Race Previews

Great Press For Matt...

Thursday, 04 June 2015 06:10

By Rachel Blount (startribune.com - June 3)

During an ideal week of training, Matt Payne logs 250 miles on his bicycle, 40 miles on the running trails and 15,000 yards in the swimming pool. But with most of his time already spoken for — by his wife and two young children, and a career as a mechanical engineer — Payne usually doesn’t have the luxury of devoting that many hours to preparing for triathlons and duathlons.

So the Columbia Heights resident does much of his training in a most practical manner: by riding his bike to work and to the swimming pool, and running during his lunch break. That routine has built Payne, 38, into a...

national champion. Saturday, he will return to Harriet Island in downtown St. Paul to defend the title he won last year at USA Triathlon’s duathlon national championships.

In duathlon, competitors begin with a run, followed by a bike race and another run. More than 500 men and women will compete for titles at the standard distance (5-kilometer run, 34.5k bike, 5k run) and sprint distance (2.5k run, 23k bike, 2.5k run). The event also is a qualifier for the 2016 world championships in Aviles, Spain.