Mallory Park World Sprint Duathlon Championships Qualifier, 6 Mar 2022

When I saw that Worlds would be in Ibiza next year and would most probably coincide with my chilled ‘F3’ year as a doctor or a supernumerary rotation, I had to try and qualify. I’ve never done “the double” before so have set my eyes on trying to qualify for both sprint and standard distances. The only sprint qualifier that would fit in with my other race plans was Mallory Park. I had never raced there before but I was excited for a trip away to another racetrack venue (my fav!). Marathon training has been my main focus over the winter but I have had a few good speed sessions in the build up to this race and a couple of brick sessions for good measures… 

I went in to the race with some solid endurance fitness but was unsure what speed my legs would bring!

 I recce’d the course the afternoon before and was quite excited by it. The bike course played to my strengths and the run laps/transitions looked nice and simple. The weather however was pretty miserable and quite the contrast to the warm Tenerife I had just spent a week in! 

 The race starts at 12:30, which was quite late! I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with myself but I enjoyed a lie in and headed to the race venue to watch the men’s race before ours. Our race start time came and after spending quite a long time working out what layers to wear, I was ready! The start horn went and off we ran! I didn’t have particular run splits to aim for as I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to be capable of so I went very much off feel - hard, but controlled throughout. I was flying and felt really good! I was able to hold an average pace of 6:11min/mile for the slightly short 5k first run and come into transition in 6th place in 18:05.

 I had practised my transitions several times the day before and managed one of my best ever flying mounts before heading out onto the 20km 9 lap bike course. I was very much on my own and didn’t really have anyone around to draft. I spent the first lap spinning the legs to try and flush out the run intensity and get into cycling mode. I settled into the bike, however I really struggled on the back straight with a solid headwind and lack of people to shelter me from it. I thought the bike was going generally ok, however a couple of ladies passed me and I tried my best to hop on to their wheels but sadly couldn’t manage this. I spent the remaining laps trying to hop between cyclists to gain some shelter from the wind but was unable to work with anyone else. I went in to T2 a bit frustrated that I wasn’t able to keep up with the couple of girls who passed me but kept my focus on nailing that final run. Bike- 38:29

 T2 again went well and I headed out on to the run course feeling strong. I didn’t have anyone visibly ahead of me to catch and no one creeping up from behind so I settled in to a comfortable pace with a calf that was threatening to cramp on me and finished the final 2.5km run in 9:55. 

 Overall time 1:08:14, 3rd in AG and 8th female overall.

 I got the qualification spot I came for and really enjoyed some fast racing again! This was one of the strongest domestic fields I had ever raced in outside of BUCS so it was great to go head to head with some of the best duathletes in the country. Definitely areas to be worked on but a really encouraging performance.

 So what’s next for me? Rome Marathon on 27th March is the big goal and my run performances at Mallory are hopefully a sign of good things to come. After this I move back to a very busy rota at work so training may be a bit limited again. I hope to do a few shorter running races before setting my eyes on European Duathlon Champs in Bilbao in September and the standard distance world’s qualifier in October!

Megan Powell