The 70th Win. It's been a long time coming!

   
         In November 2002, as an Elite Road racer with an offer from a cycling team in Northern France on the table for the following season, I entered Dave Wardle's Autumn Duathlon at the Hillingdon circuit for some end of season training. To my surprise, I won, and not just that but I actually seemed to enjoy the running. In the coming weeks I began to run much much more and so the seed that had been planted began to grow. The French team were offering an apartment to live in with 3 other riders and a full programme of decent races as well as a (very) basic wage.

          Of course, logic would have dictated that I go with the cycling option and do some Duathlon for fun on my return but that's not my way. I prayed about it and waited for an answer and the answer was clear: Stay in the UK and give Duathlon a go whilst building a new life for myself. 6 months later I had fully converted to being a run-biker and had met and moreover was engaged to the beautiful Leda Ray. by this stage I had heard all about the sticky endings for said French team which had folded and sent the riders home having (as always in cycling) run out of money.  Meanwhile I was enjoying the freedom of running and not having to drag masses of bike kit everywhere with me and if anything, as marriage went on, I had more and more time to train and look for improvements as Leda was away racing in far flung parts of the world for most of the first 8 years of our marriage.  All these years later Duathlon has given me so many incredible memories and I have made many great friends through it. I'm pleased to say I have never made a penny from it but what I have gained money cannot buy. I'm now loving putting something back as the GB team manager and I'm also heavily involved with many of the countries best Duathletes and events through my own company, howgoodcouldibe.com.

Sunday's race was a great event where I really felt all the hard work of my recent training coming together. It was a new one to me, the Walden Duathlon in Essex and although I had a great race and could actually feel the results of all my hill training in Stanborough park finally paying out I did also manage to achieve a new first as I reached the milestone of my 70th win in 9 yaesr of competition:  My first race penalty!  As GB national team manager and a coach this is, of course highly embarrassing as I'm always saying there is no excuse for getting penalties and so as such I wont offer any.  I threw my Maxifuel bottle towards my camper as I rode past at the end of lap one and this is classed in the rules as littering. As such I received a 2 minute penalty and was just lucky enough that I had won by 2 mins 17 seconds and so I hung on by the skin of my teeth. So I'll make no excuses........     But I would like to offer a supposition: Suppose this, if you will : Next time, I throw my bottle on top of my camper, or even better, I throw it in through the open skylight in the roof and it lands neatly in my bottle holder. Is that littering!?  I hear what you're saying: leave it Cox, leave it.

I had my camper with me because the night before I had been a guest of British Triathlon at their Awards dinner where we celebrated a great year for the sport. I was on a table with some of the other GB team managers and it was a fascinating night swapping stories of how we deal with the little 'issues' that come up with athletes in far flung places on the world circuit. It was also great to see our Olympians being honored and all this before catching 4 hrs sleep in the car park outside where the temperature was -2 degrees which is, it seems, the perfect preparation for racing!

Waddenhoe Quagmire Series Round One : 2nd

Sunday saw the opening round of the 4 race winter Quadrac racing series which is tellingly known at the Quadmire series on account of the Quagmire that you have to run through on both runs. When I say ‘have to’, that's a literal comment because with a fence to your left and the river nene to your right you have no choice. 

I had heard of the races’ short but brutal nature last year and managed to get an entry in for the final round for which the course was frozen solid.  This, as Sunday proved, had given me a false sense of the course being ‘undulating but nowhere near as bad as people had said. 

Sunday was quite the opposite. Unlocked by what can only have been conditions marginally above freezing and lubricated by relentless horizontal rain the course was unrecognisable from the one I had remembered. The River Nene had decided the best option was to split up and branch out into, well, all areas of the course and the Quadmire which I had sniffed at having danced across it last winter to take a comfortable win came back to bite me. Or swallow me, which is perhaps more appropriate.  Following on from last week Tom Stead was once more up there with me on the first run, the two of us running shoulder to shoulder and each stopping at various points to help lift the other back out of the quagmire in a most sporting manner forced more by reciprocal hope of survival than good sportsmanship.  As soon as we got onto the bike, Tom opened up a smallish gap on me which to his credit he held all the way to the finish.  He's really come on over the last year and I look forward to some tasty battles with him on the Waddenhoe course this winter. 

Box End Park Autumn Cross Duathlon. 1st

           Entering the last 3 days of a course of antibiotics I decided it should now be fine to not just race but do the first bit of exercise for three weeks and I'm glad I did as I love the course down at Box End and it always suits me well. It was a cold, sunny day and ridiculously windy as well. The Box End course consists of a long flat loop around the edge of the water ski lake and then a series of small hills which should make things harder but as it was, with a very string Northerly wind blowing down the country it meant that the ride and run up the lake was like climbing a mountain after which, coming back, you barely had to try.  

            It was really good to have talented young triathlete Tom Stead up there with me on the first run and it was a shame that he managed to trip on the grassy course and lose time as its always good to really push each other. After that, as I got on the bike, I really got into my stride and all the benefits of my Trek Superfly 29er became immediately apparent as it just rolls so fast over that kind of terrain. That's exactly why I sought out the best 29er for next years inaugural Cross Duathlon nationals and it more than proved its worth on Saturday feeling effortless compared to my old 26 inch race bike.    


          As a coach I would never have recommended any of my athletes to race after 3 weeks off ill but sometimes it can be worth the risk and thankfully I now feel 'back at it' again and hopefully ready to have some fun these next few weeks as I start the Quadmire Duathlon series and then build to the Essex Duathlon and the start of the Human Race series.  On the downside, my lovely wife, the gorgeous Leda Jane has now come down with a really heavy cold so get well soon Leda!xx

Ill again and getting restless....

          Have you had it yet?
I'm back on the dreaded Anitibiotics again after 2 weeks of doing nothing except tending my billowing nose and emptying my Ectoplasmic lungs. I literally haven't had the energy at all to run or ride now for over two weeks going right back to the first race of my cross season, the Xtreme Terrain Du. 
Sometimes that's how it goes though so instead I've been buying myself in my spare time doing up my bikes (oklay, I admit, tinkering with them and then taking them to Tony in Bike and Run to undo my ills)  and fixing niggles that I've been carrying. I've actually had a knot in my calf since my last early morning run in Nancy where I was with the GB Duathlon team back in September. Now, I'm a big believer in treating like with like and so a Knot should be treated with a little help from a Knott! Graeme Knott to be precise, a good friend of mine and by coincidence, this year's GB team mechanic. 
Graeme Imports 'The Stick', an ingenious self massage stick described as 'the tooth brush for muscles' and so I put it to work on my calf and then went to town on my back and quads too and have been using it ever since as you can really feel the difference. I'm trying not to sound like this is a blatant plug as it isn't, its just one of those things that works so well it would be rude not top recommend it. Have a look here for more about them: www.the-stick.co.uk 

Xtreme Terrain Duathlon, 4th

Well, my cross Duathlon season got off to a reasonable start even though I rode pretty poorly on my brand new 29er Trek Superfly. The bike was brilliant.  I was... hmm.... I bit hopeless. There we go. Sometimes you're the statue and sometimes you're the pigeon and today I was all statue on the bike and just went through the motions on the run. That's not to take anything away from the guys that beat me though as they were simply far better on the day and that's that. It was great to see Daffed Hollis win too because he really is a talented off roader with all the right attributes that make a great cross Duathlete. 

It's taken me all week to write this and that's mostly because I came down with a cold the next day after the race and am only just now able to think clearly without being distracted every two seconds by sneezing, coughing or wiping my snout. I've actually done really well avoiding all sorts of illnesses these last few months and I put a lot of that down to the Maxifuel Immunesupport capsules I've been taking. That's not just a plug by the way, I genuinely mean it. I catch colds so easily and since the Maxifuel guys got me taking them I've been pretty cold free until now.

Anyway - Toby Jenkins and his allabouttriathlons team put on a really good show and here are some of the high quality pics from Sussex Sport Photo:

 

The Cross Duathlon season starts here!

I'm right at the beginning of this winter's Cross Duathlon season and the first thing I am delighted to say is that through a deal with Trek UK in Milton Keynes and in conjunction with my team Bike and Run London, I will be racing on a Trek Superfly 29er. When ever I was beaten last winter on the Cross Du scene it was almost always by guys on 29ers and so this year, at least I can't user that as an excuse. I took delivery of the Superfly 4 days ago and I have the first race on it this Saturday and I am pleased to report that it feels really stable and incredibly fast, particularly once you are up to speed. 

Lets see how it goes on the gravelly trails of Hawley lake this Saturday at the XTD and I'll report back. In the mean time. Here she is:

CEP compression : welcome aboard!

I have been racing in a pair of CEP compression socks for the last 4 years and I'm pleased to announce that for the 2012/13 season they are coming on board as an official sponsor. A package came today with the updated Medi Compression version of the full length sock and then the pink version of the compression sleeves. Yes. I said pink. My wife, Leda has banned me from wearing them but as I know how good their compression is, I will be wearing them! They are the sort of thing though that if you do wear them, you simply have to perform so that's always a good thing. Thanks CEP!  www.CEPsports.com

Nuclear Burn Ultra distance Cross Duathlon, 1st Place

         

          A summer Cross Duathlon! Now that's a rare and welcome thing. In it's inaugural running, the Nuclear burn at Kelvedon Hatch's secret nuclear bunker site was a great success for a company who's background is in adventure races and mass participation 'finish or die' events (as I like to call them).


         Regular readers of my blog will know that I love racing in Essex and for some strange reason I always seem to go well there and thankfully this was no exception. The course was suitably testing and extremely muddy for June and I decided (without telling myself) to celebrate the occasion with an over the bars sortie mid race whilst leading on the bike. Now, if you were to cut down a small tree in the middle of a wood and stand back to look at your handy-work, do you not presume you might think it best to remove the last 2 inches before heading off for a cuppa? No? Anyway, I didn't see said stump until I stood back up again a good 5 metres from the bike.  Still, mustn't grumble, I got back on and back into the groove before the final run to take a cross Duathlon win in June which is a nice rarity.  


        The organisers, adventureraceessex.co.uk are keen to make it a really big summer fixture so next year should see it being even bigger. 

Flash! Ah-ahhhhh, saviour of the universe!

           Whilst I was away in Lanzarote, Tony at bike and run ( www.bikeandrun.co.uk ) worked his magic on my race bike, fully stripping it down and priming it for the summer after a long winter in the mud. She's looking awesome as I'm sure you would agree. Now all I need is some rooty singletrack through a wood lined with bluebells. Oh, and some summer would come in handy too!

Summer Planning...

I've just come back from 2 great weeks getting the miles in on Lanzarote and amongst enjoying our lovely weather back here in Blighty (ahem) I've been drawing up plans for the summer. For me it's really all about continuing to bring my Mountain biking on and building towards next winter's cross du season with the goal of winning the Asics series. It was last winter and I didn't succeed but I am doggedly stubborn and wont give up on it!


I'm going to add to it but here's my initial programme which still needs some trail running races added to it plus some smaller running events and mid week leagues:

May :

Gorrick 100 Enduro mtb xc

13^th, Eastern MTB XC Champs, Thetford

16^th, Beastway MTB xc

23^rd, Beastway MTB xc

30^th, Beastway MTB xc

June:

5^th Hawridge International Duathlon (maybe?..)

9^th, Nuclear Burn Cross Duathlon, Essex.

13^th Beastway MTB xc

14^th, South Downs Way Attempt.

20^th Beastway MTB xc

July:

9^th Beastway MTB xc

15^th, National MTB Xc series, Langdon Hills, Essex

22^nd Alpe D’Huez Duathlon  (maybe?)

Aug:

5^th Box End Quadrathlon, Maybe...

26^th National Cross Tri series, Surrey. (Team)

Sep/Oct/Nov etc.. The start of the Cross Duathlon series...

If you've got any suggestions of any trail races that you'd recommend thgen please do let me know at jez@jezcox.com  thanks.

I hope to see some of you on the trails!