British Triathlon Cross Championship, The Durty Tri, St Mary's Loch, Scottish Borders, Saturday 31st July 2010.

Old Gold Dream - winning age group Gold.

I'm nearly 41 now and I first started racing mountain bikes in 1988. Back then it was the Golden Age of British mountain biking with Tim Gould dominating nationally and doing rather well internationally. In those days, MTBs didn't bear much resemblance to how they are today, apart from the knobbly tyres. Index gearing had been invented, but SPDs hadn't; neither had disc brakes nor suspensions forks (let alone rear suspension!); frames were universally made from heavy Cro-Mo steel and a light bike still weighed 26lbs; tubes were thin, stems were long and gears were limited, as even Shimano Deore XT was still 6 speed back then.

But I guess riding bikes that weren't so technically advanced really brought on your bike handling skills and, fortunately these seem to have stayed with me over 2 decades, although I now have an aluminium Specialized Stumpjumper with 27 gears, 100mm suspension forks and powerful hydraulic disc brakes.
It's fitting then that I should have some technical ability going back to my younger days that I can call on, because in my new sport of triathlon, that I have been competing in for three seasons now, I find myself at a distinct technical disadvantage in other areas, namely swimming! Learning to swim fast for 1500m (or more!) at the age of 38 was not, and still isn't, one of the easiest things I have let myself in for, but I have persevered and I arrived at the start line of the Durty Tri with reasonable confidence that I could perform to medal standard in the over 40 age group. In fact, I had to perform to medal standard because I had spent £40 on British Triathlon membership for 2010 and that's quite a lot when you are a skint, mature student re-training to be a maths teacher.

I had also done the Durty Tri in 2009 and managed to place 6th overall and 1st V40, so I was reasonably sure of how I could perform there, but, more importantly, I knew the "surprises" that the MTB and run course would hold - another important technical advantage in a race where pre-riding was not allowed due to landowner access permission on race day only.

I also have a deep love of Scotland and Scottish races, so much so that I was almost in tears when I won the Glen Affric duathlon in April 2009. Although, in retrospect, these were probably tears of relief, rather than tears of joy as my "pre-race taper week" had included the 13 Glen Affric Munros in the Saturday to Wednesday before the Sunday race! Not to be recommended.

Finally, I had some confidence from my result in Helvellyn 2009, when I proved to myself that if I managed to nudge into the first half, (rather than the latter quarter!) of swimmers exiting the water, and kept it together on the bike and the run, I could deliver a pretty good result. Indeed at Helvellyn I was actually quite shocked to win V40 and place 9th, but by the same token, analysing the race rationally it's just too long and too tough for a fluke result. So I must be a bona fide decent triathlete after all!
Or so I thought when I spent all winter training for Ironman Lanzarote, which following my marriage to Laura in December, was to be our joint honeymoon event - yes, we were both doing the race, along with 9 other team mates from Ryton Tri Club. Lanzarote was a total disaster - although fortunately and for different reasons, it was a disaster for both of us, so at least the honeymoon harmony wasn't ruined. Laura suffered from a condition called aspiration when she inhaled sea water into her lungs, yet she still valiantly dragged herself round the bike and run to finish with plenty of time to spare; I just made every rookie mistake going, the biggest being setting an unrealistic target finish time. Suffice to say I wasn't exactly over the moon when I finished in 11:48.

But the season wasn't finished and after some indecision I entered A Day in The Lakes Half Ironman at the end of June for the second successive year. It seemed that all my Ironman training hadn't been wasted as I improved my 1.9k swim time by 7 minutes and my whole race time by 18 minutes. Best of all though my two team mates Gareth Huxley and Dave Garner both did superb races and I was delighted to be the third Ryton Tri Club athlete in the top ten of such a big race. An unprecedented success for our club and a nice present for the founders, Sue and Colin, in the club's tenth year.

As Durty Tri dawned closer, I began doing more of the top end speed work that I had been ignoring in my running and cycling while training for Ironman. The figures from my secret 25mile time trial course with 800m of climbing were close to before Helvellyn last year and I was doing some decent run interval sessions. I admit I had somewhat neglected my MTB skills a bit by spending so much time on the road bike, but the Sunday before the Durty Tri I went to Kielder and rode three laps of the Deadwater red grade route in 3 hours. With 1500m of ascent and the same in descent, this gave me a pretty good indication that my climbing was ok and so were my bike handling skills.

The last obstacle to overcome, after getting used to 4 o' clock breakfasts in my life as a triathlete, was the fact that the Championship race actually started at 1430, so presenting an entirely different type of nutritional challenge. In the end it wasn't too tricky with a later breakfast and then a few Honey Stingers (that I think I got in the goody bag at the Durty Tri the year before!)

The venue was basically the same as last year, but a lot more official course marking and logos as befits a Championship race. However, the swim was now not in the neighbouring smaller Loch of the Lowes, but at the edge of the much larger St Mary's Loch. This was a good thing as there were many more small waves and ripples on the smaller loch, whilst the larger one was relatively tranquil. I had some reservations however about the water temperature being a reported 15.6°C though, especially as we had watched the outside temperature in the car drop down to 14°C on the journey over from Dumfries and Galloway, where we were staying with Laura's family.

With ten minutes to go I entered the water and hovered around the deep water start point, finally putting my head under the water, but trying to keep my hands out of the water because I never seem to be able to keep my fingers together once they get cold. The start was relatively calm and not too crowded with easy navigation to clear orange markers on a 750m course, lapped twice. I exited the water in an astonishing fast (for me!) time of 27.07, which was really something considering in four different open water races over the same distance the previous year I never broke 30mins. I didn't ponder too much on the course probably being a bit short, but just got on with getting out of my wet suit and doing a good T1.

In events with non-road runs, where socks are necessary inside my trail or fell shoes, I always put my socks on in T1 so that I have a slightly slower T1, but can count on doing a pretty rapid T2. I left T1 and straight away the course rises up on a rough land rover track, where there is only really one decent line, so overtaking is never easy. A string of cyclists lined the hilly ascent for a mile ahead of me. The climb is relatively gradual and is middle ring, but it is not without its dips and rough sections. In 2009 I fell off going up this climb and cut my arm so badly I needed 4 stitches in Dumfries Hospital A&E on the way back from the race. The course then rises from a little bridge over a stream and then takes a slightly off camber descent that changes from grassy to rough rocks and then drops down to another river crossing, which I remembered was best taken by dismounting from the bike, rather than trying to ride the river. Immediately after this river crossing the course rises steeply and, if you want to remain riding for the next mile or so, you will be climbing on steep, slippery muddy tracks in 1st or 2nd gear in the little ring. On the first lap there were more competitors on the course so I had to push the bike on parts of this climb, but on the second lap the course had cleared and I succeeded in riding most of this tricky granny ring climb without interruption. Once the climb levels out the course turns sharply back on itself and begins descending through tricky terrain, where you never really build up much speed, but can at least pass those who are going considerably more cautiously. The reason for caution is that the good grassy paths can rapidly become interrupted by sections of very deep bog - apt to grab your front wheel and send you for a soft landing over the handlebars - or rougher, off-camber sections of loose stone, where you definitely don't want to fall off. Finally the descent leads across deep grass and rutted track to a severe rock chute that drops you back down to the side of Loch of the Lowes, where you then proceed on rough track for half a mile to the finish. The chute is over in about 20 seconds, but it is real bum-over-the-back-wheel stuff and a fall here doesn't bear thinking about as there are plenty of nasty rocks just waiting to take a nice chunk out of your knee, helmet or any other part of you or your bike.

Compliments to Paul, the race organiser, though for devising such a challenging course. From my experience of the 7 Stanes MTB trails in the Scottish Borders, I would grade the route as a whole at Red standard, with that chute probably Black. Just to pacify the H&S campaigners, I should at this point say that there is a walk out option on the chute (and indeed any other part of the course that competitors don't feel comfortable with).

After my start from further down the field, I began overtaking the athletes who had been swimming a lot faster than me and towards the end of the second lap of the bike I was really only just racing which one guy, Michael Nally. Despite Michael climbing the middle ring and granny ring climbs faster than me each lap, I descended faster than he did so, as with lap one, we ended lap two together. Normally it is quicker for me to un-strap my shoes and pedal with my socked feet on top of my cycling shoes, but as I was doing this Michael zoomed by me into T2 and ran on the grass in his cycling shoes. I normally pride myself on a pretty good T2, especially using Salomons with quick pull laces, but my rival was out before me, gamely tapping me on my back as I pulled by shoes tight. I ran after him, exiting straight from transition into a tapped section leading us into the loch again up to the level of our knees. Michael surged hard on the first half mile of the run and, although I was going well and can generally adapt quickly from bike to run, I couldn't respond and he opened a good 80m gap. For two miles the run route proceeds on flat ground by the side of the loch, but after the 2 mile point it then climbs the best part of 300m in the next two miles, before a stretch of rough fell and a fast descent in the last mile to the finish area. I tried everything to pull back the target of Michael's yellow shirt on the climb and, although I caught and passed another couple of competitors, I could never close the gap to him. I gave it everything on the descent too and still the gap wouldn't shrink and so, despite doing a run time a whole 5 minutes faster than 2009 on the same course, I still ended up 20 seconds behind Michael at the finish line. I congratulated him and then I discovered that although he was in my 40-44 age group, he didn't have a British Triathlon licence.

On the one hand I knew from the start of the year I had been targeting the race and so had specifically bought a license to be able to count in the Championship, so it wasn't my fault if other people didn't, but on the other hand if Michael had bought a licence, I would have been very content to take a Silver medal behind such a classy competitor. So mixed feeling for me there, but these were situations out of my control, so I set down to the fact that my 21 year love affair with Mountain Bikes had now resulted in me winning a Gold Medal at a British Championship - something that I am incredibly pleased with and very proud of.

I like the old saying that bike racers say: "you're only as good as your last race". This spurred me on to do a decent Day in the Lakes and so erase the memory of Lanzarote and, in a different sense, coming from a good result at the Durty Tri, it will spur me on to try and perform as close as possible to my standard of 2009 in my final race of 2010, Helvellyn, before I go back to university and start my PGCE course.

Photographic evidence can be found here (Editor's note: pity there's not one of him coming through the finish line - tut tut Laura!)

Since writing this piece, Philip found out that Ruth Fletcher had also won gold for her age group. Well done Ruth!