2 wins in 1 day

Well that's it, the season is officially over for me. I had my last race on the 11th October at Dalby Forest. It was an off road duathlon and I had to race it as I needed the points for the Yorkshire and Humber Championship. The championship is a series of 20 races with your best 4 to count. I was in 2nd place in the league and hoped my 2nd place earlier in the month at the Hull sprint would have been enough to take the title but it left me .4 of a point away from winning the league. This left me with no alternative but to enter the off road duathlon at Dalby Forest. I had to do some smooth talking with my sponsor Paul at http://www.hilderthorpecycles.co.uk/ to borrow his Giant Anthem XO again for the event. Paul was very kind and agreed to lend me the bike and for the first time in years I actually went out to reccy the course (how serious is that?). I knew I would struggle with the technical sections of the course but hoped the big climb and sections of open fire track that I could use my power to stay competitive. I had to have a game plan and stick to it as I needed a podium finish for the points. Run 1 was 2.5k around a couple of grassed fields before dipping into single track with lots of decents and climbs through the woods. I arrived back in T1 in first place by 30 seconds and set off on the bike. The bike course was 4 x 7.5 k and by the time we had covered the first technical part of the course I was down in 3rd. On lap 2 I had dropped to 6th and was thinking of stacking it as I would not get the points I needed but decided I could still get some time back on the run. At the end of lap 3 I was gaining confidence on the technical stuff and had got back up to 4th and on the last lap regained 3rd. Arriving in T2 the leaders were 2 1/2 mins ahead and I set off to give chase, at the end of lap 1 the gap had closed and I pushed harder on lap 2. The gap was still falling and on lap 3 I took the lead with about 3k to go. I continued to push hard and pulled clear to take the win by 1 min 5 seconds. My run was the fastest of the day by over 3 mins!. So a great result, I won the race and I also won the championship. I am now officially the Yorkshire and Humberside Champion. I won a pair of Spuik MTB shoes worth £85 and a UKMTB cycle top. I am awaiting confirmation of what I have won for the championship and should hear this week. That has topped off the year for me and I feel the season has been a success after a bit of a dodgy start. My 4 races to count in the championship were 1st/2nd/2nd/5th. I can now enjoy a bit of a break before planning next years races and targets but think 1/2 IM is the way forward with an aim of qualifying for Clearwater and hopefully I might do a GB long course either world or european champs.

Last triathlon of the year but not the last race.

Well the Humber Sprint Triathlon was the last tri of the year for me, however its not the last race of the year. The weather was cold but nice and dry and not to windy after the previous days storm. I was off at 10:10 so by the time I had got out of the water in 7:24 which included the long run to T1 it was quite warm and getting warmer. I was about 10 seconds behind Dean Kirkham who is also a GB age grouper so new I would have to push hard on the bike and for the first couple of miles we were draft legally very close until the main climb started and I pulled ahead and opened a bigger gap of about 40 seconds. There was a nice fast decent and a tasty little climb about 1 mile from the end of the bike course. I arrived back in T2 with a bike time of 33:20 which was a bit slower than I would normally expect although it was the second fastest bike of the day. I changed into the fastwitch 3's and I was off on the run. This was flat with the exception of the 2 return crossings of a main road flyover which I felt very strong on. I crossed the line in 1:00:33 which was the fastest time of the day until about a minute later when the very talented junior (only 16 years old) Ollie Dixon crossed the line in 59:53 to beat me by 40 seconds. I was still the winner of the open category as Ollie picked up the junior prize. So another podium finish for me to end the tri season. It would have been nice to have won it outright but I will settle for second.

Only 2 races left now, the Dalby Forest Mountain Bike Duathlon on Sunday 11th Oct, then I have a bit of leave before the Henlow 10 on the 21st Oct. I am looking forward to that if I manage to hold on to my form as I did a 59 min 10 mile run in training a week ago. If I keep up that sort of form I would hope to run a 57 at Henlow all being well.