Message posted by: ian d.

So I break my duathlon cherry, and my MTB event cherry at the same time.

Got to the race good and early and did the necessary official stuff. Had been concerned about the weather and what to wear but in the end just about got it right – trisuit + long sleeved technical shirt.

I warmed up with a lap of the run route – one mile – which also served as a bit of a recce. back at the start I bumped into somebody I know from lake 32; always nice to see a friendly face.

The race was busy – about 300 entrants mixed between the short course that I was on 1M/5M/1M and the long course of double that. The start was delayed a few minutes as lots of people were still registering, and we started first on the short course.

First lap went fine – there was only really one stretch that was at all troublesome in the mud, for about a few hundred yards, and the verges were compacted enough to see easy passage. Early doors there were already people walking – we are talking a quarter of a mile at most. I picked off a few runners and soon was back towards transition and spectators… it was really quiet so i implored the spectators to make some noise.

Into transition and straight out after helmet was on; I’d plumped for flat pedals following my disastrous efforts last week at Erlestoke woods on SPDs so I had no footwear changes to make.

The bike went fairly well considering my complete novice status at MTbing. My Decathlon was well up to the job, and especially so once I’d turned off the fork lock out that made the ride easier. The route was a mixture; open grassland, gravel track, compacted forest trail. Oh – and some areas of mud. And what appeared to be a small lake. I was just catching a woman when i picked the wrong line into a small hop over a log and I just stopped across it in the mud! A few sections were just impassable and forced a walk; the downside was when trying to get started again you had to pick a slot in the stream of riders that had remounted already – everybody was walking in two or three places so it wasn’t just me! – and on one occasion I had to wait seemingly yonks to get space to start again (which ultimately cost me a sub hour finish!).

Eventually transition hove into view and grabbing a very quick final swig of water I was off and running. Second lap was a bit slower, but I didn’t feel jelly legs at all. On lap one I’d passed a tall girl all in black, and she’d passed me on the bike about 2/3rds through; She was about 50m or so ahead of me but with only a mile to catch her up I thought it unlikely, but pushed on. The run again went pretty well, very few dramas, and as it was I caught the girl in black just shy of the finish and came past her at the spectator roping… where nobody was watching. hey ho!

And then through the finish chute to collect my race bag, and job done on my first duathlon Smile Muddy, damp and thoroughly happy!

Total Time 01:00:18

Run#1 – 00:11:49

Transition – 00:01:01

Bike – 00:34:07

Transition + Run#2 – 00:13:21

Overall: 45th out of 67

Age group: 18th out of 20

didds

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