Duathlon_Success

Paul Ashley writes ....

"On the 10th April myself Mick Anglim and Anna Squires all headed up to Milton Keynes for the Emberton Park Duathlon. This event doubled up as a qualifier to represent the Great Britain Age Group team in The World Duathlon Champs to be held in Edinburgh in September this year.

Paul Running

I was feeling the pressure as I had missed qualification at the previous qualifier and knew I had to pull out another 2 minutes from some where to have a realistic chance of qualifying.

The standard distance duathlon consists of a 10km run, 40km bike then another 5km run just for good measure. I felt good on the first 10km run which involved laps around a lake and was pan flat so I was able to get into a good rhythm. I was actually shocked at how quick I went with a 33.53 clocking just 5 seconds slower than Eastleigh and it was accurate by my Garmin.

Anna on bike

I had a good transition onto the bike and people where coming back to me so all was going well. It was coming of the bike that disaster almost hit as I suffered from cramp quite badly in both calf's and my hamstring. Apart from the need to stretch out and a bit of a hobble to begin with I managed to shake it of. Luckily for me there where a number of athletes all lined up waiting to be overtaken so I just worked from one athlete to the next to progress up the field.

It was hard work but I managed to finish 11th overall and 5th in my age group in a time of 1.57.05 which was enough to qualify for the GB team.

Both Mick and Anna also qualified with solid performances which made it a successful day out for us all. for those interested in the results for the 3 of us can be found on link below; http://www.big-cow.com/public/results.aspx?raceid=955"

Mick on bike