BUCS Duathlon, 20 Nov 2022

This is definitely up there will one of my favourite races in terms of enjoyment and performance.

However it wasn’t all smooth sailing: the day before the race I was really unwell with a migraine and actually sent a message to the OUTriC group chat to ask if anyone wanted to take my spot! Obviously, I did end up racing, but I went into the race thinking “I’ll just get through this”. This low pressure approach seemed to work really well for me though; I felt relaxed all morning and was really enjoying being with my triathlon friends.

My race was in the afternoon so quite a lot of time was spent just chilling, braiding my teammate’s hair and then doing a leisurely warm-up.

When we got to the start line, the nerves kicked in for me a bit but I had a loose race strategy so I just breathed and went through this in my head while we waited for the organisers to start us off. In my last duathlon in February, I had started off super excited and went out too hard (classic!), so though I had a good bike leg, my second run had been shoddy. This time I put myself somewhere around the middle-front of the pack, so I wouldn’t feel pressure to run out with the fastest women.

Nonetheless, when the race started, the pace of everyone around me was fierce. I looked at my watch after about 200m to see I was running a 3:45/km pace. Knowing that that is not something I can sustain for 5k, even without a bike leg and 2nd run, I forced myself to slow down. I got passed by quite a lot of people in the first 1k (which I ran at 4:02 – not a shabby pace, but it just shows how fast the race went out), but after the first km, people seemed to slow quite drastically. I had found a pretty good rhythm, and I was feeling comfortable, so I kept the pace and started passing people. This was a bit tricky because parts of the course were narrow (grass either side), and there were still men and women finishing their second run from the mixed race before ours, coming in the opposite direction, so there were times when I wasn’t able to overtake straight away.

I finished the run with a fairly good time (19:43 – 4:07/km - it was a bit short of 5k) but not in a great position (54th/181 in the category) though obviously I didn’t know it at the time. T1 was fine (1 minute), but I really need to start practicing having my shoes on the bike, because running in cleats is sooo slow!

There was an Oxford girl just in front of me and 2 absolutely insane athletes far, far ahead, so I knew I was 4th out of my university. I decided to make this race about battling for 3rd, just to give me something to focus on. The 3rd Oxford girl, Alice, had finished run 1 about 300m ahead of me, so I had a bit of work to do.

I got my head down on the bike, got as aero as possible on my TT bars and just knuckled down. Alice was always in my sight and she’s really strong on the bike, so I basically just let her pace me! It was really useful not to think about pacing, I just made sure I was taking an aggressive line around the course and not wasting too much energy going wide. Together we made up a load of time - I actually got faster with each loop of the course as I got more and more confident with the route and the slippery road surface (it had rained during previous race). I had the 27th fastest bike of the women.

T2 was also uneventful, just over a minute, and I caught some time up to Alice who sadly had trouble racking her bike! Then we were onto the run (Alice still about 200m ahead). And I went on the prowl. I would never have guessed that my second leg could be faster than my first! I didn’t look at my watch the entire time because I was so focused, but I could see that I was reeling Alice in. I also managed to pass a few other girls, but I had got it in my head about coming 3rd out of Oxford, so I didn’t really care about where I placed in relation to anyone else. My average pace was 4:03/km and I had the 30th fastest time for R2. I ran out of real estate in the end though and missed Alice by 4 seconds! Oh well, next time…maybe…!

On the whole, a great race: low pressure, high enjoyment and some healthy competition! It definitely helped me to have a focal point throughout the race, but I feel that I really did race my own race too, and didn’t get distracted by how other people were pacing it. I probably could have taken R1 a bit harder, but then I might not have had such a strong bike and second run. Who knows! Lots to improve (transitions, I’m looking at you), but this has given me plenty of motivation and finishing 32nd overall in such a competitive field of female athletes definitely gives me confidence for World Champs next Spring.

Onto the next!

Emilia Miller