Glentress Duathlon

Results

Elizabeth Adams, Keith Adams and Myself ventured over to Glentess to take part in the Long Glentress Duathlon on Sunday. This race consisted of a 13km mountain bike ride on some of the trails that Glrentess has to offer, followed by a tough 10km trail race.

Elizabeth kindly offered me a lift and we set off from Glasgow early so that we could get a nice warm up ride in before the race start. I hadn’t really been on my mountain bike since Christmas so I needed a little refresher course in how to avoid trees and turn… But felt good after about 30 minutes of riding and was ready to race.

The start was mental, with people taking any line they could on and off the trail. After about 1 km I tried to be a smart arse cutting past a few people up a hill but ended up on my arse after hitting a tree root (Lesson learned). After that related to my fall, I had a bit of a mechanical and had to stop and put my chain back on. In total losing maybe 15 places. I spent the rest of the bike loop trying to pass people on the climbs and follow good people down the technical bits. No more falls thankfully and managed to get into transition in fairly resonable shape.

The run started with a brief uphill and I immediately caught 4 or 5 people. Then into the first long descent… I found myself in a shocking position of flying past several people… that never normally happens. After that it was a LONG slog to the turnaround point, In front of me were several runners I wanted to catch, but my legs were feeling like lead, still sore from the XC in falkirk?? Again something shocking happened as I started to descend I passed another two, and then got into a battle with Ruth McKean who didn’t want to give up her possition easily. Onto the long climb back to the start and there were 5 visible ahead, I gritted my teeth and pulled them in. Then it was just a really fun bit through some nice forrest and sprint along the road to the finish… race done :-)

Race went well for me, legs were a bit heavy for the run but maybe thats to be expected. Not sure how my run split was but dont think I was fastest. Elizabeth had a great race and finished in 3rd, Keith also had a great race finishing as 2nd V60. Keith took 2nd in the series too.

Some nice photos at: Photos