South West Duathlon Championships.

I travelled down from Atlantic College to Castle Combe Race Circuit on the Sunday morning following the Welsh Triathlon camp to compete in the South West Duathlon Championships, courtesey of DB Max. I arrived at about 11.30, following a long trip in the mini bus, with my fellow team mates.

My race was due to start at 2pm, which included a mixed race of youth and junior, both male and female. The race included a 2 mile run, followed by a 10 mile draft legal bike race, ending in a 1 mile run. A mass start saw 33 athletes compete for honours. The 1st 2 mile run of 11:07, saw me coming into transition in 11th place.

All the transitions were quite similar for the faster athletes, with mine taking 44 seconds to get out of my running shoes and onto my bike.

I started the bike ride, and soon caught up a few more riders. The draft legal race meant that we could hopefully work together in order to make up some time on the other cyclists. However, as only two of us knew how to draft properly, this couldn't be done, and I lost some more time to the leaders. After 10 miles, which took me 26:22, it was time to enter transition again for T2. I was out in 42.7 seconds, and I was off for the mile run.

Just a mile to go, and hopefully time to catch up some athletes on the run. With 6th fastest run of the day inm y Inov 8 F Lite 230's, I came home in 8th place, 9th overall.

A great day of racing at the circuit. The only disadvantage was the 5½ hour trip home!

Some pictures of the race can be seen on the SportpicturesCymru website.