group during the first run while remaining comfortable, push hard during the cycle and give everything I had in the final 1.5km run.

Although the start was on very muddy ground and everyone was pushing forward, I managed to line up right at the front. It was a very quick start as everyone was full of energy and jostling for positions in the pack. The first part of the run route was on marshy land and my feet were literally sucked down with every step. However, I kept my cool and surged into the lead after 150m or so.

I was happy to set the pace and maintained a fast but comfortable pace at the front of approximately 3:30 min/km. After around 750m, Bryce Chong, one of the favourites and eventual race winner, began to run alongside me and soon took the lead.

Although my legs felt fresh and my breathing was pretty regulated, I decided not to chase him down as I knew that I would need every bit of energy in the cycle. He was soon followed by Sean Chan, another one of the contenders. I eventually entered transition in fifth place as a couple more runners overtook me in the last few meters.

I had preclipped my cycling shoes to my bike and was thus able to have a fast T1. As I slipped my feet into the shoes while cruising on my bike, I immediately knew that I would be in for a tough cycle leg as I was riding into a strong headwind. Gritting my teeth, I focused on moving into as aerodynamic a posture on the bike as possible.

Unfortunately, my bike was a standard road bike and didn’t have tri aerobars but I focused on maintaining an even pedal stroke and a high cadence. I could feel the lactic acid slowly building up in my quadriceps and became increasingly demoralised as seven or eight more experienced cyclists overtook me, seemingly effortlessly, as the bike leg progressed.

The intense heat was starting to get to me as well, slowly sapping my strength and draining my energy reserves. After what seemed like an eternity, I turned into the last stretch of the cycle and ran into transition right off a fast flying dismount.