London Duathlon
Richmond Park – Saturday 17th September 2005
After surviving the Blenheim and London Triathlons, the next stop on my crazy multi-sport adventure was the London Duathlon. Duathlon is a run followed by a bike with another run to finish – all in a row. So there was no swimming in this one to worry about. I thought it would chance to get rope in a couple of friends and do a team relay.
TEAM RELAY CHALLENGE DISTANCE:
10km RUN > 20km BIKE > 5km RUN
First on the list had to be Simon “Iron lung” Johnson. Simon had been crucial in helping me decide to train for the London Triathlon in the first place. After watching the 2004 Athens Olympics he memorably boasted that he would get into the British triathlon squad for Beijing in 2008 as triathlon “looked easy” and he thought he could “get really good in four years”. After struggling to retain control of my bladder from hysterical laughter, I promised to prove to him what a hard sport it was by having a go myself – this kind of amazing backwards reasoning is something only I seem capable of.
This does prove that Simon is an eternal optimist however, especially when you take into account the fact that his best years are clearly behind him. He does have an incredible attention to detail that makes NASA look nonchalant so I knew he would give the training a good go.
As well as myself the third member of this dream team had to be Henry “petit-dejuner” St. Clair Miller. Despite his posh name he’s a very down to earth chap and had a very handy personal best of 42 minutes for 10km. I thought he would be the perfect foil for the 10km run first leg. I would then take over the 20km bike leg, leaving “Iron lung” the 5km final leg.
We signed up and were all ready and then it all went wrong. First to drop out was Simon who had a wedding to got to – and it wasn’t even his own! This wasn’t such a big problem as we had fitness freak Yussef “Damage” Ferguson who was seemingly chomping at the bit, to step in and replace him. Then everyone seemed to be dropping like flies. Henry’s comparatively weak upper class immune system was no defence and he was out with Yussef not far behind. I too was not immune, this time falling fowl to a rather nasty bout of flu which kept me off work for a week. Training was out of the window which meant I turned up on the day with very little miles in the bank.
With no team mates I sent out a desperate e-mail to everyone I knew in the hope that someone would come in and rescue me from having to do the whole thing myself. Fortunately I was in luck and a nice chap called Malcolm was prepared to come in and run the 10km and he even knew someone (Nicola) who could do the 5km final leg.
I met Malcolm and Nicola on the day was delighted to see that they were proper athletes who seemed quite capable of carrying me if I had a bad day. This was a relief as I had lost some of the fitness I had in early August for the London Triathlon and I was still nursing a cough from the flu I had recently recovered from.
The team relay format felt strange as Malcolm set off at the start. I was looking at my watch knowing the race had started but that my services would not be required for at least 45 minutes. Malcolm recorded a creditable 50 minutes on a near 11km course and then I was off on my turn.
Although I was not in the best shape in the world I really enjoyed the two laps of the park despite panting like a sick dog on some of the trickier sections of the course. It was fun course with some really fast sections. Towards the last quarter of my leg I was really beginning to suffer and it was with some relief when I handed over the timing chip baton to Nicola for the final 5km. Once again we waited knowing things were not actually over until Nicola crossed the finish line.
Overall we finished 29th of the 77 teams which was highly respectable and I must say I was quite pleased with my time especially considering how disappointing my bike leg was at the London Triathlon. It was enjoyable event but was very expensive so I’ll have to check my piggy bank first before I think about doing it again for next year.
Final position: 29th of 77 teams.
Thanks: Malcolm McClaren, Nicola Barr, Jessica Hird. Not forgetting those who didn’t make it – Simon Johnson, Henry St. Clair Miller and Yussef Ferguson.