Dunmow Tri Duathlon – Hatfield Forest - Saturday 6th March 2010

After a winter season of running, including four cross country races this was my second duathlon of 2010 and my last run before I went back to ‘bike only’ mode. 

The event took place in Hatfield Forest at the same location where the club run occasionally goes on Sunday’s.

I got my number, stacked the bike and did a quick warm up. 

The 5k run course was off road, flat over muddy fields so cross country shoes were called for. After 5 minutes I settled into about 15th place. In the last section, although I didn’t slow down some other runners had paced themselves and they went past pushing me out of the top 20.

Onto the bike and a 24k (15 miles) road course looping around the forest. I had a good ride, quickly catching about ten of the faster runners. At half distance there was no-one I could see in front of me, the elite triathletes who could both run and ride a bike had opened up a big gap.

Back to transition for the second run and here is where it gets painful. Run to bike is ok but bike to run is like running trough treacle. I struggled on expecting a few of the quicker runners to catch me but in the event only one did and I came home in 11th place. Not bad for a non runner, 'best of the rest' after the good athletes. 

Result

Ful result from tri247 here