<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>JezCox - Duathlon247</title><link>http://www.duathlon247.com/index.html</link><description>Latest articles submitted by JezCox on Duathlon247</description><item><title><![CDATA[Spring preview]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.duathlon247.com/article_5708.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[The evenings are just starting to get lighter and all across the country people are starting to feel the racing itch having suffered a winter disrupted with snow and cold weather. Before you know it spring duathlons will be blossoming all over the country and the ever growing mix of newcomers, old timers and triathletes looking to taste the greener grass of Duathlon&rsquo;s pastures will be donning their lycra and pinning on numbers. 

 This spring promises to blossom early than ever in Duathlon&amp;rsquo;s history with the national Duathlon Championships being held at the Clumber Park Duathlon on the 6th of March. Knowing the large number of athletes that want the chance to test themselves against the best nationally this will mean that many will be revved up and ready to go from March onwards so I have chosen six must-do races this spring and some of my inside tips on how to get the most from them. 

With this year&rsquo;s European Championships being in Nancy, France on 1st May, and then the Worlds at the other end of the season in Edinburgh many Duathletes will be thinking of trying to qualify for age-group teams for one of or both and the qualification races are:

ETU European Duathlon Champs. Nancy, France:

Clumber Classic Duathlon - 6th March
Stirling University Duathlon - 28th March
Steyning Duathlon - 5th April
 

ITU World Duathlon Champs. Edinburgh, Scotland:

Clumber Classic Duathlon - 6th March
Stirling University Duathlon - 28th March
Big-Cow Emberton Duathlon - 11th April
Cambridge Duathlon - 2nd May


For more information on applying for the age group teams and the qualification process click here:  

I&rsquo;ll start by previewing three big Classic races:

Clumber Classic Duathlon BTA National Championships - 6th March  
     
This is not one of the oldest Duathlons on the UK scene but has rightly gained itself a reputation amongst the best UK races. With a rolling run on closed roads within the park it provides an ideal competitive testing ground for running form before heading out onto the bike. Classic distance athletes find themselves doing two out and back runs on the first run and this is an ideal platform for seeing where you are in the race and where your rivals are too.  Just make sure you practice the &ldquo;I&rsquo;m gonna catch you even though you&rsquo;re three minutes ahead of me&rdquo; look for the second lap when the leader comes past. Either that or be the leader...Your choice! 
 
The bike leg is a strong bikers dream. I went from seventh after a bad run up to first with a minute lead by the end of the bike leg in the 2007 race, and this was proof that if you have a bad run (and I was crawling by the end!) you can still make good in-roads on this course. It&rsquo;s the sort of bike course that suits strong efficient bikers that can hold a good rhythm. And if that&rsquo;s not you then my top tip might just help:

Top Tip: The bike course takes in a long main road before you head back into Clumber Park and on this there is a painted white or yellow line which appears intermittently along the edge of it. When it does, try to ride on it and stay on it. You&rsquo;ll find it&rsquo;s much smoother and faster that the standard tarmac. Just make sure you keep focussed on the road conditions around you and take care if it&rsquo;s wet because the lines can become slippery.

Big Cow Emberton Duathlon  (Emberton) 11th April
             
The Emberton race is a classic which has become a mainstay of the national series and has hosted a number of National championships. It&rsquo;s a course which has rarely changed and as a result many of the competitors this year will have raced there before so, if you haven&rsquo;t, a drive around the bike course in advance would be advantageous so that you can see where the hills are and get a feel for the course overall.

 The run course is utterly pan-flat as it uses multiple-laps of a series of lakes on a service road. This could be seen as a blessing, but that would depend what kind of runner you are. Being pan-flat means that it becomes what I call a &lsquo;rhythm run&rsquo;;  meaning that your rhythm should hardly ever change save for the occasional speed bump on the way round. This can be some people&rsquo;s downfall though. Where Clumber has an early hill to force athletes to back off a bit and pace it Emberton Park has none of that and so it can be easy to run too fast over the first 5k, and then suffer badly over the second half as a result. Careful Pacing is the key on the first run.  The bike course is open and exposed and has two climbs of note on it. They are longer rolling climbs and again, when paced out correctly shouldn&rsquo;t leave you struggling to recover too much after them.

Top Tip: After your second transition, going out onto the final run, aim to have a lighting quick transition but then run just within yourself and holding back for the first 30 seconds. That will allow you to get beyond transition and onto the road having crossed a narrow section of off-road trail.  Running within yourself for those 30 seconds will just allow for your body to adapt without risking cramping before you unleash the beast on the final run. Oh;  and never EVER look back. It serves no purpose...

Steyning Duathlon (Sussex) 5th April 

Steyning has long been held on Easter Bank holiday Monday and this has always been a mixed blessing in the past. The fact that it is on a bank holiday means that the town centre run course and transition area become packed with people out to watch a good race and as such the atmosphere is excellent. The fact that the bike course for many years has snaked close to one of the main trunk roads down to the coast has been the source of problems in terms of traffic bunching up. The organisers have stuck with the date and now seem to have found the perfect all-round bike course which has a mix of fast stretches and some testing hills.  This is a race to do for the atmosphere on the run course, the slightly shorter first run (which suites the strong bikers!) and the fact that it&rsquo;s the ideal opportunity to take family and friends so that once the race action is over you can go and sample the coast (at spring time) which is just a short drive away.

Top Tip: I&rsquo;d say the majority of people overcook the first 3k of the opening run by going too fast. It starts downhill and has a great crowd spread along the main street which your ego will want to dash along but trust me, once on the quieter back road you&rsquo;ll be paying for it before you turn back onto the high street again. Even pacing and tunnel vision might just help you stay on track on the first run.    

Now I&rsquo;ve chosen some smaller races which really deserve a big reputation. These are my Hidden Jewels:

Maidstone Duathlon (Kent) 7th March  

A rolling country lane first run followed by a rolling (mostly) A-road bike course which is fast and exciting. The out and back nature makes it ideal for measuring your effort. A straight up and down two sides of a hill makes the short final run. Lovely people, nice atmosphere and easy to get to just off the A2 in Kent.

Top Tip: For your warm-up, run right out of the car park and up what will be the hill for the final run so that you can run the length of it and know how to pace it at the end of the race. 

1485 No Frills Duathlon (Market Bosworth) 21st March

A pan-flat run around a picturesque water park followed by a rolling country lane bike course. The bike course is a great blend of testing rises and fast windy lane sections. The final run is another flat fast run out to a turn and back. 
Top Tip: Wear trail shoes for the run sections if you have them. You could even wear cross country &lsquo;spikes&rsquo; just whack some elastic laces in them to save time.   

Knockburn Duathlon (Scotland) 4th April
 
Duathlon is set to be a big part of Scotland&rsquo;s sporting landscape in 2010 with the World Championships being held there in September. The Knockburn Duathlon is the final round of the Aberdeenshire winter series and comes not long after the Stirling world championships qualifier so it&rsquo;s an ideal time for Scottish Duathletes to polish their form on a beautiful course.

A loch-side first run gives way to a hilly and exposed cycle section before doing exactly the same run again.

Top Tip: The bike course has some tight and fast turns on it. Always remember: try to take these bends by going wide, tight, wide by clipping across the apex of the bend and staying low on the bike to maintain a low centre of gravity. Obviously make sure that you ride safely within the lane though.  

Gower Duathlon (Welsh Championships) 15th May

This young but ambitious event has gained the status of a Welsh Championship this year which should be the start of it growing into being one of the all time great British Duathlons. It deserves it with a course like that!

A slightly rolling cliff top run overlooking Rhossili beach will take your breath away before you head out onto a hard but exhilarating bike loop which takes in most of the Gower peninsula and really shows off the landscape before heading out and back to another stunning view which you could easily have missed on the final cliff top run. The views are so good you&rsquo;ll feel guilty for not stopping!

Top Tip: Make sure your tyres are well inflated. If it&rsquo;s wet you would be better leaving them at your standard pressure that letting any air out for better traction as it&rsquo;s a rural loop with often gritty roads and you don&rsquo;t want a puncture to ruin a great day out. Soft tyres deform more easily around a piece of grit or a thorn and welcome it into it&rsquo;s rubbery clutch. A hard tyre says &ldquo;Oi! Thorn! No!&rdquo;  and leaves it sitting upright for the next person behind you.




  ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[The future of duathlon]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.duathlon247.com/article_5668.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[For the month of December I&#039;ve decided to write about where I feel our wonderful sport is at present and where it might go in the future. I should probably start by saying that what I write is of course just my own rambling musings (as regular readers will already know!) and that in no way do my ideas or comments reflect that of Duathlon247.com or it&#039;s partners. It&#039;s really just me and my Duathlon shaped trumpet so apologies if I offend anyone!
 
First of all I thought we&rsquo;d better address the present; duathlon is officially Triathlon&rsquo;s little sister and that is due to three things:

 
People outside the sport can be forgiven for thinking it&rsquo;s tri for non-swimmers. They are of course wrong, but we&rsquo;ll still forgive them.

It&rsquo;s governed in most countries and worldwide (at ITU level) by the national triathlon bodies and is therefore second fiddle to those bodies&rsquo; Olympic sport of Tri and as we all know; Olympics = funding and funding needs to be secured. It&rsquo;s not all sour grapes though as much of the lottery funding in the UK for instance has trickled down to support some of the Duathlon programmes and activities. I&rsquo;ll repeat the word &lsquo;Trickled&rsquo;.

That leads to my final point: It&rsquo;s not an Olympic sport and certainly on a European level, most governing bodies funding tends to be channeled into Olympic sports. You can understand it I suppose.


It is a great testimony then to a sport which is so under funded and under resourced that it has an ITU world cup series, multiple national series across the world, a Powerman long distance series and an ever increasing number of athletes who consider themselves pure duathletes.  

On a world scale, there&rsquo;s two powerhouses really: the first is the place where du originally spread from in the USA. There are multiple duathlon series attracting massive numbers of athletes in the States. The second is what we should think of as the joint entity in duathlon terms, that of France and Belgium. The two nations are home to some very high quality racing and support an ever growing number of Duathletes, who operate as Professionals racing regularly on the French and Belgian circuits. 

The two countries offer a very clear example of two different styles of races and formats and it&rsquo;s brings to the table the age old debate in Tri; Drafting or non-Drafting? 

Sorry folks &ndash; It would come up sooner or later.   

The European elite style of duathlon borrows very much from the its native style of cycle racing which predominates Belgium, France and Holland whereby the races are held on tight, town centre circuits and the races are designed more around which cafes and bars will be on the route than what will suit the riders best. This way, the race is made for the spectators primarily and big crowds come out to watch and even place bets on the eventual outcome. These drafting races are often open to pros and age-groupers alike. Of course, they tend to suit the strong runner who can &lsquo;hold a wheel&rsquo; well on a tight bike circuit and then run like a maniac afterwards.   

The American style is on the whole quite different with much bigger, open courses and a non-drafting format where the race becomes quite spread out. These tend to suit the all-rounder but it has to be said that, the &lsquo;epic&rsquo; courses and courses that suit the strong bikers tend to be out of town and out in the middle of nowhere as well. 

I feel it appropriate that I make a couple of my key feelings known right now before I go on:


Draft legal racing in both tri and du is wrong. It kills the very essence of the three leg test and virtually nullifies the bike leg unless the course is D&rsquo;Uezian (to coin a wonderful new phrase). It&rsquo;s just wrong. Somebody in a suit sat in an ITU office somewhere watching cycling on TV thought &quot;how can we be as popular as cycling? I know we&rsquo;ll try to ride how they do&rdquo;.  Wrong! End of.

Money comes into the sport through sponsorship primarily. Sponsorship is based on brand coverage and exposure and so therefore the races need to be watched and well attended for the sponsors to remain and see a return on their investment. That means taking the racing to the people whilst not losing any of the thrill of competing for the athletes.

   

Up until two years ago my fellow Duathlon247 columnist Clive Faine had been the headman on the ITU&rsquo;s Duathlon committee and he worked tirelessly to build a World Duathlon series. Sadly, since him leaving the post the series has dwindled along with the ITU&rsquo;s long course championships; which simply didn&rsquo;t happen this year.

My personal opinion is that one of the reasons the series is in trouble is that in its current form the races are having to be run as drafting races as the ITU has decided that&rsquo;s what is best for elite racing (Why? It&rsquo;s easier than non-drafting so why have the amateurs doing something which is harder than what the elites do?) and are not attracting great numbers of age-groupers to support non-drafting racing. It&rsquo;s a well known fact that the main reason such massive numbers of age-groupers are encouraged to take part at world and European championships is to pay for the event as a whole. And that&rsquo;s not necessarily a bad thing if everybody&rsquo;s happy. But what if the age-groupers are actually doing a different event to the Elites? Which they are. Are they still doing the same race or is it just a sideshow? After all; you can&rsquo;t really compare the times because of the drafting rule.

 
And then, straddling most of the world we have Powerman which seems to blend a bit of both worlds with tight close town centre runs and non-drafting bike legs. It would be wrong to suggest that Powerman is duathlon&rsquo;s Ironman as it&rsquo;s really closer to the 70.3 distance in tri terms, but there is a growing thinking amongst regular duathletes that Powerman is where the hardcore duathletes go for there competitive kicks and that has to be, presumably because the IPA (International Powerman Association) is a Duathlon only body and it doesn&rsquo;t have to guarantee funding or promotion for anything other than duathlon. It has to be noted that it also only uses the non-drafting format.

So that&rsquo;s where we&rsquo;re at.

The question is; where do we go from here? Well, I&rsquo;ll tell you:



We forget drafting altogether and use duathlon internationally as a shining example of what tri used to be. A test of the best across three legs. That way the Olympic programme is not upset and those strong elite bikers in tri who are fed up with their only option being to go long with 70.3s and Ironman can come to Duathlon where there would be parity across all races on the same course.  Before draft legal racing came in, age-groupers loved having the chance to compare their times on the same course as the pro&rsquo;s where as now, in ITU duathlon, that just isn&rsquo;t possible, even at world or regional championships. Why are the Pros drafting and the age-groupers aren&rsquo;t anyway?! Are we saying that the age-groupers don&rsquo;t have good enough bike handling skills?! Actually, lets not go there.

Or either push for du to become an Olympic sport (in much the same way that athletics has a 200m and a 100m it is simply another event within multisport) or duathlon has to be governed independently under one recognised banner away from the ITU. It&rsquo;s controversial I know but it may be the only way. Consider this; tri is the money earner and it&#039;s now been an Olympic sport since 2000 and is growing in it&rsquo;s media coverage. Why would you rock the boat and try to promote duathlon at all? It would just serve to water down your triathlon lobby to the world&rsquo;s media and event organisers alike. I&rsquo;m not saying that duathlon breaking away is the only way it will reach it&rsquo;s full potential. But then I don&rsquo;t need to.

Or finally go Back to basics. It&rsquo;s easy to become obsessed with wanting du to be as big as tri, and that may well be the mistake &ndash; to keep comparing it to tri in the first place. It needs to stand on its own two feet and I feel that the key to that is to tap into duathlon&rsquo;s strongest selling point; it&rsquo;s simplicity. All you need is a bike and some trainers. It&rsquo;s no surprise that the fastest growing form of Duathlon world wide is &lsquo;cross duathlon&rsquo; with it&rsquo;s off-road run and bike legs. Very little need for marshals, no need for road closures, the feel of a &lsquo;day out&rsquo; for spectators, and epic racing experience for spectators where skill and the sense of adventure adds to a more potent racing &lsquo;high&rsquo; - and all of this in conditions where drafting becomes almost irrelevant. It does seem to fit well. In Holland and Belgium a hybrid of cyclo-cross and duathlon is just starting to pick up pace in the parks in and around town centres and like cyclo-cross the races are short and fast. As a result they attract good size crowds and are fun for all; especially children.

  

Not having to be tied to a lake or swimming pool seem to make the off-road scene even more suited to duathlon than Tri so I&rsquo;m wondering if it&rsquo;s time that duathlon claimed all the woods and parkland as it&rsquo;s own and broke away from tri altogether. It borrows from all of the above ideas and it takes Duathlon to the people, right there in the parkland, that they are prone to visit anyway. 

Last year, here in the UK I took part in a Duathlon in Cheltenham which was held in just such a park and it illustrated my point perfectly. It was meant to be a triathlon with the swim being held in the pool next to the park, but the pool was out of order and so it was made into a parkland Duathlon instead. I received an invite to do it and although it wasn&rsquo;t advertised locally, exactly what I thought would happen did! I won&rsquo;t say there were crowds three deep all the way round as it was nothing like that but there was an undeniable presence of non-multisporters stopping in the park and choosing to take the time to sit and watch the race unfold over the three short legs. It provided a hint of what it could be like in the UK and in other countries if we keep it simple, take the sport back to its &lsquo;best across three disciplines&rsquo; roots and take the race to the people whilst combining the close, multiple-lap racing of cyclo-cross with the epic sense of adventure that comes from surviving a technically demanding course.   

 

       ]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Weyer did my legs go?  ]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.duathlon247.com/article_5614.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[Ok, I&rsquo;ll fill you in on the joke - Weyer is the town which hosts Powerman Austria and it was the scene of my most recent painful day on the Duathlon world circuit and that of a very humbling experience (it&rsquo;s bad &ndash; I know!).

I had decided to fill the summer gap in my Duathlon season by focusing on two big Powerman world cups which were exactly two weeks apart. The first was the 10k/60k/10k Powerman Vlaanderen in Belgium and the second was the 15k/78k/7k Powerman Austria in, well,  Austria. Anyway, considering I had been racing hard since March I knew it was going to be a gamble to get through two such hard races so close together but still, I looked upon it as an adventure and to add to the adventurous nature I decided do drive to both races in my newly acquired camper van.  Believe me, when it comes to getting to races and arriving relaxed you don&rsquo;t know how badly you need one of these until you have it! Driving to Geel in Belgium was a doddle.

The race, as always in Belgium, was a little different. In true Belgian style, the first run was super fast and was led out by the likes of Joerie Vansteelant and Anthony LeDuey, who were absolutely flying. I actually had a fairly solid run and bike to exit the bike in about 20th place - just one place down from my seeding of 19th. That was when the dreaded cramp sunk its fangs in and from then on the final run became survival -I lost 12 places! Ouch! That really was painful. Fellow Brit Lee Piercy had been ahead of me until the &lsquo;man with the hammer&rsquo; got him as well and he had to pull out.


 Some people might not realise just how hard Powerman is. Now, those who have met Lee will know that he is an absolute giant and rock solid too, and so to illustrate my point, when I found him, having crossed the finish line, he was a shivering wreck and barely able to raise his head. Shortly afterwards he was taken to hospital. Such is the nature of Powerman. And so I was first Brit at the finish, but apart from that I wasn&rsquo;t exactly happy with my time or position in the race having lost so many places on the second run.
I&rsquo;m glad too say there was some solace for Lee by the way,as his girlfriend, Emma Dews, won the ladies event with a performance that really made the Du world sit-up and take notice. She follows in the illustrious footsteps of Annie Emmerson, Vicki Pincombe and Cat Morrison as a Powerman winner. Big respect Emma! It was also nice to see Michelle Parsons back with a great second place after a long comeback from Achilles surgery. Michelle is such a tough competitor and it&rsquo;s testament to her that she can come back to the top of the world so quickly. Their performances as first brits makes mine look, well, pathetic. Michelle went onto finish third at Powerman Austria too - a race she&rsquo;s won before so she&rsquo;s on the way back to the very top.

And so onwards to Austria and WOW what a place. I drove for 18-hours across two days in my now &lsquo;faithful&rsquo; camper van and arrived in a country that I had never visited before and yet I felt so very much at home.  The mountains in the national park region are just breathtaking and having arrived on the Wednesday I used Thursday to recky the bike course. I suddenly realised that Powerman Geel was a VERY, VERY easy race. I had raced on courses like this in my road racing days as a cyclist, but I was riding in a bunch not trying to time trial around it, and more to the point I hadn&#039;t just run 15k flat out. The main climb was well over 8k in total and had three very steep steps on it. I rode it in training on the Friday with my wife, Leda, who had come along on the trip as my soigneur delux - never have I looked upon a mountain bike&rsquo;s granny ring with such jealously (and she wasn&rsquo;t even using it).

Anyway, onto the race. At first it all went so smoothly. Pasta and espresso in the camper by the start and then feet up and watch all the other athletes arriving and buzzing around while I lay back on my sofa (camper - you need one in your life, ok?!) and contemplated the start. I had a good warm up and arrived on the start to find myself lined up next to the great man; Vansteelant himself. The start went well and the run went to plan too. It traced it&rsquo;s way out of Weyer in the direction of the mountain valley and then back as it crossed the river a number of times. I was in a good group as we headed out onto what has to be the most epic bike course in World Duathlon.

The first accent of the main climb saw some drop off and a couple take-off ahead. I figured the best option on the bike leg was to take the first main climb steady and then start to wind it up. Little did I know what was to come. I had been told by Oli Mott and Toby Jameson, who have both done very well in the race previously, to expect fans and crowds on the course which were unlike any other Duathlon in the world and they were so right. On the run I just couldn&rsquo;t get my head around how one family for instance, who had set their dining table up outside their house next to the road could stand up from their meal and hammer the table, screaming until they were hoarse for every single athlete that passed &ndash; first to last the same. This was the pattern all around the course. One of the main climbs on the bike course had a massive crowd complete with writing on the road and even a Tour de France style Devil painted from head to toe in red with fork and tail to match running alongside you screaming a strange German/ Dutch mix in your ear. Even on the quieter parts of the course out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains there were other sports mad lunatics hammering out their homage to this epic event. One such man illustrated the spirit perfectly. He looked a respectable middle aged man stood alone (strangely) outside his small isolated farmhouse on the edge of a mountain and as I passed on the first of two laps there he was, hammering out a ferocious beat on an up turned metal dustbin with what looked like a baseball bat. When I passed on the second lap the bin was virtually flattened and he had taken to his knees in order to still beat it hard enough to be heard. As I said, the crowds are like no other in world Duathlon.    

Anyway, sadly there&rsquo;s no happy ending to my story and therefore I&rsquo;ll cut it mercifully short(er). On the second lap I took a gel from Leda at the top of the main climb and that was that. I&rsquo;d been using Sport Beans until then and at that point I ejected all of my nutrition onto the beautiful Austrian mountainside and as a result, and to no surprise, the plug was pulled, the lights went out and the house fell down to use multiple metaphors. I just lost it big time, and as a result lost touch of the group I was with and went from around 23rd down to about 40th by the end of the bike, and then 42nd by the end of the cramp ridden run.  I saw people I had passed ages ago streaming by and there was nowt I could do about it. I was in what I call &lsquo;low power mode&rsquo;. The pilot light was still on but the boiler room was collecting dust.

The final run was terrible and for the first time ever in my Duathlon life I was just surviving. Being passed was irrelevant. Just getting to the finish was my goal. To hear I was 42nd  was pretty bad considering I was seeded 17th in the world going into the race, but with what happened I was just glad to finish.Why was I sick? I have no idea. The story doesn&rsquo;t end there though. I drove the 16-hour journey back through six different countries (Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, France, England) and then slept for a solid 1- hours the next day to help recover. On waking I had an espresso to help refuel and decided to check my emails and the results of the race to see how much time I had lost. I was, shall we say, dis-chuffed to find that I was the only person in the whole race to have been DQ&rsquo;d! I have no idea why at all. I&rsquo;ve written and asked why but have no answer as yet. I&rsquo;ve now resigned myself to the strangely comforting thought that they are kindly trying to cover up my woeful performance by DQing me. And why not, I deserve it.
One last thing - if you do any Duathlon in the world before you hang up your wheels and racing flats do Powerman Austria. The course is epic, the crowds are great and the area is just something else. You&rsquo;ll find it particularly green at the top of the mountain. 
]]></description></item><item><title><![CDATA[Definitely, no swimming.]]></title><link><![CDATA[http://www.duathlon247.com/article_5571.html]]></link><description><![CDATA[At Last, a site dedicated entirely to the world of Duathlon! Not a rubber suit or steamed up goggle in sight! Not a single vaseline coated, zip struggling, kicked in the face triathlete in sight! Well, except for those who secretly have an admiration for triathlon&rsquo;s (more) significant other! I could go on with all my &ldquo;&lsquo;why Tri when you can just Du it&rdquo; propaganda but if you are reading this then you&rsquo;re already enlightened aren&rsquo;t you? We get to wear socks - let&rsquo;s leave it at that.

I thought I&rsquo;d start my column by introducing myself a bit and explaining how I came to be involved with Duathlon. Whilst at school in Hillingdon, West London in the mid nineties I became part of the mountain biking boom and having started racing at the age of 13 
I progressed through to the junior ranks. This of course led to me getting a road bike to train on and inevitably I moved into road racing by the time I was 17. This may well have had something to do with my suspect &lsquo;off road skills&rsquo; but I couldn&rsquo;t possibly say!  After that I worked my way steadily up through the British road cycling scene of national series and premier calendars and then, as an elite cyclist, having left University at 22 I went full-time and moved to France where I was based in a team which housed other top young Brits who have gone on to great things such as Dan Lloyd, Alex Coutts and Andrew Jackson. Although I loved racing at this level, and amongst it I had some good results, I started to get the feeling that even at the age of 24 I had reached my best as a road rider and that there might be something more. 

I think a multisport seed had been planted in my brain back when I was 16 when I had been asked to compete for my borough in the London Youth Games triathlon. I tried to explain to the team manager that just because I had come third in the cycling time trial on the Saturday that was no reason to expect me to be any good in the triathlon on the Sunday but he wouldn&rsquo;t have it. Well, I was last out of the pool by some minutes having had to stop and catch my breath a number of times in front of the sniggering crowd. As a 16-year-old lad being beaten my 12 year old girls never looks good. So out onto the bike leg around Crystal Palace Park and I rode so furiously to make up ground that I managed to snap my saddle off and had to complete the bike leg standing up. 
Once off the bike I then discovered that &lsquo;running sitting down with a bear hanging on to your back&rsquo; feeling which we all come to love in the end (don&rsquo;t we!?). I managed to hang on for sixth even though it was some way behind the winner, a certain Stuart Hayes. Even though it had been a humiliating experience there was always something in my mind through my cycling days that running and biking combined was something I could master. I wasn&rsquo;t deluded &ndash; there really was no hope for my swimming! I kept running alongside my bike training even as a full-time athlete and this was often kept covert as my team manager would have gone mad if he had known.                                     

By the start of the 2004 season I was ready to make the switch and see where duathlon would take me. Since then I&rsquo;ve had the most amazing time. I&rsquo;ve travelled to some awesome places and met so many great people. What has always been so refreshing is that as duathlon is an emerging sport which is largely unfunded and there is very little money to be made or won doing it (yet!) and so there tends to be a much purer sport even at World Cup level where people compete because they simply want to achieve their goals and better themselves. There were some elements of the cycling world including the use of illegal drugs, riders paying to win races and the cut throat nature of the peloton in general which, for me, couldn&rsquo;t be further from the feeling of the duathlon scene all the way up to the top level.   

It&rsquo;s a quiet time for duathlon right now as we duathletes are blessed to have two seasons in each year with a lovely block of summer sun tanning, ahem... I mean base training in between. However, if you&rsquo;re a Powerman like me then the summer is far from quiet. I&rsquo;m doing Powerman Geel in Belgium and then Powerman Austria in August so I&rsquo;m building into three hard weeks of training right now. As I write it&rsquo;s 11:00am on a Tuesday in July and I have a 90 minute run with short hill reps to do. There&rsquo;s a thunder storm kicking off with hammering rain outside but I love that. As a pure cyclist I would have loathed it but I relish running in the rain. Just as long as I don&rsquo;t have to swim - yes, I am still scarred!]]></description></item></channel></rss>
