Ranges Tri Club Off Road Duathlon

Conducted at beautiful Lake Leschenaultia, an Off Road Duathlon event was this year added to the program alongside the annual Triathlon. Held over the distances of 4.5k run, 42k MTB, 9k run the event was a great challenge over various obstacles and some hilly terrain.

I had never ridden a MTB until 2 weeks ago, however two training sessions from Kalamunda cycles and some expert advice from proprietors Tim and Jo Bennett and I felt more comfortable by race day.

On the first run, I was joined for the most part by the WA 10km champion Roberto Busi. Unfortunately, within 1km of starting the MTB I picked up a tire puncture and was a little concerned at having to change a tube without levers! In the end it turned out to be ok and the tire stayed up…after a few minutes I was back on the bike and in around 6th place.

The 6 lap bike course was filled with riders and a great variation from road events. I was working very hard on the uphill sections to make up ground and thankfully was within 15 sec of the leader by the end of the bike leg. The increased running training of the last 2 months seems to be helping as I felt very strong on the second run leg to pull away from David Palmer who led off the bike.

A big thank you to the Ranges Tri Club for organising such a great event (hopefully there will be a off road duathlon series next winter!), Kalamunda Cycles and my sponsors RFID timing, Asics, Ryders Eyewear and Carboshotz who all got a lot of use on race day.

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