Race Report: BUCS Duathlon 21st November 2010

Last Sunday was the date of the British University Duathlon Championship in Chippenham, consisting of a 2 mile run followed by a 10mile bike leg, and finishing in another 2 mile run. Funky fresh. It was rise and shine at 6am to get ready to start the 4hour drive down South. Thankfully I was hitching a ride with a couple of other students from Bangor Uni, so I got a chance to have a little doze and catch up with some sleep.

After a nice detour around Birmingham we arrived at the race circuit (Castle Combe) where it was pretty dam cold and miserable. The track was the flattest thing I'd seen in quite a while due to living next to Snowdonia, so I was excited to ride and run without having bust up any hills. After registering we went and got ready, which seemed to take forever and had a bit of a rush to get all sorted, nevertheless it was soon time to start the race.

At the start line myself and friend Andrew Hailey, also racing, noticed just how many people were wearing team GBR tri-suits... a tad intimidating but it just showed how strong the line up was. The race got under way and was pretty hectic at the start with about 200 students jostling for position, here's a video of how it went down (notice a lot of people just wearing tri-suits, they must have frozen their asses off):



I set off at a pretty quick pace for myself, having not really done any running races I didn't know what I was doing to be honest. I finished the 2 mile run in 11:14 and entered T1 to get on my bike. The bike leg was fast and flat, I felt pretty good and overtook a fair few people especially towards the end. I clocked a time of 24mins 21 for the 10 miles which is a PB but I was secretly hoping for a faster time as it was such a flat course... I'll blame it on the wind... and it being cold... and having just run 2 miles. Here's the data from the GPS watch for the first run and the bike leg.


(The first run went well, averaging about 5:45min/mile which was cool)



(The bike leg, slightly disappointing time but I definitely pushed it to the limit. O and I forgot to start my watch for the first mile and a half so the GPS data above only say 8.5miles)

T2 went smoothly and it was back onto another 2 mile run. My legs felt wrecked, and I felt slow. I gradually got into an alright rhythm but it felt a lot slower than my first run, which is fair enough as I'd just cycled 10 miles but I'm sure a bit more brick training would help for sure. I finished the second run in a time of 12:27 which wasn't too bad. I was hoping to average 12minutes for each run and I got that so at least I achieved one of my goals.


(My second run, felt pretty grim but overall I'm pretty happy with my time. O and I forgot to stop my watch which is why it says I took 14mins 29 seconds)

My overall time was 49:54, Which I was happy with considering it's my first ever duathlon. The winning time was 43:31 by a world class duathlete, so if I improve by 5 and a half minutes by next year I'll be well up there chilling with him... but that's ain't gonna happen! I finished 57th overall out of about 260, which doesn't sound great but considering how many top athletes there were I'm quite content with that. I came 59th for the first run, 50th on the bike and way down in 91st for the second run. I'll be back next year fitter and faster... maybe going under 47minutes, we'll see.

After a massive burger with all the trimmings in Wetherspoons it was time to head home. I was extremely grateful that Jill was driving, firstly cos I was nackered, and secondly I had eaten way too much and was in a slight food coma. So all in all a great day and a good learning curve, I look forward to next years race already. Unfortunately I haven't got any photos yet- there was a photographer at the race but I ain't paying £5 for a digital photo, nu-uh. So the video and GPS stuff will have to suffice for now.