Moorgreen Duathlon

Last Sunday (16th October) I took part in my first ever Duathlon, this is an event which has three parts. A run, followed by a cycle, then a final run. The Moorgreen Duathlon classes as a Sprint event as it's a 4km run, 14km ride, 2km run.

After finishing the London to Brighton ride a few weeks earlier I was confident I would manage the ride easily enough without making the run too difficult to finish. The main worry was the transition zone as I haven't done an event like this before. All the way on the first leg of the run I was telling myself "helmet on first then sort out footwear and bike" and to be fair once I finished the run the transition wasn't anything as bad I as I expected, saying that I was still slow at the change over!

Out of Transition No1 time to cycle.

Out on the bike course I soon realised Moorgreen area really isn't flat but at the same time it's nice to cycle around. The cycling route wasn't anything special but did the job for the event. Once back at the transition area it was time for my second set of instructions in my head "put your bike away befoire you take off your helmet", I wasn't the only one like this as I did hear one of the staff telling a bloke he didn't need to run in his helmet and he could take it off if he wanted too, I think he was that focused on racking his bike and running he forgot he had it on.

Back into transition and time for the final section.

The last run now was only 2km which shouldn't be too difficult but I've never ran, cycled then got off a bike and ran again. My legs felt very strange! I had been warned of this by a few people and it really is an odd sensation the first time you do it. The second run took me longer than I wanted but over all I finished in just over an hour and placed 51st out of 115+ people.

Overall I was a little disappointed but it's given me a taste for Duathlons and I will be doing more in the future and hopefully I will see my times slowly decreasing event by event.

Finished!

It wasn't only my first Duathlon but Danny ran/cycled his too. He did the shorted event which was a 2km run, 7km ride and 1km run. This was an amazing achievement to do this seeing as the previous day he took part in the Men's Health Survival of the Fittest which I've ran in the previous 3 years. 

He's doing all these events for his own personal health and fitness benefit but at the same time to raise some money for Crohn's and Colitis UK - www.justgiving.com/Daniel-Brooks3

Bring on the next challenge and event!