Hi Everyone,
Last week,I came back to Malta from UK with a good result in the Ashbourne Duathlon. The Duathlon is part of the UK Duathlon Series and this attracted a lot of Pro – Duathletes. This race took us athletes to the fantastic settings of Carsington Water, Nr Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and was held over the challenging distances of a 12K Run, a 40K Bike, and a final 4K Run. Not only the distances were very challenging but the entire course included very steep hills.
I started at a steady pace for the 12km loop round the Carsington Lake. Being a very hard course, I managed my efforts in order to maintain sufficient energy for the rest of the race. I completed the 12km in 47minutes. I started the bike segment in 20th place but thanks to my climbing abilities, I moved up to 14th place by the end of the hilly 40km route in 1hr 12minutes.The bike course was technical and dangerous as well with very sharp corners.
I was going down a downhill very fast and after turning a corner, I saw a sign saying " Be careful, 26 cyclist died in this road". Not a good thing to know during a race. In the 4km run I was feeling the effect of the efforts done on the bike. My legs were blocked and I could not run as fast as I wanted to. The whole 4km was all in pain. I tried to run at a steady pace to finish in a time of 2hrs 16minutes to place 14th overall and 3rd in his age group.
This was the hardest race I ever did in my life. It is very demanding on the body and one has to be really strong to do such a hard race. I am very happy with my result. Since the race is part of the UK Duathlon Series, the race attracted a lot of pros in order to win points to qualify for the Duathlon World Championships. Considering that all first 10 athletes are all professionals and the fact that I did not know the course well, the result achieved is great.
Three days after, I wanted to test myself among very good British Time Trialists who most of them qualified for the 10miles British National Championships. I participated in the 17km Wolvey Time Trail. I achieved a great result as I did the best ever time Trial of my career. Among 60 participants I came 8th in a time of 24minutes 10 seconds keeping a superb average speed of 42.2km/hr on the course.
Back in Malta, I did the Super Sprint Team Triathlon organised by the Malta Triathlon Association last Sunday. I confirmed my great form as the team i was part of together with Suzanne and Nathan Farrugia dominated the race. The distances were 300m swim, 6.6km bike and 1.8km run. My time of 20.08 was the best Triathlon Split and registered the best Splits in all the 3 disciplines.
I am very happy with the results achieved. The week spent in UK was great. I was training 3 times a day and i was feeling like a professional, training, eating and sleeping.
Train Safe
Keith
