Blustery racing!

Well, the driving rain, gale force winds, and winter bugs didn’t stop Goalspecific and Tripurbeck adults and juniors putting themselves on various start lines at the weekend!

Claude and David Kelly braved the elements in the 5k Park runs, first time for David, so he thought he would run 5k there first then 5k back, at the same pace as the 5k in the middle, which was a pb! Great effort Claude came in a shade over 20 mins which although is not a pb, it did include battling against a fairly strong head wind!!

At the same time, Purbeck Runners and Tripurbeck Juniors were lining up to be sand blasted at Knoll Beach for the Junior Championships Club 4k. I believe all athletes achieved a negative split, flying down the beach in one direction, only to turn around into driving wind, rain and sand. Tough going for anyone, so a fantastic achievement to ALL those juniors who braced those conditions! A special congrats to Tripurbeck Squad Members  Lola who came in first and Lily who came in Third.

Jenni was making the most of this weather and getting herself as wet and muddy as possible in an off road duathlon somewhere South East of here. Despite a solid weeks training, and some hard Computrainer sets, she still came in 5th overall, and I imagine top in her age group. Getting stronger all the time. Very impressive.

Finally, onto myself and Clodie, who travelled up to Surrey Friday evening, to line up with 500 crazy other athletes to run 8 miles, bike 24 then run another 8 miles in the Ballbuster Duathlon. If the weather wasn’t enough to put us off, unfortunately, complements of husband Ade, I was struggling with a rather nasty bug. Clodie on the other hand was using match sticks to keep her eyes open after far to many 5am work starts this week, and beginning to feel a bit on the run down side of things. To be honest, if we were not travelling up together, and had booked a hotel the night before, I think we would have both made the decision not to race, but neither of us wanted to let the other person down, so we crawled out of bed, dosed ourselves with some paracetamol and got ready to race. After attempting a very short warm up, I realised that there was a distinct possibility I might have to crawl around the first 8 miles, and if our car was not boxed in by 100′s of others I would have turned around and gone home! Subsequently, my plan was to get around the first run, walk if I had to, and go for a spin on the bike, then call it a day. Clodie’s plan was not to go crazy, keep heart rate relatively low and get a good training session in (which included a good chat with me at the start of the race and in the second transition!!) Session achieved for Clodie!!. As for me,   I think it might just have been my slowest 8 miles I have ever run, (well, not sure I could call it running, though Heart rate thought differently) however, despite not particularly pushing it on the bike, still managed to come in with the fastest female bike split, which included a rather long chat with Ade leading up to transition. Must be all that mountain training in the Alps.

A few years ago, I would have pushed myself to finish, but then to what end (the hoodies were given out at registration)? Make myself worse? Be really disappointed with my final time? Nah, no point. In fact, I should not have even started, but fortunately have got away with it. So, easy few days, get well, then get back to it, and try and find another duathlon to enter relatively soon, though struggling to find one? (with on road bike)

Final note has to go to our Junior Squad on Sunday. Due to all the racing we had to move the day, so had a select few training with us. We decided to make the most of the bikes and turbos, so they were put through their paces on an hour long turbo set followed by 600m reps off the bike. A short break, then after a warm up and some drill work, were put to work with  20 x 100m reps in the pool. Well done to all of you, visibly getting stronger before our eyes!!

Whats next then? 10 mile road run next week for me, Ade, Clodie, Tripurbecks  Roddy, Guy, Liz and Ray, in fact probably more!.  Hopefully we will make it there fit and well, then of course, SIKA DUATHLON the week afterwards….Only a few places left in both Adult and junior races!!