Winter Fun

Hi, I haven't posted for a little while so I thought I'd give a quick update as to what I've been up to over the last couple of months. Training wise, I've been getting in the pool a lot more and am already noticing improvements in my swim fitness; I can swim for an hour without my shoulders feeling like they're going to fall off like they used to! On the bike I've been cracking through the base miles, and am utilising the hills that are on my doorstep to try and keep myself in form. Living in the middle of the city makes running very tedious, and without heading a few miles out of town its pretty bland and boring to be honest. I've been cracking on though and have managed to get out of the city a couple times and run in more interesting places.

One of my cycling training buddies Max Suttie approached me a few weeks ago to see if I'd be interested in partnering up with him in the Stinger Duathlon at Newnham Park. I jumped at the chance to race something slightly different as both of the run legs are pretty technical and all off road!  I was a bit apprehensive before the start of the race as I knew Max was on amazing form at the moment and had been really working hard putting in the miles on the bike, and I didnt want to let him down. My game plan for the race was to go off hard and try and hang on to the lead group for as long as possible.

The start of the run was straight up a decent sized climb so I went off pretty quick and tried to keep my breathing in check as I stuck with the leader. I followed him in second place for the first couple of kilometres, but he started slowing towards the middle of the course so apprehensively I moved past into first place. I hate leading races out because its so hard to judge pace and you know that everyone is hanging onto you waiting to go past. I held on for a couple of pretty technical miles, with lots of slippy ascents and descents which were pretty fun! Eventually with about 1 km to go I did get passed by one guy, but stuck with him and managed to tag Max and get him out on the bike with only a 7 second deficit. 

Max did a cracking job on the bike and went out super fast and confidently, especially considering he was on a bike that he'd only ridden for ten minutes previously! It was 4 laps of the bike course so I was able to watch and see how he was getting on each lap as he passed. He held second place and pulled out a pretty decent gap on third place going into the final run.

The last run was the fabled 'stinger ' section which I had been told was pretty brutal and boggy! It didnt disappoint and I found myself in bogs up past my knees at times. It was super fun to run something different like this though and I really enjoyed it! I managed to hold onto second place and was fairly close to catching the leader, and looking at the results afterwards it turns out I had the quickest run of the day by over a minute so I was pretty pleased with that. 

Overall it was a really enjoyable day of racing in the sunshine, and I'm looking forward to racing it again in the future. Big thanks to Max for getting me involved in it and for smashing the bike leg!