Hamsterley Forest MTB Duathlon
I love running and I love mountain biking, put them together and you’ve got the Hamsterley Forest MTB duathlon, which is a run-bike-run event. Similar to triathlon but you do an extra run instead of a swim at the start.
This would be the first race that I had ever done, my goal was not to finish last but looking at some of the others at the start line I was a bit nervous that I might not achieve it.
There were only about 45 competitors, all blokes except one woman, who I think was taking part with her husband. The running took the form of 1 lap of 4km, followed by 3 laps of 9km on the bike then to finish 4 further laps of the running lap.
I started out okay, I think, but was over taken by a few of the guys and even the woman. I wasn’t enjoying it… but I wasn’t last, there were still about 5 people behind me and I was sure that I could make up some time on the bike. I’ve done the bike route many times before and knew what to expect but disaster struck just 200 meters into the biking when my camel bak hose broke and I lost all my water, leaving me with no water for at least 27km. On the up side it meant that my pack was lighter and as predicted I took over about 5 people on the first technical down hill part of the mountain biking route.
By the 3rd lap of the biking route I was suffering due to de-hydration and was ready to quit once I got back to the transition to start the 2 running laps but someone must have been looking down on my because as I rode down the forest technical downhill I spied a bottle of lucazade sport that someone must have dropped or thrown away, it was full so I stopped, picked it up and knocked it back… bingo I was back in the game. By the time I got to the transition to start the 2 laps of the running circuit I was feeling okay. Trail shoes on, 2 carb gels and a cut of gatoraid and off I went.
I wasn’t looking forward to the run, I thought my legs would fail me but as it turned out I was doing okay and managed to overtake another 3 people on the run. I even saw the woman, who was in front of me on the first lap of the running before the biking, just getting off her bike to start her running when I was about to start my 2nd and final lap.
So to sum it up, I think that did okay for me first ever *athlon. The morning after the race my legs are okay and I am most definitely up for doing another, the only problem with being in a race is that there isn’t really time to take any pictures but there was a guy taking photo’s so maybe I might be able to get one of me.
