Rutgers Takes 1st Off-Road Win of 2009!

Riding to victory aboard a Specialized Stumpjumper 29er!

While my skinny-tired teammates tackled The Cherry Blossom RR, The Rahway River Criterium, and even the Dartmouth Collegiate Weekend, I headed to Coatesville, PA to compete in the Hibernia Mountain Bike Duathlon.

I'd never done a duathlon, and I'm not much of a runner, so I enlisted some help. It turns out my girlfriend and fellow endurance athlete, Jenna, is a bit of a runner, so I recruited her to be the runner for our relay duathlon team. Hibernia would serve as a warm-up to the half-marathon she is doing in Central Park this weekend.

We arrived bright and early and set up shop. Neither of us had any idea what was going on. I puzzled over what to do with the single number they gave to us at registration.

Fortunately, a kind soul explained that the number goes on the runner in the relay. More importantly, he explained that the number goes on the front.

That's just weird.

The race consisted of a 2.38 mile trail run, a 10.5 mile mountain bike, and a 2.38 mile trail run.

We didn't really know how the transition was going to work or even how long it would take either of of us complete each given leg, but we figured we would figure it out.

Indeed, we did.

Jenna came in 20th off the run. We made an incredibly fast transition and I rode through seven riders within the first 1/2 mile to settle into 13th overall. It had been since my victory at Bear Creek in September that I'd last felt good enough to race, and I rode conservatively and steady. I could see three riders ahead of me, but I elected to keep them in my sight, but not push too hard to catch them.

On the first lap, I rode a 25 minute split. My goal was to knock the bike out in less than an hour. So far so good. Three quarters of the way through the second lap, I caught two of the guys in front of me on a single track climb. I saw the third guy, now sitting in 10th, but we could only match each other's pace.

I came screaming into the transition area yelling "gooooooo!" I rode another 25 minute lap. Excellent. Jenna took off, now in 11th place. She put in one of the most amazing runs ever to finish the second run in 18:49. She got passed by two of the guys whom I had passed on the bike.

Our total time was 1:28 for the race. We handily won both the co-ed relay competition and the relay competition by over five minutes.

Me, post-race, victory cheer. Also, the new Rutgers Cycling Caps (soon to be available)

The Rutgers Off-Road Team is back in action on two wheels only at its first mountain bike race on Sunday, May 3. The team will be dividing between the first H2H Series race in Waywayanda State Park in NJ and Mid-Atlantic Super Series Race #2 in New Castle, DE.