Imperial has good showing at Spooky Duathlon

On Sunday 27th, six fellow triathletes (plus old boy Sam O’Neil) took to Hyde Park to take part in the Jekyll and Hyde Park Halloween Duathlon. With the clocks going back alarms were tentatively set, not really knowing whether we’d unknowingly cause ourselves to turn up to the race an hour early or not! A crucial race banana was munched and I set off into the rain at 6.30am with nerves and apprehension. With this being my first duathlon I was relieved to be warmly greeted at registration by chairman Ed Hallett (he’s doing a great job, by the way) who helped me rack my bike into optimum streamline setup in transition and calmed my nerves. The course began with a 4.2 km run lap around the serpentine. Then a quick transition onto the bike for a 20.8 km, 8 lap course up and down South Carriage Drive (with nervously wet hairpin bends at each end), and finally a 7.6 km (two laps) run to finish us off. After signing up for the event, I hadn’t quite realised how far the distances were, and although my training had been good, it wasn’t exactly going to be a sprint! The aptly named Jekyll and Hyde Park Duathlon, unlike similar races, had a prize for the best fancy dress costume. Brandishing our new sexy awesome trisuits (yes, they have a lion on the back!) we decided to ignore the invitation for fancy dress. But there were some excellent entries including a road kill fox and the fancy dress winner who had come as a devil and even made her bike into some kind of devil-mobile, complete with a trident! Anyway, after a quick race briefing and reminder to not ‘accidentally’ walk off with someone else’s bike after the race, we started. The clouds parted and the unthinkable happened: the sun came out! Personally, I had a really comfortable first lap run, which was familiar as it’s the same as the Hyde Park Relays women’s route (an event run by ICXC in March, everyone should enter), and managed a pretty seamless transition onto the bike, where I felt pretty strong! The bike course was surprisingly fun, especially during my first few laps pretending I was racing with all the supreme men, and had the b-e-a-utiful sound of carbon drifting past me! After managing to count 8 laps correctly, I dismounted Charlie (yes, my bike has a name) and pulled the running shoes back on. Then my legs just seemed to give up, and turned to lead! But true to my style, (not great at sport, but always give it my best shot) I plodded round the two laps to the finish! In reflection I did get a decent time and came 33rd out of the women field. Having had my birthday recently, I was lucky to get a new Garmin watch (the 910XT) to collect data and stats about my training and races; oh yes, the analysis does get me excited! Thankfully the multisport mode worked, seamlessly changing from one sport to another and it even recorded my transitions. Now I can ponder over graphs and split times to my heart’s content, even if I do look like “all the gear but no idea!” Less about me, we had some great racers out there! Milan Misak had an absolutely awesome race coming 25th over all and proved to the carbon junkies that you can go pretty damn fast on a single speed! Kudos! Aimee Di Marco also put in a great effort after coming back from injury, to come in 8th out of the women. Old boy Sam O’Neill came along, claiming he hadn’t done any training since his Iron Man, which I believe was a lie as he came in 30th. Ed Hall (as Mr Hallett was for the day) put in a supreme effort on his nearly all carbon “it only weighs 8 kg” bike, with Marcel Admiraal and Sam Jackson putting in sterling efforts also. Afterwards we managed to crash the IC Cross Country and Athletics post-Sunday long run breakfast. Cheers to Matt Douthwaite, the fry up and cups of tea were greatly appreciated! And it meant we got to show off our race t-shirts which it seems are much more practical than medals! So, fancy a challenge? Like to get stuck in? And maybe are a little bit crazy? Triathlon club is awesome! Some really great people that support and push each other through training, races and the occasional party night (we are athletes, except on Wednesday nights, of course!) Email triath@imperial.ac.uk to find out more!