Back to basics

The eventual winner (I think) going round one of the hairpins on Boxhill

I’ve always wanted to do the Ballbuster Duathlon. It’s got a very simple format: run a lap of an 12.5 km loop starting at the top of Boxhill in Surrey, then bike it three times and then run it again. The total amount of descent and ascent is about 165m per lap, with the ascent almost all coming in the climb up the zigzag road to the top of the hill at the end of each lap. They run the race twice a year, in the Autumn and in the Spring, but I’d never got it together to do the race before. I have to admit that a few years ago I entered, got up early on the Sunday morning, put on my gear, put the bike in the car and then checked the website to find out exactly where the start was and found out that the race is held on a Saturday.

No such errors this year although my preparation was far from ideal, including a 5km race the previous Saturday, a half marathon the next day and a 20 mile training run during the week, so my legs were pretty tired. Adding almost no bike training for a while (just a few sessions on the trainer) into the mix and my race plan was to go at a reasonable pace on the runs and just take it easy on the bike and try not to fall off. The forecast was for fog and rain, so I packed a variety of gear but decided to go for the “Helly Hansen thermal top with a tri-suit over the top” combination, a timeless fashion classic. Got there in good time, had a coffee from the National Trust café and racked my bike in the fog. Nice to see a bunch of guys from Thames Turbo there.

Quick race briefing and we were off. The loop kicks off with a fairly level but undulating few kms through the village of Boxhill, then downhill to a sharp left, after which it’s mostly downhill, some on small twisty roads without much view of what’s coming towards you until you hit the bottom of the big climb, which is just a matter of slogging all the way back up to the top. The first run was fine, I was through 10ks in about 38 minutes despite my legs being a bit stiff and tired after the previous weeks’ activities. Onto the hill and I just slowed down to a steady pace and ground my way up. Final time for the first lap was 50:50 for an average pace of 4:05 per km, not desperately fast but nothing to worry about.

The bike wasn’t fabulous but wasn’t too bad either. My ****ing saddle came loose again on the first lap and I had to stop to fix it at the top of the hill. The rather technical descents got more troublesome as the race went on and by the third lap it was raining quite hard and I had to slow down because I couldn’t really see too much and it was getting a bit scary. Then onto the hill for the third time up and I just put it in the easiest gear and span my way up. I collected a cyclist who wasn’t part of the race who latched onto my back wheel and stuck there like a leech the whole way up, which was really a bit annoying but obviously I got rid of him when I turned left into transition again. Final time for the bike was 1:27, not exactly fast but not too much to worry about again. There was a short run over some really stony, muddy ground before you could get the the bike racks which was no fun at all in cleats. At least I didn’t take my feet out of the shoes before T2, that would have been an error.

T2 took a bit longer than T1 because my hands were cold but soon enough I was back out running again. Ouch! Curiously I was unable to run as fast as previously and my legs were not in their happy place. Through the fog I could just see another TTTC trisuit in the distance and I slowly reeled John in, finally catching him somewhere in the village. The downhill sections were interesting: my quads were very unhappy and I couldn’t manage to roll downwards like I would on fresher legs. Finally to the bottom of the zigzag climb for the fifth and last time and there weren’t many people around. Once I got on the hill I could see a few people up ahead, one of whom was obviously in trouble and kept stopping to walk. I want past him quickly enough and then got passed by someone else who’d stopped to answer a call of nature. He went past me quite fast but I kept on plodding and came back up to him and passed him on one of the hairpins. He tried to stay with me and I turned the screw a bit and after about half a minute he faded off into the distance. It’s like normal racing but in slow motion because everyone’s totally knackered and running very slowly up a big hill. I overtook a few more runners and was enjoying feeling that I was finishing quite strongly when I realised that someone was closing on me: I had to dig quite deep to put on a bit of a burst but that was enough to get me to the finish, once I’d worked out where the finish line actually was. Final time was 3:18 which was good enough for 51^st place out of 300-odd finisher. The last lap was 5 minutes slower than the first.

Me, suffering in the last few hundred metres of the race.
The person behind in the white top was trying to catch me and
it was a bit of an effort to hold him off.

I have to say, I loved this race. It’s got a combination of complete stupidity (let’s go round and round this really hilly loop) and basic grittiness that I like a lot. No-one does this race who isn’t a serious competitor, no-one (or hardly anyone) is trying to raise money for charity and there aren’t any girls with pompoms, bands, big screens, balloons or carpets in the transition area. There aren’t any big crowds, you don’t even get a finishers’ medal and the athletes are expected to know what they’re doing and be reasonably self-sufficient. More please.