Nottingham Off Road Duathlon

The final event in the three race One Step Beyond 'Midlands Off Road' Duathlon series which had been ongoing since early October. With finishes at the Clumber & Sherwood Pines events, I headed to Holme Pierre Pont standing 12th in my age group and hoping to sneak up a few places with a positive result.

The course would be a 5km run which would be mostly off road, the bike was two laps of HPP lake and all off road, capped off with a single lap 2.5km effort.

With a good result seen at Winterton last week I was raring to go and have a final blast on the cross bike. Our start would be 9.30am and we were pre-warned to turn up early as there had been a lot of rain and this meant that the usual car park was too boggy to use ! ( This was clearly not a good sign for the course! )

Run 1 24.51
It's been a while since I've run a near 25 minute 5k, but the truth was I couldn't have gone any faster ! Some of the course was boggy, the normal road shoes on it was as slippery as shite, and there was one part where I just had to stop as was sliding all over the shop ! Mile splits were 7.40, 7.32 & ?.
NB Think the course might have been long.

Bike 49.58
Sub 50 get in ! After a slow T1 @ 1.48, it was a joy to get out on the bike and lap up the muddiest course of the year so far. I've come on in leaps and bounds over the past few months of crossing and enjoyed this part immensely ! I didn't get overtaken and took bags of places back following the first run. Seemed to go on forever, and was surprised that it was less than 50 minutes, Back into T2 with a smile on my face !

Run 2 12.56
Saw 7.47 as a mile split during this 2nd run and thought to myself that's not too shabby being as it hurt ! Had a sticky point back at the slippy as shit section and have a nice selection of bramble scraches as a bonus race memento. Happy to finish strongly for a good placing and just outside a 1.30 finish - that will be the dance with the bramble bush for you !

Winterton Cyclocross

My last Cyclocross race of the Lincs Cyclocross league in 2014. I had a good ride last week at Nettleham and looked forward all week to getting back on the Cannondale which can only mean one thing - I must be starting to really enjoy racing Cross !

The showground at Winterton was todays venue and it had been raining for a good 6 hours beforehand. The course was not too technical, a lot of grass riding, one mound and one off over two boards - it was definately one for the testers. What made the course hard and slow though was the saturated ground from the rainfall. The top half of the course was rideable and had drained well, however, the bottom half was a real quagmire and you could sink into the ruts very easily.

Again, our Vets race was a 40 minute affair and I estimated I would need to clear 5 laps. On signing on I had been told to highlight my name to say I was here, and this also meant that I was gridded for the first time ever. From my new *cough* elevated starting position, I knew I had to ride very fast from the very start and not my usual casual getting into it slowly strategy. From the off, I went for it and found that I made some good places early, when the field settled down, I tried to keep working hard and snatching places where I could.  The course was boggy and some times the speeds must have been very low. I know that some guys ran some sections quicker than we rode them - indeed I tried this strategy myself but found no difference.

Something amazing happened on my last lap - I had one ! This was because for the first time I had not been lapped by the leaders - it also meant that I had one last lap of boggy misery to negotiate !

So a good finish to the Cyclocross season - next year I'll concentrate solely on the league and try not to get distracted by the running events :-)

Lincoln Cyclocross

This was our Cyclocross, so it was my job to help set up the course from 7am which gave me a good chance to get to know the ins and outs of every twist and turn. I could see that there would be some good technical sections, but a very rideable course as well - by the time we had set the course up, I was looking forward to getting on the bike and riding !

My race was the 12.15 Vets race which would last for just 40 minutes. I lined up at the back and when we were set off, I tried to make places, however, my early race pace was not as great as those around me and I found that I was quite near the back again after the first few obstacles.

I had a plan though and that was to attack on the flat sections and grab a place here and there outside of the technical parts where I would try and hold my ground. This tactic paid dividend and I found myself taking places and moving forward through the field.

I enjoyed myself immensely and felt comfortable on the Cross bike, even managing to win my first ever sprint finish with another competitor.

A long day, yes, but also my best CX performance to date.

Evil Sheriff Duathlon

Also known as the National Cross Duathlon Championships for 2014 ! ( Although I was told as I entered transition to rack my bike that I would not qualify for honours because of my choice of tyres !!! I said fine, I'm basically shit at this anyway !!!

This was my event :

Run 1
Mostly run on tracks that were wide, gritty and not a problem for road shoes. I started in the middle of the field and slowly went backwards even though I was running well. Splits of 6.53, 6.37 and a slower 7 something eventually saw me into T1 in a good time of 21.28.

And that's where it went a bit Pete Tong !

T1
Having memorised exactly where my bike was, I got confused and ran to the opposite corner of T1. Cue, lots of piss taking over the PA whilst I was trying to work out what had gone wrong.

Bike
Two laps of what is basically the the blue route at Sherwood Pines. I strted conservatively and grew into the course. The first lap was figuring out the lines and the second lap was much improved, knowing where to push on and where to use the brakes and take a good line etc.

T2
Thankfully, nothing like T1...

Run 2
I ran better today - I must be getting used to running off the bike. It weren't pretty though and the 3.6km seemed to take a while....... oh, and it started raining ! 1.38.59 in the end.

A nice pint of Erdinger at the finish - well deserved !

Tri3 Duathlon

I took part in Tri3's very first Duathlon this morning which was run out of The Grange Spa at Pointon near Sleaford.

It was a 3k/30k/3k affair, so a perfect short event to ask some questions about myself and the training that I've been putting in since going proper Duathlete. This is how I got on :

Run No1
Requested and went off in the last of the four waves on the day. My brother Dave was going in the first wave and therefore would be 3 minutes up the road by the time I started.
In wave order, off we went in fours and fives. I went out of the trap far too quickly and the result was that I was already blowing 200m down the road. A 6.50 first mile was not to be sniffed at though and I was already passing people and unfortunately my brother. Back into Transition after 3km after a really good first run.

Bike
Out on the main road and a back wind to start things off. 4km of beautiful easy pedalling, and then a left turn and the wind got hold of the course and that was the end of that ! The bacl part of the loop was a draggy, headwindy, climby mess that killed the average speed off. Although I was catching people, it didn't feel like I was riding that well. Still, by the time I got back into transition I was third on the road so maybe it wasn't that bad.#

Run No2
This hurt a lot. I had pushed the bike too hard like I always do and my legs stung. 3km isn't that bad and I kept pace OK. Only mile split I was 7.21 so a good half a minute down on the first run which reflected how difficult it was.

Overall, 2nd by 10 seconds with a time of 1.14.54 - lots learned today and a very good event.