It's just after 6am and the temperature is a chilly 1.5 degrees. This fact makes me realise that my intended kit is going to be totally inappropriate for the Duathlon today. I need long trousers so it's going to have to be my Ron Hills but also I'll need long sleeves and my dry-flo is in the wash and still wet. L saves the day and lends me one of her long sleeve tops. So I'm wearing her clothes now, freaky, it's a slippery slope from here, just ask your local tennis coach.
As we drive to Ticknall the car tells me that the outside temperature is now doing the impossible and slowly slipping lower. It's October for Christ's sake and this is globally warmed Britain, what's going on. It's -0.5 by the time we arrive and it's very very foggy. This is going to be fun, not.
They line us up at the start in picturesque Calke Abbey; well it would be picturesque if you could see anything through the fog. I'm surrounded by the biggest bunch of psychos that I've mixed it with, well since the Spring Tri in May. (Review here). The words 'out' and 'depth' spring to mind. Doing the Spring Tri got me £2 off this race, a cruel cruel trick that got me here. It does give me a chance to settle a few scores because I have recognised a few names on the start list. Most notable of which is the Dirty Blonde. She's the one who had the audacity to pass me on the bike, which is unforgivable and I haven't. Although the 'unforgiven' is now becoming quite a long list. She's top of the list though because she had the nerve to refuse to be chased down on the run and even opened up a sprint at the last moment. We dead heated but they gave the higher position to her. Not that I remember these things or hold a grudge.
I also notice from the start list, that only two people are here who did Sutton Bonington last week. So I don't know how the rest of them can call themselves athletes. Part timers or what?
They set us off on the 6km run through the grounds of the abbey. The fog has lifted a little and it's all very pretty. Low-lying fog covers the grass, the sun is slowly breaking through the gloom and there's the gentle sound of a collie having a barking fit in the background. That couldn't possibly be my mutinous former training partner could it?
What ruins it, apart from the maniacal barking, is the fact that's there's a race on and bloody hell it's fast. If I mention that I'm following my usual tactics of settling in behind a lycra clad blonde with a ponytail, L will give me grief and call me perverse. So I won't mention it. In any case it's not easy to settle in behind her because firstly she's not hanging about and secondly there appears to be a waiting list, as many others appear to have the same idea.
The run goes well; I'm still alive. Thankfully the pace did ease off a touch, eventually. I even get into transition ahead of my ponytailed pacemaker, just to prove to L that I can vary my tactics. I wave at my support team, my father who is trying his best to cause pileups, L who's spitting at the wrong blonde and Doggo who I think is having a seizure.
Quickly, ish, I'm away on the 30km bike and I see the Dirty Blonde just finishing her run. Ha, she's history, I hope. I rocket away on my bike or rather I rocket about ten metres before the road starts going up hill. Bloody hell it's hilly. I soon find out that there's not a single metre of flat on the course it's all either uphill or downhill. It's also so foggy that I expect the police to be pulling us all over for not having lights because seriously you would not normally have gone out on your bike, in such dense fog without lights. Well to be honest you wouldn't have gone out on your bike at all, you'd have stayed in with your tennis coach.
I quickly catch and pass a chap but then he has the nerve to come back past me. We have a little battle for a while and it becomes my personal quest to stay ahead of him. Then there's a flash of purple as my ponytailed pacemaker comes past me too. I wondered what happened to her. She disappears into the gloom; the fog is so bad that if you wanted to tail a nice piece of lycra you'd just about have to have your nose on their rear wheel. Thankfully I manage to battle back up to her and re-pass her too but now I've got to battle to stay ahead of two of them. At least there's no sign of the Dirty Blonde.
I pass a very posh looking pair of sunglasses on the floor, Oakley's perhaps. I consider going back to pick them up it would have cost me a few places but they did look a lot better than mine. I resist.
Three quarters of the way around it all goes terribly wrong. I hit the wall, have the bonk, the whole caboodle. My pacemaker and about two hundred and fifty others go past me. Surely I'm last now. Well apart from that chap who still hasn’t come past me, he must have come off, and the Dirty Blonde, she must have retired. Relax. Chill out. L would say 'look at the view', well the fog. I free wheel a little, until I start rolling backwards, then I have a long drink. I try and summon up divine intervention but Tim Don isn't listening. Then I start pedalling again and things soon seem to come back together but my ponytailed pacemaker is long gone.
Soon I'm up the final climb back to transition. Why is the last bit always uphill? Then I'm off on the final 4.4km run which is not as off-road as they gave the impression it would be. It's a run up the road and then back across the fields. I take my gloves off because they're a revolting mixture of sweat and ahem, sorry, snot, not pleasant. Then I put them back on again because it's still bloody cold.
I give up all hope of catching anyone and instead concentrate on holding my position, as it appears I am not last after all. A chap starts to close on me from behind which means I have to find an extra gear to stay ahead of him. Thankfully I hold him off and stagger across the line, where I am reunited with my loving partner, my mental dog and my father, who hopefully hasn't got in the way too much. Job done in 1:52:41.
The organisers provide sausage sandwiches, albeit it on thin white bread and also hot tea and coffee. Note to posh coffee houses - HOT TEA AND COFFEE. There are also some fabulously expensive prizes donated my Skinfit. Not that I get one, although my pacemaker does. I don’t even get my £2 back.
I see the Dirty Blonde skulk off home early, again, presumably distraught that I put in her place by nearly two minutes. So not quite a thrashing then. Her place on my hit list usurped by a younger fitter rival.
I end up 29th out of 51, which isn't too bad at all. 25:57 for the first run (good), 1:06:29 for the bike (not bad) and 0:20:15 (appalling but I was a touch tired by then).
Post race we go round to collect my Mum, where Doggo has a ball session that he'll regret later. Then we go for Sunday lunch at the New Inn in Shardlow. Somewhere I haven't been for about fifteen years. The Hoppy Days ale from the Derby Brewery is excellent.
Back home, L looks more tired than I do but Doggo looks worse than both of us put together. So it seems only fair to offer them both a lie down in the bedroom. Turns out that L isn’t as tired as she looks.
In the evening, we go off to 'celebrate'. Doggo manages to drag his paws off the bed and down to the Plough. We hoped that they might have some of the specials that they'd brewed for the beer festival on sale but it's no surprise that they don't. So it's three Supremes 5.2% instead and some Rose back at home.
I try and depress L with some Joy Division but she thinks it's rather uplifting. So I try some Fields Of The Nephilim which she doesn't think is down beat either. I'll book her in for her Ticknall next year, that'll depress her.
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