Scottish Duathlon Championships - Stirling

Two Harriers travelled to Stirling University last Sunday morning for two different reasons at two different races.
John Freer was making his first appearance at a Scottish Championship multi discipline event. His aim was to test himself against the best at the Scottish Duathlon Championships. Encouraging early season performances at the New Years Day Triathlon and the Scottish Vets relays confirmed to John that his consistent winter training had paid off.
However disaster struck 6 weeks ago. John was travelling at speed cycling to work when he was hit side on by a taxi. His hip took the full brunt of the impact, but thankfully his precious bike had hardly been touched. Fortunately John hadn't broken any bones, but the impact had compressed muscles surrounding his hip. That resulted in a nasty painful injury. Training was unthinkable at this point, just walking was torture. Four weeks of treatment by club masseur Grant McLullich followed, to the point where he could finally manage a very easy run.
Little did Grant know that John's competitive side had got the better of him. Two weeks ago he planned to give himself a little test to see how much he'd recovered by taking part in the Hamilton Sprint Duathlon. Grant got a bit of a surprise during an early morning walk around Strathclyde Park. Suddenly his "patient" flew by him during the run leg of a duathlon. That created a bit of an awkward silence on the treatment table the following week.

Thankfully no damage was done and John was fairly confident that he could probably get round the much more demanding standard distance duathlon course at the Scottish Championships. This comprised of 10k run/42k bike/5k run. The weather wasn't going to help as it was forecast to be cold, wet & windy. Finally some good news came his way. Forecast on the day had changed to just cold and wet.......what a result. His luck was changing so hopefully the omens were looking good for a successful race.
Despite having very little training for six weeks, John defied the odds and had performed superbly. When he crossed the finish line we were still not sure of his position. The results were being posted live online. After a few anxious minutes checking all his rivals times, we thought, but were by no means sure, that John was the Scottish champ in his age group. This was later confirmed at the prize giving.





I was the other Harrier competing at Stirling University in the shorter sprint distance duathlon. This race also doubled as a qualifier for the World Duathlon Championships in Adelaide, Australia this October. I was nursing a hamstring injury on the run but was able to give it full welly on the bike. This resulted in me doing just enough to qualify. Australia in October is now very tempting.  Am I going to go?? mmmmm it's a tough one, watch this space.
Thanks to our support team of Mandy and Claire, who have now perfected the race checklist.
Martin