Last year to me felt like I put in a lot of hard work in training but I didn't get to test myself as much as I'd like in races. This year I've decided to change that and get out to as many races as I can (within reason of course) and make the effort to travel further afield within the UK and support as many cross du's and tri's as possible.
Although the cross scene is building, unfortunately our races took a hit early on when it was announced the hugely popular Human Race cross duathlon series were cancelled due to land usage....bummer! This meant that there was quite a large gap in events that we could race and get the season started early. Fortunately for us, the great people behind the Southern XC mountain bike events stepped in to provide cross-du's on the Saturdays before their standard Sunday xc races in the form of their TrailX series....happy days!
The first in the series was in Wasing on 11th March set around a cracking mtb course which made for some awesome but tough racing. The run through the impressive grounds was really quite beautiful (had to remind myself I was racing at one point) and with a stonking, muddy hill straight out of transition it was a true reminder of how hard duathlons can be. By using the mtb course set for the next day, minus a few of the A lines, it was great to see a challenging bike course where you needed your wits about you at all times in a multi sport event, more of that please! Overall I finished in 10th fairly happy with my bike but wanting to work on the run legs a little. The next in the series is this weekend and is being billed as their sprint event, so I'm looking to a solid hit out.
Next up was the Hole Park cross duathlon on the 2nd April, the previous setting of the national cross-du championships and a fair trek out to the middle of Kent. Coming into the race I was feeling fresh and ready so see what I could do. I really wanted to put a good marker down and have a good hard race, and that's just what I got! On paper the course looked fairly flat, but in reality there were plenty of ups and soft sections to sap the energy. Knowing that the bike is still my strongest section I aimed to set off steady on the first run, nail it on the bike and then keep going as long as I could for the final run. The only thing was, the first half of the run lap was all down hill and a real challenge to gauge your effort and not get tempted into letting rip and flying off from the gun. It also means most of the rest of the lap must be back up hill!
I came out of T1 and immediately put the hammer down to try and catch up to those in front and managed to take 2 places on the first of 3 laps- I was feeling good. As I finished my first lap and heard over the tannoy (cheers for the hype Rich!) that I was in 2nd place I dug in even more to try and get that 1st spot. But no, as I was making my way back up to T2, Nick Collins was already on his way out and had quite a lead as he had done for most of the race. I still gave it my all on that second run, pushed as hard as I could up the hill and managed a fairly comfortable 2nd place, 1st in my age group and a first podium for the year. All in a good day out.
So the season has started nicely, still a tad fresh out for me to venture into the water yet but there's plenty of du's coming to keep me happy at the moment.
