Triathlon Club Take on the BUCS Chilly Duathlon to End 2013.

With the biggest turn out the triathlon club has ever seen, twenty five athletes travelled in an entourage of cars, minibus and van down the M4. The term was to culminate on Sunday 24th at the 2013 BUCS Duathlon at Castle Combe.

This fast pace race sees competitors circumnavigate the famous Castle Combe race track before mounting bikes and racing five laps of the track itself. Then to finish you off, a painful final two mile lap around the outside of the track on foot brings the pain-faced athletes to the finish line.

Outstanding performances were seen from Charlie Houston with a finish time of 48:06.7 putting him 67th and Sophie Kirk in 56:45.7 for 40th fastest woman of the day, closely followed by Imo Simmonds six seconds later to take 42nd. The pressure of the day got to a few competitors, with Ed Hallett having a disappointing day after losing his racking position in transition and wasting 30 seconds of hard earned time; Sian Morgan again lost time in a momentary loss of awareness by starting the second run with her shoes on the wrong feet! Commiserations must be made to Ellie Howard however after putting in a strong first run time of 13:39.8 her helmet strap broke. The marshals tied the helmet quickly to her head but alas, too tightly: three laps into the bike leg and she was losing blood supply to her head... Enough was enough and she had to back out of the race.

After a quick race and with pain faces a thing of the past, Weatherspoons provided the necessary post-race burger and beer to round off the day and see everyone home replenished after the final race of 2013.

Next term sees the start of the Triathlon session for 2014, and some big events, including BUCS sprint and Olympic triathlons, as well as an Easter tour to Paris and a Summer tour of England. Bring on 2014! Thanks again to our sponsors, Jaguar Land Rover