Sunday, November 15, 2009

Whinlatter Offroad Duathlon

Ouch, that hurt a bit! Overall time 2:41 so a bit more than I was expecting to be out there in the wind and rain. A tough course.

The Good:

My Ti 456 - it seemed to fly along the singletrack, felt fantastic.
My singletrack riding, gained a lot of places on the bike leg.
The Altura trail - need to go back on a less busy day, the traffic sometimes made the technical bits difficult.
The organisation and encouraging marshalls.
The other competitors - everyone cheery, happy to pull over, etc.
The occasional stunning views.

The Bad:

Losing over 5 minutes in transition, partly due to big faff with my gloves.
Setting off on the second run still wearing my helmet! (A lovely marshall, held onto it for me until I came back, he already had someone else's).
My slow climbing - bike or run, always lets me down.
My front brake jamming on hard, thankfully loosened off but rode the last few sections using back brake only.
Not paying any attention at all to how long I had been out there.
Seeing the lead man out on the second run when I think I was about half way through the bike leg.
The peeing rain!

The Ugly:

The guy going OTB in front of me on the bike leg, I stopped to make sure he was ok.
The guy sat at the side of the track on the second run in the throes of a complete bonk, gutted I had no gels on me to give him.
The second run in general, I was verging on bonking myself....which leads nicely onto:
Having a litre of energy drink to try to get through on the bike but have arrived home with....about a litre - I was saved by having a gel in transition.


Overall, I would do it again, but need to learn some lessons!

10 comments:

  1. Sounds good fun though, I quite fancy an off-road duathlon. Is there an easy version to start?

    I'm not a natural on hills at all, thinking it might be time to start hill repeats again!

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  2. It was good fun and to be fair the first run actually went pretty well. It was my lack of fuelling that got to me.

    I need to do hill repeats too, though St Annes is very lacking in that department for running. Never done them on an MTB, may change that...

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  3. so, did you wear a bag or not ;) Sounds tough, well done- I'll have some cake for you!

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  4. If you do hill repeats on your mtb I recommend using a road climb. Takes away all the variables of off road and allows a more consistant workout.

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  5. I'm itching to do a duathlon soon. I rather fancy the run being off-road but the ride being on the road. I've just got to get the hang of running first.

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  6. You don't know me but I'm a friend of Trio and Plastic Satsuma.

    I was also there ! You were faster than me it was harder than I expected and I hadn't any food or energy drinks at all as I'm usually good for 2-3hrs without, probably a mistake ! Hopefully I'll be back next year.

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  7. Kate, I used a bag. A bit of extra wriggling in transition but the few drinks I did have were on singletrack, I probably wouldn't have drunk anything at all from a kack covered bottle. Of course I would have been able to see what I wasn't drinking.... I think a gel in the first transition would have helped.

    Pink Orange 5 - spotted your bike in transition! It was racked quite close to mine. It was harder than I thought it would be too. The run had over 1100ft of climb!

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  8. 1100ft!! you need to start fell running ;)

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  9. I wasn't too bothered by the run although I'm not a good runner. It was the length of the MTB route I was expecting the red route but not much more and there was !!
    Apparently it was mentioned on Radio 2 last nigth Radcliffe and Marconi one of them was a spectator.

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