Peebles Duathlon

It was another glorious day in the Scottish Borders for the next round of the Borders sport and leisure trust multisport series, which consisted of the Peebles sprint duathlon (5k, 20k, 5k).

I had planned this race as a perfect warm up race for the World duathlon champs in 2weeks time and I wasn't the only one, several Scottish competitors were there with the same plan.

I had tired legs coming into the race after a week of high intensity training, so wasn't sure how the race would go. I took the lead for the start of the run and managed to keep in the top three going into T1 where we had a good gap over the rest of the field. The bike was where I felt my tired legs would show and I knew there were strong bikers behind so I just had to give it everything and hope they wouldn't catch me.

Going into the turn around point on the bike myself and Stuart Kerr were battling for second and third with Iain Grant up the road in first. As we turned at the dead turn we had a significant gap back to 4th and 5th who were Rich and Malk my Wednesday interval training partners and both strong bikers, so that was a great boast for the 2nd half of the race.

Stuart and I managed to stay ahead of the rest of the field for the remainder of the bike and I sneak ahead of Stuart into T2 and got out on the run with a small gap, my legs were feeling OK but not strong enough to hold off Stuart who was running strong and came past after about 1.5k.

The race finished with Iain Grant 1st, Stuart Kerr 2nd and myself 3rd which I was happy with, legs didn't quite have the usual zip in the 2nd run but I think when I'm rested and tapered for the worlds I should be running strong off the bike.

And so the taper begins, I can't wait for the Worlds.