PUKEKOHE RACEWAY DUATHLON - RACE REPORT

For the second time the club has managed to secure the car race track at Pukekohe and we've orgainzed a duathlon and a bike TT. This is a low key, interclub race and organizing it is not as easy as one would expect. But we got it done thanks to the expertise of the more senior members of the club.

The raceway is short of 3km long and with a pretty basic shape (two straights, two chicanes), insidide there is a horse racing track and inside that one, there's a training track. We used them for the run. The day was supossed to be nice after an early morning shower. But it wasn't, there was intermitent showers all over the day. An hour before the race started, in the thick of registration and warm ups and so on, a bleak sky covered us and it just poured. Race started at 11am on clear skies, there was about 100 people doing it, many training mates and other clubs representatives. The race starts on the tarmac, same as the car races, then we made them run 1km to the entrance to the smaller tracks and out to pits to transition. I was marshalling on the run track and the first guys took short of 3min to get to me, the were flying.

Out on the bike another storm rained the athletes and marshalls in uncovered areas. By the second run (this time 2.5km), everybody was pretty dirtly like an off road race. The winners of the 5km-20km-2.5km race took short of 55min to do it.

I loved the atmosphere of the event, I heard no one complaining about the conditions or any other shortage on the race. Everybody was there for a good time and I think everybody got a good time.

After a wet BBQ break it was time for me to do the 25km TT event, and even though my performance was pretty average, I'm happy to have another one under the belt. Time trialling is a different game, and the more I do the better I get. On my prep to Budapest I've already done over a dozen TT's (more than half haven't been on the road, though) and each of them has been a pain, in the nice way.

Date: 8 august /// 9 August
Sport: Cycling /// Simming / Running
Time: 42.57min /// 60min / 60min
Dist: 25.4km // 3.2km / n/a.. it was a SUPERSET
Comment: there should be a race track we could use more often, that was too much fun!