Whinlatter Duathlon

In an attempt to keep this winter varied, I'd been looking for alternative races to have a go at, aside from cross. Whinlatter Offroad Duathlon caught my eye as being pretty soon, as well as being at Whinlatter - somewhere I know the riding to be good and pretty tough.

I managed to rope in Shonah to complete the two running sections, which sandwich the bike racing, and we entered as a mixed pair.

Sho was off first, completing a 7km run, which she later told me was so steep in places it required 4 points of contact! She came into the transition area in top end of mid pack, holding pace with some wiry looking blokes and with distance between her and some of the other women - I was chuffed to bits and set out at full tilt on the 20km bike route, fuelled by Clif Shot Bloks and 2 of the Gels kindly provided by the guys at 2Pure. If you haven't yet tried these products, make it a must do for your next event!

I was soon into maximum effort and seemed to be overtaking plenty of people, eventually catching the guy who was riding as part of a mixed pair who had won the previous events. Making sure to pass him at full speed at the same time as trying to make it look effortless (a technique taught and perfected by Neal of cross club), I set to building as big a gap as possible to ensure Sho could have a bit more of a comfortable time of it come the final run.

I came into the transition absolutely on the limit, but was pleased to only see perhaps 7 or 8 bikes back and handed over to Sho who duly nailed the run and brought home Cross Club's first podium - first place in the mixed pairs!

Unfortunately the Cross Club kit hadn't arrived for the race and so the "podium" picture is unfortunately a bit non descript!

All in all, a cracking day. The riding was excellent and, as predicted, relentlessly tough.

Even more pleasing was the fact I managed 3rd fastest overall bike split. Chris Hope (lakeland mtb folk hero) and the overall winner beat me by about 30 seconds. Full credit to these guys - they'd ran the 7km and still managed to smash the ride!!

Next round of the series is next sunday, where we have to go and try and maintain our position in the series. The whole event is a bit longer - I'm hoping this suits me better, as short events are not really my forte!