London Duathlon (Richmond Park) Warmup for the Duathlon World Championships

With the World Duathlon Championships held on 22nd September this year in Nancy the organisers of the London Duathlon have cleverly (or accidentally) scheduled the world’s largest Duathlon in Richmond Park to be on Sunday 9th September.

This is perfect for the Age Group competitors wanting to test their legs at race speed just before tapering for what will be for many of them their A race of the season.

This has the benefit for you as you can see how good you are! If you can finish within 115% of the time of your age group winner then there is a good chance you could qualify next year for a place on the British Age Group Team…cool! You get to wear the kit too 🙂

So why would an Age GRoup athlete want to do one of the following races at Richmond Park bearing in mind that the Duathlon World Championships are over a distance of 10km+40km+5km with hills?

The FUN distance. That’s a sprint distance. It slightly favours runners over cyclists. This is a chance to see if you can attain near race speeds (pre-taper) over hills; gets you used to transitions again but doesn’t tire you out as much as a full distance. By the way elite duathlon races are at this sprint distance (or similar). So just because it is shorter it doesn’t mean it is easier…you just go faster instead! Try and do this in less than an hour for a laugh…that should be ‘fun’ 🙂

The Challenge Distance, as above, but also lets you test out your RUN legs over the ‘correct’ distance (but not the bike distance).

The classic 55k distance is one you would do for a full race rehearsal.

The Ultra…you wouldn’t do that as preparation. Incidentally the Ultra distance is one of the longest Duathlon distances that I know of in the UK. Similar to the Powerman events that are typically held in Europe. I imagine that this sort f race is good for people training for a full- or half-Ironman next year. But to be honest I don’t know much about the longer distances.

i got some entry figures from the London Duathlon organisers a while back and there were already over 2100 competitors with 800 being for the NEW 10:40:5 distance.

So boys and girls I would recommend you going for that one…change from the Challenge distance if you can and if you have already entered.

Now a lap of Richmond Park on the bike is just short of 11km. So the reality is that I imagine that the classic is 4 laps of 44km. With that in mind a ‘very good’ time to aim for is

40min 10k + 80 mins 44k cycle + 20min 5k = 140mins or 2hr 20 minutes

A good time would be under 2hr 30 minutes. I would say that will turn out to be a ‘qualifying time’ for British Triathlon AG competitors in most Age Groups. I could be wrong.

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