Dorney Sprint Duathlon, 8 Apr 2023

Five years ago I would have laughed at the suggestion, but I have finally done my first ever duathlon! After coaching many people in duathlon and triathlon, it has been my intention for a while to try one out, originally intended for 2020. This got delayed by a variety of things but was put into the plan for 2023. I chose Dorney as I had at least been there before as a spectator, knew the transition area was on road and compact, and it had a full length non-drafting bike leg even in the sprint distance. I’ve been doing specific training for this over the last couple of months, which had been going well until the last couple of weeks. Some annoying calf cramp (see later!) and general lack of good feeling recently left me more nervous than I wanted to be about how it was going to go.

At least it was a nice day! I arrived nice and early on a sunny (but chilly) morning with only a light breeze. I had decided to race with a jersey over my trisuit and added arm warmers based on the morning chill. A quick spin round on the bike led to the slightly unwelcome news that the bike mount/dismount was much further from transition than it had been when I was spectating last year – not ideal for my ‘running in bike shoes’ strategy, but I decided to stick with it. I put my bike in transition and scoped out the routes to and from, then headed off for my warmup. My quads, which had been sore all week, were still somewhat sore now but I felt better having warmed up and joined the queue for the start. There were a huge number of people as the event decided that the best way to start a Sprint Duathlon, a Standard, a 5km, 10km and half marathon run race was .. all at once! My plan was to stick to 10km pace for the 5km Run 1, hoping to leave plenty in the tank for a good bike leg.

Finally, we were off, and I managed not to start too fast, settling into my target pace and trying not to be put off by all the people around me, then by the steady stream of people overtaking as faster runners who had been further back in the queue caught up. After the first km or so the pack stretched out and I was able to settle into my plan. I finished the run in good order, exactly on my pace target (4.30min/km giving 22:40 for the leg) and feeling pretty good (and much better than I had feared!).

Into transition and I managed to remember to do everything in the right order and not fall over while changing shoes(!) before running out along the extra section to the mount line, helpfully positioned on top of a short rise, in a narrow section just as you turn onto a bridge. On to the bike without any issues and I was ready to do the section I’d been looking forward to. There was a wide variety of speeds out on the bike course, which became even more apparent on the second lap, with bikes varying from TT bikes through to mountain bikes forming ‘mobile chicanes’ around the course, which is quite straight on the way our but has some twists and surface changes on the way back. My plan was to ease into the first lap, make sure my legs were ok and get a sighter of the course, before pushing on for the next three laps. Sadly towards the end of lap 2 I started to get twinges of cramp in my calves, and into lap 3 this became full-blown agony, meaning there were times when I couldn’t pedal at all and was starting to think I would need to stop at the end of the lap. I just about managed to keep going and at least pedal more on the last lap (but at very low power) wondering how on earth the run was going to go (31:24 for the bike leg).

I went fairly smoothly into transition, considering all that had gone before, back into my running shoes and out for the second run, taking it steady while I wondered how my legs would be. Oddly they were fine, and I not only managed to finish the run fairly well but actually went faster than run 1 (4:21min/km giving 10.30 for 2.4km)! I crossed the line with very mixed feelings but mostly disappointment about my stupid legs.

Afterwards I found I had come 27th out of 112 entries in the Sprint event, and with the 18th fastest bike leg despite losing at least 2 minutes (my first lap was the 5th fastest on the day).

Tim Phillips