Duathlon Handicap race

The last of this year's Mid-Week Seies of duathlons at Ingleby Greenhow took place last Wednesday 7 June 2006, in the Handicap format.

Orienteering tends to go for the Chasing Start format, where the fastest goes off first, whilst the Tees Forest Trail Races and these duathlons are arranged so that the fastest go off last, with the intention (if the Handicapper has done a good job!!) of everyone finishing together!

With the Trail Races, I really enjoy trying to work my way through the field (and Rob P does do a good job on handicapping), and I do tend to put in a good time. With being such a comparatively poor cyclist, the duathlon handicaps end up with a totally different skew on the starting times as far as I am concerned!

Anyway, felt good on the first 2 mile run and put in a PB for that element - then disaster! The chain came off when I wheeled the bike out of transition!! I must have lost 15/20 seconds trying to get it back on again, and ended up with very black and oily fingers. Worst of all, the little pack I was with at the end of the run were clean out of sight, and I was on my own again on the bike.

Despite the bad start, I came within 5 seconds of my bike element PB, so I reckon my ride was worth a new one by 15 seconds! Unfortunately, the effort was just too much, and I was 15 seconds down on my best second run time. Overall, however, a course PB by 20 seconds, and whole 2 minutes quicker than the first of this year's events 5 weeks previously.

Rob the organiser has mentioned trying to put some more races on in July - would definitely be up for these if they come off!!

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