Ashbourne Duathlon.

‘Let’s do the Ashbourne Duathlon, it’ll be a good sharpener for the Ironman’

‘But Duathlon is a bit rubbish, Stu.’

‘Yeah, I know, but I did it a couple of years ago and it’s a really hard course, loads of hills and the run  is pretty hard, so it’s worth it. Think of it like a good training session.’

‘Is it gnarly?’

‘yep’

‘Ok, I’m in.’

Don’t know if you all decide races like this, but racing can get dull if you pick the ones with easy peasy courses. Murky water followed by long flat loops of biking and running gets old real quick.

Have you noticed how triathletes start ramping up the excuses the closer it gets to a  race?

‘So, I haven’t like done any training since blah blah, because of this thing with my blah blah and actually the Doc says there’s no way I should even be like walking on it, but I’m just gonna give it a go and see’.

Of course Stu and I had our own similar banter as we struggled up the M1 for five and half hours on a Friday afternoon heading toward Ashbourne, the North.

Stu: I tweaked my hernia scar when I was trying on wetsuits this morning, think I’ve torn the scar tissue.

Vince: Oh that sounds bad dude, maybe you shouldn’t race.

Stu:  I’ll be Ok. I’ll just it give a go and see.

Vince: Yeah I’m worried about my knee.  I’ve not really been running since December, I’m not sure it will hold out on those hectic downhill sections.

Stu: Sounds bad, maybe you should take it easy.

Vince:  Naaa, I’ll be all right, just give it a go and see.

Of course both us repeatedly stressed that we weren’t gonna give it large as we have ironman races in less than a month. So with our excuses well prepped and rehearsed, we arrived up north in the dark and struggled to find some backward little country ghetto ranch that Stu had booked us into for the night.

‘What the hell dude, this place stinks of shit and what was that fricken dinosaur noise?’

‘It’s a farm.  That’s animal smell and noise, it’s great.’ Stu reminded me.

Ok so we had an entire cottage decked out with delightful pub carpet to ourselves, the wind whistling through the gaps in the cowshit plastering was fine, but the smell and the noise were nasty. The lack of traffic murmur and high levels of intoxicating oxygen was doing my nut in. More excuses were forming in my mind as we hauled out kit into the freezing cottage/shed.

Race day at last.  We’d both spent the night freezing, wrapped in weird squeaky glass fibre loft insulation duvets, but at least we’d made it to morning.  Not wanting to rely on B&B instant, I’d brought some decent go go java to charge up and flush out the pipes.  It looked good outside, there was beautiful blue sky which apparently only happens three or four times a year north of Watford, so I guess we were pretty damn lucky.  Seriously windy though, so perhaps scary conditions for the deep section wheels. Hmm more excuses developing.

Everyone was milling about like maniacs at the race site, you know the scene, track pumps everywhere, skinny dudes bouncing around in tights and swinging arms about frantically.

We’d arrived a bit casual, a good 20minutes before the start and had both forgot various items of kit.  We warmed up in our jeans and jogged about a bit before the PA announced 5mins before close of transition. I got sent to a completely different racking slot as my place had been taken by some gypsies that had set up camp occupying at least 3 metres of racking.  I didn’t get time to make a mental note of where my stuff was or what gear I’d left my bike in….newbie mistake no. 234.

The course was 12km run with 900feet of climbing followed by 40km bike with 2000feet of climbing and then a fast flat 4km run to finish. My race strategy was to cane it off the front as fast as possible to see how many pairs of legs I could blow up in the first five km and then relax/survive and recover for rest of run and bike, then totally smack it on last run. Of course, this being the national duathlon champs, there were quite a few whippet like fellas not weighing in at more than a pair of sweet zipp wheels, so my plan was flawed from the start.

The gun went off, and it was time for the smack down. I did a total Linford and sprinted away. I led for around 300m before Matt Cullen from EnduranceCoach.com eased past me. I could tell that he was pretty comfortable, not sure if he was actually breathing at all, so I let him take the reins. We opened up a few dude lengths with two other guys to the next pack which I think Stu was just hanging out in. I set up a really fast pace along the one bit of semi flat road and the two guys tucked in behind me. In a few minutes we peeled off the road and dived into our first bit of offroad trail.  Whooooooooooaaaaaaa, it was like a bloomin roller coaster, arms up in the air, jaw bouncing like mad with each slapped footfall, we fired down the steep trail for around 50m before hooking a tight corner and going straight back up again.  It was awesome, I’m not sure if I was the only one waving my arms in the air and screaming but I didn’t care.  It was cool. The whippets would catch me again on the uphills but I’d put masses of dudelengths into them on the downs. These whoops went on for like 8 more km and then finally we hit this flat section where I could properly open up my stride, but then KERBLAMO (copyright batman comic) the cross wind hit.  It was so strong you had to lean right into it, I’m not kidding you, I think I saw one of the whippets fly right off the side of the damn. Ok, maybe not, but he could have, he was wee man.

We trucked into T1 and I was running about looking for my S-works like a blue arsed fly. I eventually found it and grabbed it off the rack. D’oh….I gently easy it back on hoping nobody had seen but an official spotted me and waved his finger like some Ma catching her sprog with his grubby paw in the ice-cream. 

‘I’m not gonna give you the 2mins, as I can see you put the bike back, but I’ll hold you up a while’.

‘A While?’ I muttered, anyway good bloke, he could have been a git and given me 2mins. I took my time putting on my lid and having a quick drink. When he let me go two others had got me in T1 and I pegged it out on my socks.  I leaped on my bike and straight into the 10% hill in my big ring and some mini sprocket at the back. Dammmmmit. I jumped off and almost slung my bike on my shoulder as an old cross instinct kicked in, but sprinted up the hill pushing the beast in my socks instead, my shoes clacking against the asphalt.  

I just heard the PA guy wail ‘…and Stuart Anderson now coming into Transition.’ Cool, I’ll ride for a bit and wait for Stu, maybe we can pace each other, I thought.

I got into my tri bars and started pushing along.  The wind was pretty hard going but I was really tight into my aero tuck and the aero lid really felt awesome.  I quickly caught the couple of whippets from T1and smoked em out the back door. Within about 15mins Stu came zipping past me with a quick ‘all right mate’.  I dived on the pedals and started to claw him back again. We started to hit a few climbs and I was feeling really smooth, just focused on nice fast tight cadence and keeping perceived effort well below threshold.  The plan was working.

We hit a few climbs building more and more lead.  A small group of four of us going up middleton top at a pretty fast clip. Then disaster. Stu dropped his bottle.  Due to the gradient it rolled away in seconds. He continued without it but knowing his race was going to be compromised.  Of course, a race this short you don’t really need much to drink….ok Stu, I’m joking.  Without drink he couldn’t get any nutrition on board. As I passed him on the climb I told him not to worry he could have mine.  I kept on climbing with every intention to pass him my bottle at the top, but I guess he didn’t quite understand me as he dropped out the back door.  You’ll have to ask Stu about why he didn’t try and hold my wheel, he’ll give you some story about how I weaselled his bottle with some lubricant to make him drop it. Oh dear, that’s so weak.

So now it was just me and Paul Holdaway from Parker International.  We swapped over a few times but then I noticed he was in age group below me so there was no point in me trying to hold him. His pace was interfering with my sweet cruise so I backed off.  I really focused on staying nice and steady, keeping the watts below threshold and getting ready to really fire off a fast last run.

I hit T2 with the typical pangs of duathlon cramp in the calves.  Slipped on the shoes and started striding out through the cramp. Here’s my tip on duathlon cramp. Don’t stop to try and stretch, just stride harder and faster, I know it hurts like hell and this sounds like rubbish and you’re knackered and and and….whine, but it works, it will only last for a couple of hundred metres.  Pain is temporary, glory is forever….Ok that should be pain is temporary but will resurface two days after the race and make you pogo around on glass legs and get comments like, ‘dude, do you need the toilet or something?’

I caught a few of the elite guys in the last run which was cool as they’d started five mins ahead of us.  The wind was really insane coming off the water, but I just buried the pain and somehow managed a good pace. I saw Stu on the return leg and we smashed a couple of high fives, grunting acknowledgement. We knew at that point we’d probably got the ol’ one two sorted and there’d be some BTF medals to be had….awesome.

So there you go, somehow a couple of wannabe Ironmen triathletes came first and second in the national duathlon championships. Not sure how we pulled it off but we did it. Duathlon has it’s place, as long as it’s a gnarly course and you tell everyone it’s just training for Triathlon.