De Zutter WINS HOPKINTON DUATHLON

This just into the NETT newsroom: Jerry De Zutter won the Hopkinton Duathlon this weekend in convincing fashion in 1:01. He laid down the fastest splits for run1 and the bike leg and cruised in more than a minute in front. Here's Jerry's report:

A beautiful morning at Hopkinton State Park. Ran into
Dave Guertin before the race who was to get in the
chilly water in the concurrently running triathlon.
Dave did well in his season opening tri despite having
to take a breather on the swim and some technical
difficulties on the bike. A unique twist, we
started the duathlon at the same time the gun went off
for the triathlon and we began by running on a sandy
path across the back of the beach from which the
triathletes were launching. I don't think the
spectators knew which way to look. I
semi-reluctantly took the lead on the first 2mile run
after an energetic young lady had it for ~30sec. Had a
small advantage when we got to T1 but then got caught
by a couple guys coming out of transition/very early
on the bike. I think they blew themselves up trying to
catch up and I passed them back fairly quickly and
rode pretty solid to the transition with ~1:30 lead.
2nd run, 5K, was a little more interesting as early
on, I was debating with myself how hard/easy I could
run and still win. Not a good way to be thinking. A
short out-back stretch during that run revealed that
some of the other athletes had obviously made up some
ground on me which gave me incentive to stop debating
and run harder to the finish. I was happy to win but
didn't feel like I had any more gears if I had been
more seriously challenged.

Dave Guertin ran tough for an early season opener for 9th in his age group and 54th
overall

Mini-massage, decent food and beverages and
complimentary red bull(s) made for a pretty good
post-race too.


-Jerry