A quiet February with no racing has meant very little to blog about, but already one week into March and normal order commences. The multisport season began for me this weekend with the British Duathlon Championships at Rutland Water, with the Dambuster. Three weeks away from British Summertime and the forecast was Baltic!
Heavy rain and 2 degrees felt more like 0 but at least it was dry-ish. First 10km run was pretty solid and managed to complete in 35:50, a new PB going in to first race of the season in those conditions was brilliant and has instilled a lot of confidence around my run. I also went into this run with major foot concerns! Tried out my new racing flats 2 weeks ago over training run and suffered bruising on top of right big toe. This could have been due to a number of causes, but I think a combination of buying a half size down and rubbing from elastic knotted lock laces were to blame. Lessons learned!
So a quick transition and out on the bike it was. This is the first time I've raced at Dambuster, either the Duathlon or Triathlon, and you certainly can't argue with that bike course. What an honest cycling course it had everything. Some fast descents some challenging short steep climbs and some long flowing flat sections to really get the head down and hurt! 43rd after run one up to 35th after T1 saw my bike leg of 1:07:37 crawl back up to 29th place. A 16.31 final 5km clawed back two more places resulting in 27th place in all of 620 finishers. 7th age category of 82, I can't fail to be happy for the first race after a winter of base training.
It was cold, I've never cramped before racing and there has to be a first for everything but that was horrendous! Elliot Gowland, my coach and team mate, passed me with about 5 mile to go on the bike and I couldn't respond. My right hamstring locked out as I tried to get out the saddle up a climb and came to an almost standstill but I worked through it and caught Elliot again about a mile into the last run. I'm not going to repeat the conversation we had at that point, but it was agreement about the cold. The final 5km was ran with no feeling in my legs or feet.
So with one down and around 20 to go I'm not going to complain about that, however I know I need to work harder! I need to get faster and more than anything, I need to get back on top of the gears on the bike again.
If one race in the weekend wasn't enough for opening weekend, then the addition of a 21mile bike TT today was just crazy. Opening the curtains this morning to flurries of snow meant only one thing, another cold hour racing hard! But the wind was there too and this was going to be a hard slog, a hard slog that lasted for 52mins 37 seconds (thankfully). Last year I completed the same event in beautiful calm spring conditions in 48:32 finishing 15/86 with a winners time of 45:08. This year the winner posted 48:12 and finishing 11th of 73 after yesterday's race and travelling? I'm happy.
So looking at the diary I am now racing through every weekend until Mid may where I have 2 weekends free and then it's racing through to the Europeans in Turkey in June so hopefully regular updates will resume!
Heavy rain and 2 degrees felt more like 0 but at least it was dry-ish. First 10km run was pretty solid and managed to complete in 35:50, a new PB going in to first race of the season in those conditions was brilliant and has instilled a lot of confidence around my run. I also went into this run with major foot concerns! Tried out my new racing flats 2 weeks ago over training run and suffered bruising on top of right big toe. This could have been due to a number of causes, but I think a combination of buying a half size down and rubbing from elastic knotted lock laces were to blame. Lessons learned!
So a quick transition and out on the bike it was. This is the first time I've raced at Dambuster, either the Duathlon or Triathlon, and you certainly can't argue with that bike course. What an honest cycling course it had everything. Some fast descents some challenging short steep climbs and some long flowing flat sections to really get the head down and hurt! 43rd after run one up to 35th after T1 saw my bike leg of 1:07:37 crawl back up to 29th place. A 16.31 final 5km clawed back two more places resulting in 27th place in all of 620 finishers. 7th age category of 82, I can't fail to be happy for the first race after a winter of base training.
It was cold, I've never cramped before racing and there has to be a first for everything but that was horrendous! Elliot Gowland, my coach and team mate, passed me with about 5 mile to go on the bike and I couldn't respond. My right hamstring locked out as I tried to get out the saddle up a climb and came to an almost standstill but I worked through it and caught Elliot again about a mile into the last run. I'm not going to repeat the conversation we had at that point, but it was agreement about the cold. The final 5km was ran with no feeling in my legs or feet.
So with one down and around 20 to go I'm not going to complain about that, however I know I need to work harder! I need to get faster and more than anything, I need to get back on top of the gears on the bike again.
If one race in the weekend wasn't enough for opening weekend, then the addition of a 21mile bike TT today was just crazy. Opening the curtains this morning to flurries of snow meant only one thing, another cold hour racing hard! But the wind was there too and this was going to be a hard slog, a hard slog that lasted for 52mins 37 seconds (thankfully). Last year I completed the same event in beautiful calm spring conditions in 48:32 finishing 15/86 with a winners time of 45:08. This year the winner posted 48:12 and finishing 11th of 73 after yesterday's race and travelling? I'm happy.
So looking at the diary I am now racing through every weekend until Mid may where I have 2 weekends free and then it's racing through to the Europeans in Turkey in June so hopefully regular updates will resume!