Monikie Winter Duathlons - Round 1

Post date: 17-Dec-2012 12:23:02

Race report from our very own duathlon ace Ewan Taylor:

Sunday the 2nd of December saw the first round of the Monikie Winter Duathlons take place; a series of three run/bike/run events held each winter with the sole purpose of keeping the winter lard to a minimum! I've done these races for the past couple of years and quite enjoyed them, so signed up again along with 120 other athletes/aficionados/imbeciles (delete as appropriate). Round 1 consisted of a 5km run around the lochs of the country park followed by a 20km hilly bike route but no second run, which are introduced in rounds 2 & 3. On the gun I was on the defensive as Ronald Gauld went off like a scalded rabbit, but I settled into my own rhythm in 2nd place while keeping the leader in my sights. 17mins 43 seconds later I arrived at the transition point a few seconds behind Ronald, where I donned the bike shoes, helmet and mounted my bike with the grace of an elephant. Still, I had the carrot of another rider dangling in front of me so I set about closing the gap, drafting off some cars as they passed me! I soon caught the leader and focussed solely on maintaining a comfortable gap as I knew there were some very strong cyclists in the field who would pounce on any mistakes I made. There was a fair bit of ice on the roads so I took it quite easy on the corners as I didn't want to end up as road-kill! The final couple of miles back to Monikie were down-wind so I cranked-up the average speed a bit and crossed the line in 1st place. A decent performance and it was certainly more enjoyable than Christmas shopping! Next race is on January 6th.