After three sprint
duathlons, coach Joe Beer encouraged me to do an Olympic Distance. So
which one do I do first? The Big Cow National Duathlon Championships &
World and European Championship Qualifiers. May as well start somewhere.
A 10k run, 40k cycle and 5k run.
The ‘run one’ went very
smoothly. Three and three-quarter laps of a lakeside flat course, I led
my ‘wave’ with two laps to go and I entered ‘transition one’ fifth
overall and winning my age group in 32:37. Feeling ‘this is easy’.
The cycle went lumpy. A
hard course (hilly, rough), my hoped for time of an hour slipped by with
every pedal stroke. The thighs burnt, I fought with and not rode with
the bike. And was not enjoying it one jot. A post-mortem with my coach
suggested my cycle legs weren’t with me that day, although I reckon it’s
because my bike is old and heavy – after all, everyone that passed me
had cycle bling! Either way, I lost ground and a 65:01 cycle needed a
fast 5.2k run to make up time.
After a blistering
‘transition two’ I started the run. Jelly legs – awful feeling. The
motivation of seeing those in front and chasing them down, with the
addition of some adrenaline (wonderful painkiller) pushed me to run the
second fastest ‘run two’ of the championships, get thirteenth place
overall and fifth in my age group. Result! Am now awaiting a call up to
represent GB in the Age Group European Championships in Budapest in May.
Not bad for my first
effort I guess...
Details here:
http://www.big-cow.com/public/results.aspx?raceid=645
Not content with just a
duathlon - after all, the day was young, I then recovered, sat in ice
bath, had massage, then I ran for Kent AC in the Southern 12 Stage Road
Relay Championships in Milton Keynes. The relay consists of 12 legs; 6
long (7.7k) and 6 short (5.5k) run alternately, long, short, long, short
etc. Running the final 'glory' leg, I hauled our team from 14th to 11th
overall and ran the fastest 'short' leg of our team, 65th fastest
'short' leg overall. Details here:
http://mcs.open.ac.uk/mkac/09seaaheader.htm
So what’s next? Steyning
Duathlon, National 12 Stage Road Relays and Cambridge Duathlon will keep
me occupied for the next two weekends... Then it’s athletics-track time
of the year...
Ian Cardy
