A Journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step

Monster Duathlon - July 2008

The rain that we had all afternoon had stopped and the circuit was drying out as I arrived at Castle Coomb.

I had arrived in plenty of time, so I went for a ride around the circuit, the wind was not too bad. There was only a noticable head wind/breeze for half of the circuit instead of the usual 3/4.
The first run was ok, having started at the back of the field at least I had the psychological boost of passing some people for the first mile. Then it was onto the bike and laps around the circuit, the breeze had if anything died down even more. I was passed by someone on a mountain bike, but didn't think that I could let that go so passed him about 1/2 a lap later.
At 9.12 miles on my bike computor, I turned into transition for the next run. There were still people cycling as I turned off the track for the run.
The next run leg I found that I was being passed by quite a few runners but not catching anyone up.
On the last bike leg there were still people passing on their bikes me as though I was standing still. I cannot believe how fast some people can go!
5 more laps done and it was into transition for the last run. I nearly passed someone on this leg but he just stayed out of reach.
I was impressed with my finishing time, 1:37. Faster than I had expected by about 10 minutes. My cycle into work at an average of 18mph must have paid off.

Footnote: On getting home and looking at my split times I realised that I had only done 4 of the 5 laps in the first bike leg. My time for this bike leg was 6 minutes faster than the 2nd bike leg. I had been using my cycle computer to check the laps, but had forgotten to reset it after my warm up lap so it was reading a lap more than I actually did in the race.