Last day in the office and the Gower duathlon

Yesterday was my last day in the office before I start a new job on Monday. As I'm Mr Clean, my leaving speech could have been quite boring, but instead of just making stuff up (as is tradition!) they raided my blog (thanks Johnny Briggs) and made up a speech from that. It was quite funny actually, these "normal" people don't quite understand how I get so excited over bike bling, new trainers, a customised helmet, etc, etc! :-)

I know some of them will be reading this on Monday, so this race report is to you guys, you know who you are! :-)

The Gower duathlon: Let's start at the beginning. My alarm clock woke me at 5am, a quick breakfast and packing the car took about 20-25 minutes and I was on the road by 5:25am. The duathlon was, according to my SatNav, about 1hr25 away from my home, which would get me to the race location at about 6:50am ready for a 7:30am start. Perfect.

I made good time on the journey and arrived early. I had lots of time to prepare my kit, recce the transition/start/finish/mount/dismount areas and have the obligatory toilet stop. The weather didn't look too good at this point, the wind was strong and the clouds looked angry! The sprint race (5k/20k/2.5k) went off about 20 minutes before the Olympic race (10k/40k.5k), I had a quick warm up (some strides) and was ready for the gun.

The gun went and we were off! The run was 4 laps of 2.5k and it was a small field of athletes, so it was easy to see where you were in relation to everyone else. Everyone shot off (as usual in these races), but I ran steady for the first lap just to feel my way into it. I finished the first lap in about 9:20 and in 16th place, the run felt a little short but another runner had 2.48k on his GPS watch, so only 20m short I guess. I started to move up the field as the others slowed down after their initial enthusiasm and I picked up the pace slightly, I finished the second lap in 9:18 and 14th place, the third lap I was in 12th place (I didn't get my split here, but it was a little slower I think) and after completing the fourth and final lap I was in 11th position and feeling good with a 10k split of 38:02.

I was out on the bike in no time and hit the first of the inclines straight out of T1. The course is described as undulating and it is definitely that! The whole route was either up with wind in your face, down with wind on your face or flat (and not much of that either!) with severe cross winds! This was going to be a tough day! I passed a few people early on the bike and a "group" of about 4 guys came screaming past me within the first 10k or so. I think I pushed it a bit too much too soon if I'm totally honest, this year I've "only" done races with 20k bike legs, so you can push it the whole way - this was a whole different ball game! I had heard a rumour that the bike leg was more like 43k than 40k and this proved to be correct, my bike computer read 43.37km!

I definitely slowed in the last 15k or so and to make it worse it now started to rain! I wasn't feeling great at this point. I was tired, it was raining and the wind and the hills were sapping my energy. This was a real strength course and that's probably not my forte. I was now heading back into the town where T2 was and was starting to think about the transition and the run that was coming up. I came down this hill towards the town and was only about 300-400m away from transition. Only a bend in the road to navigate and then roll through the town into T2, sounds easy. Except it wasn't easy. The bend in the road was tighter than I remembered on the way out. I took it too fast, locked up the back end and my bike flipped me off! My hip and knee took the brunt of the impact and then my shoulder and helmet. I bounced down the road and my bike landed on top of me!

Like an idiot, I immediately jumped up to check my bike (of course that's the most important thing here, not me!) and see if I could continue. A shop keeper came over to help me, he had seen the whole thing and was asking me if I was OK. Of course I said yes I was fine. I wasn't.

I wasn't too badly hurt to be honest, but I was in a state of shock. The shop keeper took my bike and I sat on the side of the road for a few moments and took some deep breaths. I was OK after all. I got up and checked my bike. Apart from the chain being off and wrapped around my rear derailleur, the bike looked ok (my helmet was cracked but I didn't realise this until after the race). I sorted out the chain and thanked my shop keeper friend, got on my bike and rolled down to T2 (it was only 300m away). It was quite funny coming down to the dismount line actually, the marshals were expecting me to come screaming to the line and do a flying dismount, instead I rolled in, stepped off and walked into T2. They had stunned looks on them until they saw my ripped tri suit and blood on my knees.

At this point I didn't know whether I was gong to continue or not. Both knees were sore, my right hip was sore and my left shoulder was aching. Do I continue? What the hell, go on, why not, I thought to myself. I walked (limped) out of T2 and thought I'd just try to jog round the run. I guessed I was in about 12th or 13th position, so the plan was just to hold that position. I knew I would never catch anyone on the run, so the plan was simply to defend my position. As I left T2 another competitor entered T2, so I guess he would have been about 45seconds to a minute behind.

The second run (5k) was actually a different route to the 10k route and someone had told me it was a little short, this was also a factor in me deciding to continue with the race. I set off and jogged for about 5 minutes, I was aching and it was feeling quite awkward to run, I did think for a second about stopping and walking back to T2 but just kept going. The other competitors were coming past me (the other way) on their way to the finish, this pushed me on and I started to feel a little better. I was still sore and not moving as fast as I would normally but kept pushing. I got to the turn point and started heading back to the finish area. I saw the guy behind me was closing in on me, but I knew he'd have to be absolutely flying to catch me (he had a slower 1st run than me, only by 16 seconds though) and was confident I'd keep my position. But it wasn't easy! I was hurting and pushing and hurting some more!

I came round to the finish shute and crossed the line a very tired man in a time of 16:20 (definitely short 5k, more like 4k) for an overall time of 2:21:56 and 12th position.

That was one tough race! I guess I only lost about a minute on the bike "accident", maybe 30 or 40 seconds on the run and 20 or 30 seconds in transition when I was walking and deciding if I was going to continue, but the course was tough, the weather was terrible and I so wanted to pull out (many times!). I'm glad I continued but this race now has some bad memories, for many reasons! Race smart all!