Saturday saw the staging of the National Duathlon Championships in Ashford, County Wicklow with athletes from Donegal hoping to make a big impact at the championships.
The sun was bright in the sky on the day for racing, but was barley out when competitors from Letterkenny club 24/7 set off at 6am to make the start line for 12 noon.
The race was hosted by 3 rock triathlon club and attracted the most competitive field in a number of years in both the men’s and woman’s categories with national and international calibre athletes in attendance and looking to be crowned king or queen of the duathlon scene in Ireland.
From the off a hectic pace was set by eventual winner Cathal O Donovan from Cork, who completed his first 10k in a time of 31.50, a time most athletes would be delighted with in a standalone 10k race, never mind having to jump on a bike and complete 40k followed by another 5k run.
Michaeal Black of the Letterkenny club pushed hard on the run and kept within touching distance of O’Donovan on the bike and final run finishing in 13th place overall with Gavin Crawford a little further back finishing the 10k in 34.04 and the crossing the line at the finish in 25th position.
Both will be happy with these performances and set them up nicely for the coming season, with Crawford eyeing the National Half Ironman Championships in May and Black an accomplished biker and runner hoping to pop his Triathlon cherry in the coming months.
On the tough bike course the letterkenny athletes held their own and put in some great performances at this earlier stage of the season.
Both Pauric Kelly and Colin Dean raced well and will be happy with their performances, with less than a minute separating the pair at the finish line.
This outing will put both competitors in good shape for the coming season especially Pauric who in 5 weeks time heads off the compete in one of the toughest Ironmen races around on the very hilly and extremely windy island of Lanzarote. Margret Kelly, had a good outing also and will be happy with 4th in her age group at this early stage of the season, Margret too is also off on her travels at the end of the end of the season for the Half Ironman World Championships in Las Vegas.
Adrian Callaghan was back on his bike after a long summer/autumn of marathon training and put in a good performance for his first race back in almost a year.
In all everyone performed well and set themselves up nicely for the coming triathlon season which kicks off at the beginning of May.
Next event for the club is the tri a tri which will be held at the aura leisure centre on the Sunday the 28th of May, for further details; see our website or facebook page.