Race Report: F3 Duathlon - Dorney Lake

Done the F3 Events November duathlon today at Dorney Lake, which was 5km run / 20km cycle / 5km run. Its on a totally flat course, around the 2012 olympic rowing lake.

Made it around, despite convincing myself at least 100 times that I should just do the "novice" version (2.5km / 12km / 2.5km). I started off pretty fast, mainly trying to keep with one of my mates who's a much stronger runner than me. When he maneuvered to pass a group of runners, I let him go and carried on myself at my own pace, which slowed considerably after this (see graphs below).

I was hoping to do the first run leg under the 30min mark (which would have been a pb) but unfortunately, I came in around 32mins, the second last person on that run leg.

Onto the bike, which was also my first proper go with using the cleats. Started off strong, hitting speeds up to 40kmph and thinking I was a great fellow. After 2km, that was to change, as the course doubled back on itself and I faced into a gale force wind. Believe it or not, it was actually a pretty calm day, (at least at the start where its a bit sheltered) so this was quite a shock. Speeds dropped down to about 19kmph on average and it was like a 2km uphill ride the whole way back. The route called for 5 of these loops and after the second attempt the "novice" race was appealing to me again.

I actually caught up to my mate on the bike leg, mainly due to the fact he was riding a mountain bike, with a half flat back tyre! Needless to say, he passed me quickly enough on the run!

For the second run I took a different approach, mainly a run \ walk strategy. Initially I was hoping to do 3 min runs \ 1 min walks but that just wasn't going to happen the state I was in! So settled on a good few 1.5 min runs \ 30s walks. I even told my mate at one stage when we met on the loop that I was only doing 1 of the laps! Next time I met him, I'd talked myself around into doing the second lap.

Anyways, got around in just under 2 hours. Official results aren't out yet, but I put my time down as 1h 57m or there abouts. Official placing I guess is 3rd last :) Things can only get better! At least I completed it!!

For more info, see here, here and here...


Run 1
Bike
Run 2