Monday 8 April 2013

Racing again...

Mumbles Duathlon – Sprint

Force feeding myself porridge, honey and raisins at 5:00am usually means spring is here and I’m starting racing again.

Unfortunately, I’ve been doing this for the majority of the winter on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. I’m not sure what I’d prefer? Getting in at 5am and suffering from a 3 day booze/food induced coma, or a 4hr ride in the back-arse lanes of Bethlehem (not THE Bethlehem) getting cow shit slung up from the wheel in front.

Anyhow, 6:12am and I was pulling into Mumbles car park after being abruptly woken by the flashing speed camera. 38mph in 30mph zone. I was too tired to muster any emotion at this.

I chose to wear all my kit. Between the wind (imagine Twister without Bill Paxton) and the sub zero temperature, I wasn’t taking any chances. For anyone who hasn’t been to Mumbles, it’s the edge of Earth.

5k run. After briefly laughing at an old school mate who chose to wear as little clothing as he could, we were off - not just me and him, that would be cheating. There’s not much you can write about a 5k other than I ran pretty steadily into a headwind and returned into a crosswind for in 5th (3 were doing the long course, 1 the short course) and a 18:12 (5:51 pacing). I think my eyes streamed for the entire run. Knee is fine, thanks for asking.

21k bike. The evening before the race, my plan was to get up early, head back to the parents, pick up the time trial bike and make my way to the race. Instead; I had a pizza, packed the road bike and went to bed. Anyway, was out on the bike just behind a long course competitor and caught him just down the road. I did have two pretty close behind me, aero helmets and all...etc so decided to give it a good crack up the first climb and put some distance into them. At the turnaround point I realised that there would be a pretty harsh block headwind to compete against...not to mentiont the 16yr old who hammered me on the run. He was ~1min ahead of me and my beard at the turnaround and 3rd was roughly the same behind me. Pretty uneventful return leg ensured I was 3k away from a 2nd place in my first ever road based duathlon. My eyes streamed for the entire 21k. 38:35 for the bike.

3k run. Having only run 5k last year bar one race (9k), I was looking forward to seeing how I’d cope with the extra 3k. I was feeling the cold but I was happy to pace it back in for 10:32 (5:37 pacing – the wind had died down considerably) and finish in 2nd , 1min 30s behind the 16yr old, non-pub going winner.

A total time of 1:09:18.

I stood around for the prize giving as I thought it could’ve paid for my driving offence. They only gave prizes for 1st place. Mentally, I just collected the 3pts & £60 fine to a round of applause.

My next race is in May. It’s a 5k which also falls on a bank holiday. Hopefully I'll be sober.