Josh Haas here; coming off a tough finish at the Gull Lake Du, I was quite nervous about the Shermanator Duathlon this year. I had high hopes of again taking 1st place overall for the 2nd year in a row.
I’ve been working on my core, strengthening my bum knee and of course, continuing to ride hard on the bike to keep my fitness level as high as possible. Going into the event I felt good and saw only a few athletes that looked to pose threats. I ended the first 2.5k run in 3rd and a smoking fast transition sailed me past two of them before they were even on their bikes. Seeing the last one in front of me on the bike, it appeared he wasn’t an aggressive rider and I smoked past him before even getting to the main road. After exiting the Sherman Lake property onto 39th St., I buckled down into my rhythm and began picking off Tri riders one by one. I was very pleased to know I had roughly 10 miles to gain as much time on my Du competition as possible knowing I had a couple faster runners that could potentially catch up in the 2nd run.
I had another fantastic transition going into the 2nd run. After the first turn-around I began seeing my competition and at the time thought he was a little too close for my comfort. This drove me to push the run pretty hard which resulted in me finishing with a PR 5k and well over two minutes faster overall than the 2nd place finisher.
This was definitely the performance I needed given the knee issues and rough finish at Gull Lake. I look forward to another good showing next week at the Cereal City Duathlon.
-Josh