Windsor duathlon. British standard distance age group duathlon championships. Windsor great park.
This event attracted the whose who in the duathlon world world with a chance to bag the title of British champion. It was a tough field of competition on a challenging but beautiful course. If you're going to hold a British championship why not hold it in the Queens garden on private closed roads?
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| Recce, 'The long walk' |
A minimal recce on foot the night before was all we could do as some of the roads we were going to use for the race were private and not normally used by the public.
Unfortunately the race was delayed by 30 minutes as there was meyhem with hundreds of people trying to enter the park to the parking area via one small gate. Some of us had paid for parking when we booked the event and some had to pay on the day, except I don't think this was enforced! The parking area, race village and transition area was an absolute quagmire. This also caused chaos.
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| Phew, got my sunglasses before the start |
After racking my bike I discovered I'd lost my (expensive) sunglasses. To cut a long story short I was reunited with them before the race as some kind sole had handed them in. Lucky girl. Just before we started it was announced that the race would be stopped for a few minutes whilst 3 members of the royal family crossed the bike route in a car on their way to church! If you were caught up in the stoppage you would have your time adjusted to compensate for the time you were stationary!!
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| The race started in front of the Copper horse |
So the course.. The first run was a 10k loop on road, trail, bridle way, and grass... Off road shoes were a good choice by me here. It was tough, undulating and muddy at times. I was pleased with my first run and 'enjoyed!' It.
The bike leg was 4 laps around the park totalling 25 miles. It was quite congested at times because of this ( plus there was also a sprint distance race doing 2 Laps) undulating with several punchy climbs and sharp turns and fast decents. We were either going up down or around a corner! I loved it!
Exiting T2 was like a scene from bambi on ice due to the mud! The last run was an out and back (2loops) up and down the 'long walk' running in front of Windsor castle twice. It was so hard as you could see the whole loop. Shoes were caked in mud... I pulled over to try and remove some of it which helped a bit.
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| 2nd run was tough |
I was sooooo happy to finish but because of all the laps I had no idea of my placing but never fear...friend Jayne Ackroyd had been following me on the live tracker so she text me! Ron was with me and he'd received an automated text from tracking with similar results, however I then had to wait and see If Sally Goble, in the same age group and just behind me, had been held up by the royals and therefore would have time taken off.
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| Is it over yet? |
Prize giving was delayed whilst adjustments were made. I won silver in my age group! I was thrilled as the women that won gold in my age group was Gill Fullen - this woman is fast becoming a household name as she is so phenomenal, at age 52 she consistently finishes top 3 overall in all distances. I couldn't have hoped for a better result really but,boy, did I work hard for it?!
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| Podium girls |
Podium prize giving and I managed to lose my sun glasses again, but unbelievably somebody spotted what had happened and he got them back to me, weirdly he was standing next to the man that had found them earlier in the day! With a couple of thousand people there I found this a little spooky !
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| Thrilled with a Silver medal |
However, the highlight of the day for me was discovering that the large black jaguar estate carrying the party of 3 royals to church was actually the Queen and she was driving the car!! Who knew? Can you imagine the 90 year old queen driving a massive car and the race having to stop for her? Hilarious!
