At the start of 2017 I set myself the target of gaining an age-group qualification slot in the British team, and with it the chance to represent my country for the first time. Details of the qualification races for both duathlon & triathlon come out months before the season starts, and upon realising that one of the three duathlon qualification races was set to take place just a 10 minute drive from my in-laws in Nottinghamshire, it quickly became the main focus for the first few months of the year.
I chose to enter the longer 'standard' distance race, with the 10km-40km-5km format, as opposed to the 'sprint' distance which was 5km-20km-2.5km. Training from the start of the year revolved around adding endurance to the speed that I have picked up at the end of 2016 (weekly Parkruns) as well as bike efforts up to 90 minutes (mostly pre work in Regent's Park).
Preparation in the week of the race was not ideal, the family (boozy!) ski trip to Morzine taking place on the Sunday to Wednesday leading into the event on Sunday, and a bout of stomach illness coming out of that trip didn't give me the ideal taper week at all...
Registration takes place the same day as race day, and with the main parking a 5 minute walk to the transition area getting there in good time is advised. A 10 minute queue and then it was time to rack the bike and start the warm up.
It is not a mass start - start waves are every 3-5 minutes and split into different age groups and sexes. Having nearly missed my wave call deciding on whether to wear a pair on cotton gloves for run 1 to make up a speedier T1 (decided on it finally), it wasn't long before the gun went and we were on the first and longer of the two runs. The first 10km is all about pacing, knowing that even after 40 minutes of running there are still 85 minutes of the race left, go too fast in that first 10km and you will certainly pay for it on the bike, and especially the last 5km run. After a (too quick!) 3:41 first km, i quickly settled into my target 4:00 KMs and completed the 10km run (slightly long?) in 41:02.
RUN 1 STRAVA
T1 was only 1:09 (a pleasure not having to take off a wetsuit!) and only once out on the bike did it become apparent that it was not a flat loop at all.. the rolling 2 lap course was short of 40km (thankfully!), and with over 400m of climbing i finished with a 34.2kmph average.
BIKE STRAVA
What happened in T2
I chose to enter the longer 'standard' distance race, with the 10km-40km-5km format, as opposed to the 'sprint' distance which was 5km-20km-2.5km. Training from the start of the year revolved around adding endurance to the speed that I have picked up at the end of 2016 (weekly Parkruns) as well as bike efforts up to 90 minutes (mostly pre work in Regent's Park).
Preparation in the week of the race was not ideal, the family (boozy!) ski trip to Morzine taking place on the Sunday to Wednesday leading into the event on Sunday, and a bout of stomach illness coming out of that trip didn't give me the ideal taper week at all...
Registration takes place the same day as race day, and with the main parking a 5 minute walk to the transition area getting there in good time is advised. A 10 minute queue and then it was time to rack the bike and start the warm up.
It is not a mass start - start waves are every 3-5 minutes and split into different age groups and sexes. Having nearly missed my wave call deciding on whether to wear a pair on cotton gloves for run 1 to make up a speedier T1 (decided on it finally), it wasn't long before the gun went and we were on the first and longer of the two runs. The first 10km is all about pacing, knowing that even after 40 minutes of running there are still 85 minutes of the race left, go too fast in that first 10km and you will certainly pay for it on the bike, and especially the last 5km run. After a (too quick!) 3:41 first km, i quickly settled into my target 4:00 KMs and completed the 10km run (slightly long?) in 41:02.
RUN 1 STRAVA
T1 was only 1:09 (a pleasure not having to take off a wetsuit!) and only once out on the bike did it become apparent that it was not a flat loop at all.. the rolling 2 lap course was short of 40km (thankfully!), and with over 400m of climbing i finished with a 34.2kmph average.
BIKE STRAVA
What happened in T2
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