I’m considering racing my first off-road duathlon this year and would appreciate any advice, particularly concerning transitions (which shoes? etc). What are your experiences, and do you know of any good races in the south west? All pearls of wisdom gratefully received!
Cheers
🙂
Los

A pair of running shoes you can get on/off quickly is essential, you don’t want to be untying then retying muddy laces.

Personally I dislike the after market elastic laces that you can buy so use Salomon Speedcross shoes which just pull to do up/undo.

If you have velcro fastening MTB shoes, put a safety pin through the end of the strap. This will stop you being able to accidently pulling the strap out of the metal loopy bit (does it have a technical name?) and having to waste time rethreading it.

And with off-road duathlons I put my bike shoes on in transition rather than having them on the pedals as you would in a road duathlon.

I’ve only done Grizedale but I didn’t worry too much about the transitions – I took a bit of time to refuel. I lost more time on the bike 😳

I was in the top 10 on both runs and the top half on the bike (blame the puncture!) so top third overall.

Be prepared to hobble like a hunch back after the bike section (assuming its run-bike-run?).

I thought it was all going ok until I got off the bike, running shoes on and then it was nearly quicker to walk. All my muscles, tendons had tightened up from an hour on the bike and it was a whole different world of pain on the final run.

Good South West events are the TriFerris ones in Cirencester park. Long and short courses depending on what sort of a challenge you are after. They were giving shot glasses as the finishers reward last time I did this race 🙂

As your first race, use the shoes you are used to. Trail shoes are good for the Tomac events as there is a mix of slippery trails through the woods, and some road sections. Then switch into your normal MTB shoes, then back again for the run. Don’t bother with elastic laces, depending on the conditions, you get your shoe stuck in the mud, so tight laces are a good thing to have.
Don’t use a bike with poor mud clearance as this is sticky Cotswold mud… I’ve seen people have to stop on the downhills to clear mud from tyres before.
Don’t worry about changing clothes between sections – pick your outfit and do the run and cycle bits in that (exception being the helmet…). Some people run wearing their cycling gloves.

Get some practice in beforehand at running after a bike ride – ven if it is just 5 minutes every ride, then you get to know what your body feels like combining the sports.