{"id":889,"date":"2010-02-17T10:42:12","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T10:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=889"},"modified":"2022-04-11T21:48:52","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T20:48:52","slug":"fearless-offroad-duathlon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/fearless-offroad-duathlon\/","title":{"rendered":"Fearless offroad duathlon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos by\u00a0Frogfish Photography<\/a>,\u00a0[edit: Flickr gallery has now been taken down].<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nA new experience for me on Saturday – my first duathlon. Fearless<\/em> was a 5km off-road run, 18km lap of the Llandegla red MTB route, and another 5km run. Mud and sweat were both involved, along with pain and snow, but mercifully no tears.<\/p>\n

Entering seemed like a good idea when I did it at Christmas; I was at the peak of my training and didn’t own a house. Things spiralled downhill on the fitness front from mid-January, with me spending most nights doing DIY until very late and eating the least healthy diet known to man. As a result, my specific training for Fearless consisted of one jaunt to Sherwood Pines the week before. I rolled up on Sunday morning nervous but excited.<\/p>\n

The excitement soon gave way to even more nerves as I was surrounded by a lot of people who were evidently taking it very, very seriously. Nevertheless I registered and set my stuff up in transition whilst trying to look like I knew what I was doing (everyone re-arranges their kit fifteen times, right?). My entry number was 53, so given my lack of training I arbitrarily decided that if I could finish 53rd or above, I’d be happy.<\/p>\n

\"Fearless

Fearless duathlon at Llandegla. Image copyright Frogfish Photography.<\/p><\/div>\n

The mass start got under way on time, and everyone spread out over the first climb up a fire road. After a short steeper section we headed downhill and went properly off-road. While the fire road was mediocre, I seemed to get on much better on the uneven rooty stuff in the forest. A quick jump over a ditch led to more fire road, and the transition area after what seemed like a mercifully short run. My time, not that I knew it at that moment, was about 18 mins for the first run, which is quicker than I’d normally do 5km.<\/p>\n

T1 went smoothly and I set off up the switchbacks at the start of the red run. The climb up to the top of the forest is always a bit of a bitch, but I managed to reel in a fair few people who were obviously struggling with the unrelenting gradient. Snow began to fall as we cleared the trees, and the next hour or so passed in a haze of holding on for dear life. I was riding Becs’ hardtail Giant with undamped, elastomer-sprung Suntour forks, so while I kept up with everyone else on their posh full-sus beasts, I had to work much harder over the same ground.<\/p>\n

\"Grit

Grit your teeth and hold on. Image copyright Frogfish Photography.<\/p><\/div>\n

T2 came around just as the threat of throwing up approached – I probably pushed myself too hard on the final climb from the fire road towards the transition. The time for the bike ride was 1hr 11m – again, much faster than I’d normally do. T2 itself was a bit slow, due to the need to lace up my running shoes, but I soon got underway. This was the bit that worried me most, and sure enough we set off straight into a climb. I ended up walking for a bit and then foolishly started running just as we hit the final big climb off-road through the trees. While it felt vertical, it was probably actually only “very steep”. This was by far the low point for me, especially since we then did a lap of the reservoir to pick up the first run route. Although the threat of stopping to walk was pretty great, I managed to keep up a slow jog. The field was pretty spread out by now, and I was on my own for the repeat of the rest of the first route. Down through the trees and out onto the fire road; I thought about trying to catch the two people in front of me in a desperate last-minute bid for glory, but decided that finishing in one piece would suffice. The entry paperwork said I’d “cross the line, arms aloft in muddy glory<\/em>” or something similar, but I think my actual finish was a bit more low-key.<\/p>\n

\"Crossing

Crossing the finish line. Image copyright Frogfish Photography.<\/p><\/div>\n

Provisional results pegged me at 50th out of 100, which later dropped to 52nd after final confirmation<\/a>. So, I made my target of 53rd or above by the skin of my teeth. Five minutes quicker would have seen my placed 35th, so there’s some potential for a much better result with more training. Obviously that suggests I’ll be doing another one! Despite the pain at the time I really enjoyed it. Indeed, recovering in the transition area immediately after finishing I was considering what other options there were (thanks to the bloke who pointed out several, including the Evil Sheriff<\/a> at Sherwood Pines later in the year).<\/p>\n

Photos by\u00a0Frogfish Photography<\/a> [edit: Flickr gallery has now been taken down].<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span> For those who have spotted the watermark and would hoist me by my own petard, yes I have contacted them about buying them, and yes I have notified them that they’re on the blog. See, I’m not a complete monster! \u00a0:) <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photos by\u00a0Frogfish Photography,\u00a0[edit: Flickr gallery has now been taken down]....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62,454,453,276,396],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-coed-llandegla","tag-duathlon","tag-fearless","tag-riding","tag-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}