All roads lead to Mallorca

triproject TV
Apr 13, 2017
3 min read

Milton Keynes Half Marathon

I had only ever competed in running races up to 5km of length on the road, usually using them as a useful training marker. This all changed at the start of March where I toed the line for my first ever half marathon race. I had planned to settle into 3.35/km pace, and with the course being flat this was supposed to bring me to the finish in just over 75 minutes. Starting the race I managed to not get carried away with the pace of the front pack, and with the exception of an ankle deep puddle competitors were forced to run through at mile 2, everything was going great. 2 miles to go saw my plan and pacing go out the window. I had managed to hold a pace closer to 3.30/km for the duration of the race, and was good for a sub 1.15 half- something I'd be very happy with. However the left turn into the wind at mile 11, and also the gradient all the way up to the finish, meant that the pace slipped to over 4 min kms at points. A 300m long steep hill which would be appropriate for a good hill rep session, was placed less than a km from the finish. This acted as a real test, and I found it completely drained my energy and disrupted my stride, crossing the line fully spent in a time of just over 1.16. Not a bad time for a first half, but I had a sub 1.15 within my grasp and was dissapointed not to achieve it. A flatter course on a still day may be the answer to this,

and I probably shouldn't be too harsh on myself! This is the activity on strava: note the drop off in pace!

https://www.strava.com/activities/889202386

Clumber Park Duathlon

Buzzing to get back to multisport racing after what was a long winter, we drove up to Clumber park for the Olympic distance duathlon. It was my first time racing a non drafting duathlon (except BUCs duathlon- but anyone who has raced that will tell you it's 'non-drafting' in the loosest sense of the phrase), and I was excited to see where my bike and run stood against a good quality field . The first run I made sure I ran within myself to save plenty for the bike, in hindsight I probably ran this a little too easy but it set me up for the 3rd fastest bike of the day. It was an opportunity to test out all of my equipment before heading to my first triathlon on the year, and I finished the 37km bike in a time of 54:26 with a NP of 310w. I went all out on the second run, and with the staggered start times I had no idea where I stood in the field so made sure to leave everything on the course. I had finished first in my wave but now had the wait to see where I had come overall. With the results taking a number of days to be processed (what else would you expect for a £40 entry fee?) I finally found out I'd come 2nd to a flying Matt Nelson, and that it was my run splits which had let me down. This confirmed to me that I had held back too much on that first run, but being my first non drafting duathlon I was pleased with my performance and will certainly be doing more of these races in years to come!

Strava activites for duathlon:

Run 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/904796767

Bike : https://www.strava.com/activities/904795934/overview

Run 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/904796911