6 out of 10 Dogs Go Racing

Today at St Helens Tri we staged the first ever club duathlon. As the second round of my 2017 race calendar it was an opportunity to see if recent hill work running round Ormskirk really did make a difference even if the bike course would prove to be a damage limitation exercise with a geriatric road bike setup and a stomach infection making fuel pick up rather difficult in such a metabolically expensive position. After a long slog to the Skelmersdale truck stop toilet and back for my warm up the six starters got a quick race briefing and after a 5 second countdown we were underway on the first run.

We began with a two lap trek round some of the finest quality walkways Skelmersdale has to offer where we got to marvel at the graffiti/artwork on the walls, while chasing after a well behaved dog way behind its owner. At the turnaround point I was still with Eddie Hirst who can often be found in videos doing the same thing, as in running through forests and leafy canopies. You wouldn't normally bet on me being able to do the same thing without falling over and taking one of the marshals out but apart from a misplaced toe on a left hand bend I held firm on the greasy Tarmac and reached the pitlane just a couple of seconds behind the race leader. Now it was time to give the Catlike Chrono one last hurrah, jump on the hastily modified Specialized Tarmac (my new TT bike coming soon from Germany) and see if I could make any inroads to the other pointed hat user on five laps of the Pimbo oval.

I got the better run down to the slip road as Eddie struggled to get his foot in the pedal but that was as good as it got, because the infection which will probably require a week's worth of antibiotics was causing me to break out in intermittent chills and the drizzle didn't help matters. Also the Tarmac with 45mm stack Vision aerobars has a pad stack of 631mm. That's even bigger than the Focus Chrono Max in an XL! So it was a real slog to keep the shrinking dot in sight and even to overtake various Invictus Tri members, while on the back straight a local racing team was out in force doing a photo shoot and training day. We got plenty of encouragement from them and the club members taking pictures as we whizzed round especially when a lorry appeared out of a factory car park and gave me a helpful tow to the M58 road fork. Harriet King and her dad retired their bikes after a few training circuits on the oval and set about counting down the riders to their last laps, where I was worried Eddie might lap me. As it was he'd dropped me by around two and a half minutes and this would only increase to three as I somehow failed to spot the dismount line and pulled up quite a bit short. My head was a bit woozy at this point but I refocused on the second run course and set about trying to snatch a stage win.

It was on the first lap of this final segment that I spotted Eddie coming the other way out of the second underpass so I knew he was about 800 metres ahead. I kept focused and forced my way up the inclines before getting cheered by the Invictus riders on the oval as we briefly ran on the main road. As I crossed the line to start the final lap I saw the clock showing 1:00:30 so wondered if I could go sub 1:10. My spirits were boosted when I came across Eddie a little deeper into my run but a party of dangerous Yorkshire terriers tried to get both of us at once! This would have delighted Patrick Neill no end had Team L'Oreal been wiped out by these little puppies but instead I set about lapping Stephen Williams who was putting a fine shift in as another member of the St Helens/HMCC Dual Code Brigade.     I was now touch and go for a sub 1:10 so powered onto the road and started the YOLO at the beginning of the long finish straight, giving everything just to keep the crowds entertained and I eventually finished in 1:09:57, which kept me second overall and winner of the men's senior category, with the duathlon run course lap record in the bag ready for JP to snatch next time!

After that it was time to wait for the remaining runners to finish and collect some flapjack bites and a cupcake from the selection boxes but also epically fail to work the hot water dispenser; I couldn't get the b*****d to unscrew and when it moved it came out like a burst water pipe out of a radiator so it's just as well I hadn't removed my gloves or I would never have got to work this afternoon. Upon finishing my cappuccino the prize presentation began where me and Eddie got a training T-shirt each for winning our respective categories; at least now I can do hashtag beastmode hill runs early morning in Aughton without the locals saying "we didn't see you". From here it was a wander through the walkways back to our cars to pack the bikes away and head for home, then on to work. You see, some ride bikes on Sundays, some are "always working", and some do both..........

Now for the results, in association with Eddie's choice, Planet X 52mm tubular wheels:

Distances:5k/17.5k/5k
Time: 1:09:57
Final Position: 2nd overall and first male senior
Dogs: 4
Helpful Lorries: 1
Hot Water Epic Fails: 1 starring guess who

REJECT OF THE RACE: Dogs
(For being so cute they had us distracted, and for hogging the racing line)

Time to get hold of some medication before beginning the second block of training towards mid April, when we go racing again on a Focus Chrono, Jaguar style..........