Who says you can't do it all!

When I decided to blog this entry, the first title that came to mind was something to the effect of "How not to prepare for the European Championship Duathlon". But then I realised that I had already used that line (see previous post about my first Half Ironman). Damn, why am I so predictable?! So I settled for this instead....

I competed in the European Championships for duathlon in Nancy, France just this weekend (2nd May 2010). It was my first big duathlon, a just-for-fun race for me really (more on that later). For lack of better ideas, I raced as part of the British team. Here is a photo from the team photo shoot. Spot the odd one out!!

But this entry will start a month before the race. Many people would see this race as a big race for the year. After all, it is the European championships. Right? Wrong. For me anyway.

First weekend of April was a long weekend. What better way to spend a long weekend than to go away for it. So away I went, to Milan! No bike in tow this time, just a nice weekend break for a change of scenery. Here is a picture on Day 1 of the weekend, on the square in front of the Duomo.

It was a nice weekend, with some uncharacteristic behaviour on my part such as shopping!!



It was also Easter weekend so we got some goodies from the hotel...



I then felt compelled to make up for the lack of training that weekend by doing 10.5 hours of training the following week (close to 200 km total mileage). This was followed by a 11.5 hour training week, which ended with me winning the Bramming half marathon in 1:27 hours (the benchmark for a "good" athlete is under 1.5 hours).

I did another race the following weekend, cycling 48km as part of a 2 person team. My first time trial start...

Which I obviously did not take very seriously!!



But resulted in a podium finish nonetheless. ;)

At this point in time, I was now one week away from the European champs. Which obviously did not worry me enough to deter me from cycling 150k with the guys from my club. It got to Wednesday when it occurred to me, "You are doing a big race this weekend!!". Oh! Uh oh.

I did an emergency bike session on Thursday to practice bike handling, followed by a half hearted attempt at an interval session. I was knackered. I had cycled 200k in a week, and completed over 10 hours of training, not quite the traditional way of preparing for a big race!!

Friday and Saturday were spent travelling. First class seats from Paris to Nancy, which are surprisingly cheap if you book early!

The elites raced on Saturday and it worried me very much. These were serious fast people racing! What was I doing here?! I made a deal with myself, "Just don't come last".

Taking a walk along the bike course, we passed a lovely garden. Nervousness did not stop me from admiring the pretty flowers!

It was France, and the food was great! Pre-race dessert (ok, so it wasn't mine)...

The beautiful Place Stanilas was the venue for the race:

Picture was taken after an evening of trying to dodge fellow Brits who would have been horrified at the fact that I was enjoying beer and wine the night before the important race! ;)

Race morning. Wake up after a surprisingly good night's sleep. Despite some weird nightmares. Time to hit the road. How many people get to jog around the Place Stanislas in a GB trisuit?!





What amazed me the most was how many Brits were around!! I had many team mates, apparently!!!





Here is my proud finish picture:





Even prouder post-finish picture (guess what the best part of this picture is):





And finally, Brits going mad at the closing ceremony in the Hotel de Ville.... :)





And now, for my geeky triathlete friends, some fun facts and figures. Non geeky triathlete friends, if you have read this far and stop now, I don't blame you. In fact, if you have read this far I am impressed. :P


Month training volume in the run up to the race: 42 hours
Week training volume before the race: 10.5 hours


Run 1 split: 3:59 min per km over 9.4k
Bike split: 31 kmh over 38 k
Run 2 split: 4:01 min per km over 4.6k


I finished Run 1 2nd in my category, but promptly got overtaken in T1, leaving me in 3rd place. I held 3rd place until half way through (4 out of 8 laps) when I got overtaken by a someone who finished 2 minutes after me on Run 1. Yes, that makes me a crap cyclist.


By lap 6 I realised that she was not that far ahead of me and decided to give it my all.


I earned my 3rd place the hard way. I ran flat out for the last run, recording progressively faster splits as each km went by. I finished with the 2nd fastest Run 2 split for the entire women's race, with the last 2km splits at 3:55. I overtook my competitor at the last 1km. Victory was sweet.

Thank you Kurt for making me cycle with the big boys, and for those long intervals that made me that much tougher.


I am pleased. :) Beautiful finish....