23. February 2010 11:03
Well Saturday was a glorious day. The sun was shining, there was no rain, not a cloud in the sky. It actually felt like spring. Sunday, however, was race day. It was zero degrees and bucketing down with rain, and fairly breezy to boot.
Despite this I got up at 6am and made my way to Dorney Lake for my first ever duathlon.
I have to say, despite the weather I absolutely loved it. I was thoroughly underdressed, leggings would have been much better but there you go. The actual race flew by. I did my 2.5km / 12km / 2.5km (run/bike/run) in 48 minutes and 35 seconds which I was pleased with. It actually put me in fourth place, 2nd in my category.
Looking at the results, my transition times were appalling – 1min15seconds for T1! This was down to my freezing cold hands and feet. My cycling shoes were my lovely Sidi road shoes which have 2 straps and a buckle – this does not make for a fast transition. The worst thing about it was that my cycling shoes got soaked whilst lying next to my bike whilst I was doing my first run. This meant my feet were soaking wet on the ride, so getting up to 25mph made my feet instantly numb! Not pleasant. By the time I started my 2nd run I couldn't feel a thing below by shins. But everyone was in the same boat I suppose. Needless to say it took me a long time to defrost in the car afterwards. Hats off to my heavily pregnant wife who came to support me despite the weather.
Overall I loved it. I desperately want a new bike (I have one in mind but more on that another time). And above all I need to make my transitions faster. If I had done my transitions as quickly as the guy who won, I would have won the race! Nuff said!