Ashbourne Duathlon

A good strong performance at last!!

Today was the first race of the Blue Seventy series, a long duathlon in Ashbourne http://www.punishingevents.com/ashbourne_duathlon.htm. I was really looking forward to hit a strong performance on the first race of the series. Duathlons are not my forte but I really enjoy racing them and this course was certainly made for my strengths and pacing - plenty of hills that is.

The race started off with a 12km run on an undulating course, more like a hilly course to me!! I started at a good comfortable pace, as I didn't want to blow up so early on in the race. I managed to settle in a good tempo, so much better than a week ago in Leicester. I kept up a with a group of 4 athletes and as the race progressed so did my strength. I entred transition in 49mins 10sec in 12th position, and after a quick change over (30sec) I was out on my bike for the 40km hill course. The bike I used for this race was kindly lent to me by Bill Livingstone (Linebreak team manager) who also took care of transport and race support!! Thanks for that Bill.

So onto the bike course and I started moving up the field. I was really cycling well today, felt so strong and must admit, I was cycling a lot better than I was hoping. The cycling course was very technical with a couple of steap downhills and quite a few long up hills. Although I did suffer from some cramps at some stages of the ride I was focused to move up the field and do a strong TT. Back to the second transition and ride time was 1hr 10mins! Another quick transition saw me out in 7th position which I kept all the way to the finish. I covered the last 4km run in 14mins 31sec, for a total time of 2hrs 15mins 47sec.

Am really happy with my performance today both with the time and position (I also came in 2nd in my age group). This urges well for the rest of the league.

Next race...... well the plan is to race in another duathlon tomorrow (Sunday) if I wake up in one piece that is. That's 5km run - 20km bike - 5km run. I never raced 2 triathlons or 2 duathlons on successive days so it will be interesting to see how my body will cope. Hopefully none of my athletes get to read this and start coming up with strange ideas!! :)

RESULTS

Dermot