Castle Coombe Duathlon 9th March 2008

2mile/10mile/2mile

Report By Darren Evans

For those of you who’ve never heard of it, Castle Combe is a quiet rural village near Chippenham. A village where time has stood still allowing us a glimpse at how life was in simpler times. Incidentally it also has a whacking great international Formula 3000 race track and this is where four of us (and one Judas i.e. me, racing for Bath Uni!) found ourselves on a Sunday morning.

The format was simple- one lap of the track on foot (equalling 2 miles), five laps on the bike, and then another one lap run to finish (the 12 mile ride to the race from Bath, including a climb up what is affectionately known locally as “The Hill”, being an optional extra!).

Rhiannon led the club at the end of the first run followed by Mike, myself, Paul and Julia as we made our way onto the bike. There, awaiting us, was 10 miles of the most beautiful road surface you’ll ever see without even the slightest hint of a hill. All we had to worry about was the brutal head wind that was ready for us through the middle half of the lap. And the fact that there were 5 laps. And the fact that, after 4 years, I’ve still not learnt to pace myself. After reeling everybody in (Mike being the easiest target- a quick look out the window proves that I can STILL see his day-glow pink lycra, even from here!) the wind really started to take its toll and eventually the three of us came into transition at near enough the same time, with Paul and Julia not far behind.

Never has there been a longer 2 miles!! With Ace becoming ever smaller in the distance and Mike opening an unbridgable gap it was a bit of a battle to finish (especially since the wind, which I’m sure wasn’t there the first time around, was being especially cruel!) but eventually the torment was over.

And that, folks, was the easy part. It got a lot harder from here...

After a few rounds of tea (and wolfing my way through Julia’s unwanted chili which, suffice as to say, proved itself to be a dreadful post-race meal!) we got the results and awards. Pembrokeshire Tri won the team event, but then they didn’t, then they were third, then they weren’t. Bath Uni came second. Wait, no they didn’t. They actually won whilst simultaneously coming fourth. A girl from the RAF came third in two different categories, and then had a prizes taken from her because she didn’t. Rhiannon won, but wait, she’s actually a man and nealy 40, so she didn’t. Then she did win. Then she beat the course record and won a new bike.Then she didn’t. Then she was 40 again (until some bitter old man in the crowd shouted otherwise).

So all in all, nobody knew what was going on! It later became clear that, had I raced for Pembrokeshire instead of Bath, we would have won the team prize. Which was a rucksack. I think, at present, we’re officially second. Rhiannon actually did win overall female. In the defence of the organisers, I’ve done this race several times now and it’s always been well organised so they can be allowed one faux pas.

Results for club members are shown below:

Pos	Name	Run 1	Bike	Run 2
16	Rhiannon Ace	12.00	26.28	12.07
18	Mike George	12.16	26.07	13.11
19	Darren Evans	12.26	25.52	13.23
39	Paul Hughes	13.16	26.58	13.58
91	Julia Hill	16.03	30.37	17.18

 

For full results please click here