I arrived at Cyclopark in the middle of the afternoon, the race was just after 4 o’clock. It was the only duathlon in the series this year and the last race of the series, so it could potentially decide the eventual placings in the series overall. Three regions came to race; South East, London and East. I liked the run, bike, run format as the run was my preferred and strongest discipline.
The course was around a small 400m tarmac oval, for the run and the bike was around all of Cyclopark’s 2.9km road circuit. My distance for Tristar 3 was 1.6km/7.5km/1.2km so 4 laps for the first run, 3 laps for the bike and 3 laps for the final run.
The race was an extremely fast start with two athletes going off together, whilst I sat in third with fourth next to me. The lead group had about a 10 second lead going into the second lap, and I managed to close it down by a couple of seconds. The gap stayed about the same going into transition. We had to run around a cone so the distance we did in transition was the same, this also helped me a bit because it gave me the opportunity to see who was behind me and where they were. This was my first race using clips with road cleats and the shoes were already attached to the bike with elastic bands. I had a swift transition and one of the quickest of the day. When I jumped on the bike, I managed to get one of my feet in the shoes straight away, which helped a great deal – now the chase was on.
I had a set of aero-bars on my bike which helped a lot, especially along the flat sections. Going into the ‘dogleg’s’ quick corners, I felt strong and clawed my way back to the two ahead and really attacked on the hills. I caught one boy ahead, from the lead pair, from the eastern region, who had previously podiumed at the nationals last month. I overtook him and moved closer towards my friend Jude, who was also in the South East region like me. We were now going onto the final lap, after a long rapid downhill which passed transition and the main spectating area. Coming off the bike, I was about 5 seconds behind him. Our bikes were right next to each other in transition and I put my run shoes on for the final time, prepared for a lung-busting final run. Jude exited transition a few seconds before me, but I found out after the race that I had the fastest bike split in my category!
Onto the run it was a gruelling three laps, we were both giving it all we had. Jude edged away, with me not far behind. Although I came in 10 seconds behind him, I was still pleased with second place, in what had been a very challenging race.
My Triathlon Journey 
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