GB National Youth and Junior Duathlon Champs

Draycote, 13th April 2007

Report by Les Watson

It was a long haul up the M4/M5/M42/Metc to get to the venue for this year’s GB National Duathlon Champs for Youth (age 15-16yrs) and Juniors (age 17-19yrs). We arrived the night before and took a look at the location and course. The event was held at the impressive Draycote Water Reservoir just outside Rugby in Warwickshire that was equipped with a tarmac perimeter roadway precisely 8km in length and ideal for staging such an event. Luke and Jake took a spin around the cycle course whilst I explored the reservoir, a lovely location save the mosquito flies that were sized bigger than ‘doodle bugs’ and masqueraded as locust swarms of biblical proportions.

The evening meal in the local Toby carvery was a real torture having Jake along. How anyone that shape can consume quite so much defies the laws of all disciplines of science. However even he couldn’t compete with the Ulverston RFC client on the next table who engulfed more roast tatties than I have digits on both hands…….much to Jake’s immense amusement!

Anyway race day dawned and after an equally voluminous brekkie we made our way to Draycote Water. The Youth race was first with a 2.5km out and back run, two laps of the reservoir (16km and draft legal) and a finishing 1.25km run. “They all look pretty professional Jake, you’ll have to work hard not to fall off the back”. As the old saying goes “many a true word…..”. Coming in to the end of the run Jake did have one behind him. Coming out of T1 he was 200m down (I think my Mum could do a better transition than that and she’s 79!). Anyway he stuck with it and even managed to prevent several of the girls from overtaking him on the bike and final run in (they started 2 minutes after the boys). So 16th (out of 16) in the GB Nationals was a good effort and an excellent drop of experience.

There was a bigger field of 32 for the Junior race which consisted of a two lap 5km run followed by 3 laps of the perimeter road (24km and draft legal) and finishing with a 2.5km run. It was a tough start to the race with a steep uphill stretch but Luke ran well to hold a position of 20th after one lap and again at the end of 5km. A good transition and a hard first bike lap put him in a small group making up positions about 15th  – 18th. By the end of the third lap they had caught the small group in front and had been caught by the group behind resulting in 10/11 of them coming into T2 together. A great T2 and run off the bike brought Luke virtually to the front of this pack and he finished in a very satisfying 13th position. A job well done against some high profile competitors.

Full race results can be seen here.