Sep 28 2008
World Duathlon Championships 2008.
I’ll be the first to admit that I was not particularly looking forward to racing in Rimini this year. My previous trip to the same venue was less than inspiring: the 2006 European Championships where I finished somewhere around 5th or 6th. To be honest I was expecting much the same this year with final positions largely determined by the first run and a whole lot of quality faffing in the bike group. The bike course is a 6 lap out and back along the coastal drag. Not very technical, flat as a pancake and not suited to my love of the hills. I have not been doing a huge volume of speed work so the first run was pretty much as I had imagined. It seemed to take me a lap to warm up – my achillies has been niggling for a while now so I needed that first 2.5k to get rid of the stiffness. I then settled into the race running alone about 15s off the pack. Meanwhile Vanessa Fernandes was disappearing into the dust about 45s ahead. I quickly biked up to the pack (Burgos, Giordana and Louison). Sitting on the front trying to squeeze them into the gutter and off my draft I was plotting when and how I could make a break. The side wind coming in off the sea was very strong and this this played to my strengths. When I looked round they were gone and I settled into TT mode! Vanessa made an amazing minute in the first couple of laps of the bike after that, I seemed to hold the gap at around a gap of 1min 45 – 50s. We were two lonely figures time-trialling up and down the wind battered coast for a good hour. Not much happening on our bike compared to the men’s race later in the day which saw the original winner Rob Woestenborghs disqualified for unsportsmanlike like behaviour….a little more adrenaline to fire the legs in their race! The hardest thing was keeping focused. The course was so flat and featureless that I really had to concentrate hard to keep pushing. By the end of lap six, T2 I had at least a 2min gap on the chasing pack of Burgos, Giordana and Louison, all I had to do was complete the 5k without any heroics or spontaneous combustion. I finished second to the truly class act of Fernandes but hugely happy with my efforts and a result that was far better than I had expected. Time now to get the achilles some TLC and to focus my training for Clearwater World 70.3 Championships in November.
