Race report - Knockburn Duathlon

Much better pre-race than last year. Here is last year's report.

Had no panic problems. Didn't see anyone that could have caused them either. But did see lots of people I know, and who have been very supportive over the last 2 years. So was about as relaxed as I could hope to be. Didn't like being in the room for the race briefing with the big crowd but nothing worse than a twitchy leg this time.

Decided against the pointy hat. It is quite a hilly course and I didn't think it would make enough difference.

First run started well. Was much higher up the field than at Aboyne. Quickly started to suffer with the pace though and settled in a bit slower. Let a bit of a gap open in front of me but held my place. Same Run 1 time as last year but was way higher up the field so think the times were giving a bit of a false impression.

Possibly the wrong shoes for the runs. My lightweight road racing shoes were struggling for grip on the wet grass and some of the mud. But my trail shoes only work if they are on really tight so lock-laces are not really an option on them, and transitions would be a nightmare even if I did elasticate them. Should probably have gone for the middle ground and put some laces into some of my slightly heavier but more-treaded training shoes. Not sure they would have been any better though.

The first climb on the bike is pretty nasty and I lost a couple of places. But not as many as last year, and much less time and distance lost on the bodies that did pass me and made most of them up around the rest of the course. On the flat sections I was managing to get down on the tri-bars for sections and was making a lot of ground when I was. Makes my shoulder ache though. Think I need to look at repositioning them since I crashed to try and keep my aero-position tidy but put less stress on the metal pin in my shoulder.

There are a coouple of little rises on the flat section and I dropped the new chain when I down-shifted. Shifted up and gave it a a couple of crunching turns of the pedals until it picked up again. Then downshifted and it dropped again. Had a bit of a worry that this was going to continue and I was going to be stuck in the big ring for the rest of the ride but it seemed to catch properly this time and had no problems again after that. Still think I could probably take another link out though.

On the long descent I was being a bit cautious but I was starting to relax into it and build some confidence in my speed until I tried a right hander and moved across the road just as someone whizzed past on the inside. He gave me a last second shout that averted a nasty high-speed crash but it shook me up a bit and I went back to being as cautious as I had been earlier in the race. The gravelly turns at the bottom of both descents are quite tight and I was slowed down so much I could probably have gotten off and run round the corners faster.

Really need to do some bike handling work and fast cornering as soon as the roads get dry.

Second run I set off with a spread of runners in front of me that all looked catchable. But about quarter of a mile in the first overtake I was involved in was the leader coming round to lap me. Was quite surprised to see it was one of my team-mates who I was swimming with in lane 4 on Monday. I knew he was going well but didn't realise it was race-winning-well. Was really pleased for him, even though he was lapping me. Was a bit of a trudge round the second run but I was picking off a lot of the runners that had started just in front of me. So happy enough with the end result.

Was definitely a bit over-dressed for the runs. And slightly under-dressed for the cold on the bike. So probably about right overall. But I had compression shorts, bib tights and my XL-sized suit on, and the compression effect on my quads was way too much, especially on the runs.

Still plenty of work to do on the running as well. A long way off where I should be for these sort of short races. The miles I am doing are great but I am going to need to add some faster work so that I can cope with the increased pace of racing without it doing so much lactic damage.


Full race results are here.

My time is 2 mins 31 faster than last year.

Last year I was 35th out of 44, this year 28/66. Also the winning time, the average time and quite a few of the people I know were 5 minutes down on last year's race, so think my improvement is worth a lot more than the 2 and a half minutes. Pretty happy overall.

Next race: Turriff triathlon in a fortnight.