Trevor Meadway's Race Report from Winter Ballbuster Duathlon
This is the third time I have competed in the Winter Ballbuster Duathlon and only the course has remained the same each time. The weather can have such an impact on this event and every year has been slightly different. I've raced in the dark and the cold, the wet and the dry, but this year was different again -wet, foggy, warm and sunny. You don't often get the chance to start a race in November when the temperature is 13degrees at 8.00am! Last year it was arm warmers and trackie bottoms, this year shorts and a T-shirt .
The start time was 8.00am and transition started to fill up from 6.30am onwards. Parking is not great at the top of Box Hill so if you are one of the early birds, you can guarantee you will get a spot but you can also guarantee that you will be one of the last to leave. This year was no different but the good thing about being an early bird is that the queue for the loo is short!
The key to a successful Ballbuster for a middle of the pack, age grouper like me is pacing. My training recently hasn't been that great, so my plan was to have solid first run at 1:07, a 1:30 bike leg and then a 1:10 second run. With some clinical transitions, I would have been happy with a sub for a 4:00 (ish) race. Imagine how pleased I was with a 1:03/1:27/1:09 split, transitions were in the 1:50 range, and I ended up with an overall time of 3:43. Not at all shabby and a 4 minute improvement on my previous best from 2009! I was 25th in my age group and 216 overall out of a start list of 500.
The first run was steady and after the initial starting gun rush, everyone settled into a rhythm and I found a couple of groups running at pace I was comfortable with. This gave me a chance to frog hop through a couple of groups and move up the field. The first couple of miles could be described as undulating, but for the next 3 miles the race is broadly flat or downhill. However, you always know what's coming and after that last left hander, the fun starts - 2 miles up the only Alp in Surrey. Head down, grind out the run and after picking off a couple more people, it was into transition and off on the 3 lap bike leg.
The bike lap was definitely a lap of two halves. For the first 4 miles, you should be able to hit the road hard and really ramp up the speed. However, the fog that had come down and visibility was restricted to about 20 feet. The roads are open during the race so you not only had to keep an eye out for parked cars and oncoming traffic, you also had to look out for your fellow racers who didn't have lights on their bikes. Once you covered those first 4-5 miles, the fog cleared and you had clear skies and toward the end of the leg the sun shone through.
After three challenging laps, and a final two miles up hill cheered on by the crowds, it's into transition, and off on the final run. By now the everyone is strung out along the road, so most of the time you are running on your own. The final run leg is a real mental challenge as well as a physical one. Pacing is still the key, so I avoided looking at my watch during this leg and just ran on feel. I yo-yoed with one competitor for a couple of miles which was good fun and kept the focus, but sadly he pulled up with cramp at the bottom of Box Hill and I flew (!) past him. I had taken the decision at mile 4 to adopt a 1 minute run, 1 minute power walk strategy on the hill and it worked brilliantly well. The 1-minute walk gave me the chance to recover which then enabled me to push really hard during the 1-minute run. I caught and passed a couple of people using this strategy and I probably covered the same distance in the same time.
So, it's top of the hill, cut the corner on the right hander (avoiding any cars coming down), nip past a couple of competitors who stayed left, along the short straight, around smooth left hander and sprint across the line to the cheers of the every growing crow, remembering to smile for the camera.
The Ballbuster is a really well organised event and even thought my legs feels as though they have been hit with a sledgehammer, I would really recommend it to anyone.
