World Sprint Duathlon Championships, Pontevedra, 21 Jun 2025

It hadn’t been long since the European Duathlon championships in Poland but this was going to be a very different race - a much warmer climate, a bigger field and a more challenging course.

I did a bike recce the day before the race – the course went up out of the town up a long steady incline then turned to come back down the same hill and back into the town.

The run started on the race track then wound around the streets of Pontevedra – it was hard to get a fast start as people elbowed each other out of the way and the fast ones soon got away. I felt like I was running at a good pace but not going super hard as I knew I had to conserve my energy for the bike. Two laps around the city and I came into transition, grabbed my bike and ran around the track with it before heading out on the bike leg. 

There were a couple of other ladies around me and we worked together on the first part of the hill but then the hill got steeper and they pulled away. I cycled the rest of the way up on my own, thinking “when will this hill end” and as I got to the turnaround, an American and a Canadian caught up with me, I joined their group and we worked together on the downhill section, flying past a few other cyclists and reaching a top speed of 38mph! However, the downhill turned into another uphill and they got away from me, leaving me to finish the ride on my own.

A final lap of the town on run 2 and I was overtaken by a lady in my age group – I thought I had a lap of the stadium to do at the end so didn’t chase her but we finished sooner and I probably could have caught her!

I came across the line 10th in my age group out of 24. It was a good race, not really the right course for me as I struggled to keep up with others on the hills but it has given me something to work on!

Sarah Hunter