Duathlon

On my road to Kitzbuhel I have encountered my first Duathlon. Still being quite new to all this, until recently I thought that duathlon was a bike ride, then a run. Infact it is a run, then bike, then another run! 

The Clumber park duathlon is a World and EU Qualification event as well as being the RAF Championships (Sprint distance) - no pressure then.

Prior to the event I am thinking I might be a little more at home with duathlon, as my feelings towards the swim element of triathlon are that it is a wet warm up before the 'proper bits', but I always felt like a bit of a cheat not doing the swim part.

The night before I had a terrible sleep, but was perked up by the prospect of race day breakfast :) My biggest problem then became one all ladies are familiar with...what do I wear?!

Taking my bike for a run, out of T1 - getting warmer

I had done a little research looking at last years photos, there seemed to be a lot of long sleeves under tri suits, and a good mix of long socks, short longs, and long longs on the bottom half! There was frost on the ground when I went to set my bike up in transition so I was even wondering about over shoes. However it warmed up a little, and I decided on tri suit, thermal and gloves. Very glad of the gloves on the bike as it was pretty windy, coupled with the forward bike speed made it cold!

The bike ride was actually quite enjoyable, back into transition and then out on run number 2. Normal jelly legs followed, and by the 2.5km turn around point I had just about got normal feeling back into my pins. Then before I knew it, it was all over and I was at the finish! 2nd Lady, 1st in AG, and RAF Duathlon Champ :) not a bad day if I say so myself.

After finishing I was then greeted with a pint of Erdinger non alcoholic beer and a technical T-Shirt. I should also add that among the freebies was also some High 5 nutritional goodies, which we collected at registration.

The RAF team did AMAZINGLY well, picking up 6 age group wins, and 1st overall male.

Well Done!

I think we might be back next year...

Full results can be found by clicking the link

British triathlon report here