Last Sunday I took park in my second ever duathlon (5k run, 20k ride, 5k run) which took place at the Olympic Rowing venue in Dorney. The duathlon is something that has never really appealed to me, not being the best runner and all that. However, I had not raced for a while and had also not been on the time trial bike for a long time, so when I saw this race scheduled for the weekend, I thought I might as well have a go.
The race was a pretty low key affair though, with only about, what seemed 100 or so competitors spread across the two races. Still, the weather was good, apart from a strong wind which meant that the downwind sections of the 5 bike laps were gonna be pretty fast, but the return legs were gonna be pretty grim.
The race finally got underway and I was pleased with my ability to remain in control and hang around in the second pack of runners. There was one chap who had gone out in the lead, but I was quite happy staying the with the 3 chaps close to me, even if just to sit behind them on the headwind sections on the run. On the final section of the run, I did try to break away, but alas the headwind was too strong and they all tucked in behind me. I got into T1 in 3rd place in the end I, but now it was time to get back on the trusty bike.
I quickly passed the second place coming out of the bike and now only had the good runner out in front of me. Thankfully, it was a 5 lap affair on the bike so it was easy to see when you were putting time into people. I quickly realised that I was gonna catch the lead runner in no time at all, but I was more worried about 3rd place as I was struggling to put some time into him and I assumed he would be able to run well on the second leg. I finally caught and passed the lead person on lap 2 and now decided to make a push for it to try and increase the distance between me and third. I did most of this on lap 4 when I really pushed hard into the headwind. This seemed to work and by the time I came in, I had almost two minutes on 3rd place which was hopefully going to be enough for the win.
The second run was more of a controlled effort as I made sure that 3rd place was not catching me too fast. In the end, I probs could have run it 30s quicker, but my 19min run, after my sub 18 on the first and a slow 34 on the bike (I blame the wind and dead turns) was enough for me to clinch the victory in this one.
The funny thing is, I have now done two duathlons in my career and won both of them quite comfortably. Okay, so neither of them were big events, but a win is a win :-)
Race report from Tri247 is HERE
Full results are HERE
