Congratulations to Jack Elton-Walters on a great start to the season at the Crystal Palace Duathlon.

Representing Wight Tri in London, Jack Elton-Walters took on the Crystal Palace Duathlon on Sunday 16th May. What should have been a sprint triathlon was changed to a duathlon after the swimming pool was closed for renovations.
Held entirely within London’s picturesque Crystal Palace Park, this excellently organised and marshalled event started with a two lap run covering 4km. Within 200 metres competitors tackled the short, sharp climb that is the main feature of both the run and bike laps. Running reasonably well, Jack completed the first run in 16:45, which was around 15 seconds up on his target time.

Half a lap the wrong way round a running track led into transition from where nine laps of the bike course also start with the same ramp of a climb.

The 20 km bike leg takes a wider arch around the top of the park, still climbing for a while before a fast flat section ends with a rapid descent back to where you started. A torrential downpour for the middle part of the bike leg meant the potholed descent needed all the more attention, but didn’t serve to slow things down too much. Lapping ahead of schedule, Jack pushed on for the nine laps to come in nearly two minutes ahead of target at 38:02.
Cold hands and wet Boa dials shoe fastenings meant for a slightly slower transition as the cycling shoes just didn’t want to come off, but only one lap of the course was now left to cover. More brick sessions needed before any further events as there was a serious case of the jelly legs for the final run of 2km. Even so, a time of 08:19 was within 30 seconds of target and ended with a strong sprint on the track to the finish line.

All that meant an excellent final result of 11th senior Male and 16th overall from 192 competitors.