British Duathlon Championships, Portsmouth Duathlon and Yeovil half
/Even though the weather is still a bit rubbish, plenty of the Goalspecific team athletes have been out racing this weekend.
Russ, Adam and fran were all lining up in the British Duathlon Championships at the Bedford Autodrome. Russ is in great shape after a solid block of training and Adam was making his debut both as a team Goalspecific athlete and in fact as a duathlete! Russ stormed the 1st 10k, 36mins into transition and was out of the bike close to the front of the field. A massive improvement inhis biking saw him post just over the hour for the 40km bike and a sub 20min run to finish placed him an excellent 10th in his age group – masses to come from Russ who has bags of raw talent but limited experience at this level so far. Great result. Adam had a great solid race all round and finished in 2hr33min – withonly a few weeks training under his belt this is an excellent result. Fran’s season has started interestingly with 2 race cancellations due to snow and there was no way that she wasn’t going to start today. Unfortunately she’s been ill all week and was feeling about 70% on the startline. However, even though she was only really able to jog the first 10km, enough of her normal bike speed was there to propel her into top spot in her age group and she finished off a second Duathlon national title in her age group despite not being at top speed.
Nige lined up in the Portsmouth duathlon and showed how consistency in your training pays off with an excellent race. He hit a 5k pb in the first 5k of the 7.5km opening run and averaged above 20mph for the bike, before a solid second 5k brought him home in 1hr35min – great race Nige!
And finally, but really swiftly, George Bareham was running in the Yeovil half looking for a sub 1hr20min pb after a great training block, he was 9 seconds outside – so close !! Never mind George – 9th overall is a great finish and you’ll have to save that pb for the back end of 70.3 in the summer:-)