Bournemouth AC News - European Duathlon Championships

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Habgood A Whisker Away From European Medal

The day after winning the Rotary Quarter Marathon Ian Habgood decided to try his hand at duathlon - and won himself a GB vest for his age group. Here is Ian's account from his trip to Budapest that saw him finish just three seconds outside of a European Bronze medal.

On Sunday May 24 the ETU European Duathlon Championships took place in Budapest, Hungary for the Age Groupers, (Elites took place on the Saturday). The weather was cool for the recent conditions, 24 degrees, as it had been in the mid thirties when we arrived on Thursday through to Saturday.

My race was up first, with the males under 39 starting at 9am. The first run was 2 5km laps, having run sub 33mins at Purbeck I thought about going around in 34mins for the first run. I got in with the leaders and realised that they were going at a brisk pace, I completed the first lap in 15mins 57 secs although my Garmin said it was slightly short, but this was enough for me to drop the pace, I completed the 2nd 5k lap to complete the 10km in 33mins 23 seconds although I believe it probably would have been closer to 34mins if it was correct distance!

I felt good going into transition, and had my best bike leg to date, the bike course was 4 10km laps, but Garmin had each lap slightly longer and it ended up 41.5km, which everyone else agreed with, it was a flat course, and it was great that for the first time in a race I held my own, I believe I didn't lose any places on the bike, and came out of the Bike leg in around 20th position out of just under a couple of hundred in my race. For the Bike leg I completed in 1Hr 5mins, the final 5 km run was tough, but I kept pushing and kept my 20th place finish rounding off with a 17min55 second run.

On the whole it was a great experience for my first international event and that I know I have room for improvement, I now want to work to get into the elite category. Afterwards I found out that I finished 4th out of the 25-29 year olds, 3rd place finished 3 seconds ahead of me and I would have got a bronze medal!! Always next time!!

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