Duathlon on the Moors: Darley Moor

Some races you plan for months. Others you find because the plan fell apart.
I'd had to pull out of a couple of triathlons over the summer — and was looking for something else to target. Not a tri, but a GB team qualifying duathlon at Darley Moor, up on the Derbyshire moors. An over-50s event, mid-August, held at a motorcycle racetrack of all places. 5k run / 18k bike / 2.5k run.
I drove up the day before and camped in a field right next to the start line. There's something to be said for waking up, unzipping the tent, and being able to see the exact spot where you'll be suffering in a couple of hours.
The locals warned us how lucky we were. Darley Moor sits high and exposed, and by reputation the weather comes at you sideways. On race morning: no rain, no wind. A rarity, apparently. No complaints.
What I hadn't fully reckoned with was the field. Being a qualifier for the GB age-group team, it showed. Fast, serious, and — because the bike leg ran laps of the racetrack — drafting was allowed. That changes everything. Groups formed on the circuit, working together, and the smooth wide tarmac of a motorcycle track makes for quick racing.

I tried to get a tow from passing groups but couldn't hang on for long. It was 8 laps, and I took the precaution of sticking little bits of electric tape on my handlebars, peeling one off each lap. Someone in every race does one lap too many, or one lap too few.

The second run was actually a bit easier. Maybe I’d warmed up by then and in any case at that stage I was only racing myself.

I didn't qualify – maybe next year.
But then, that was never really the point. The night before, I'd eaten pizza and chips in Ashbourne — a proper British compromise of a meal, and fitting, because Ashbourne is famous for something even less sensible than racing a motorbike circuit at 70-plus: the Royal Shrovetide Football match, played through the streets of the town every year, goals three miles apart, no real rules, and no real end time. Two "teams" — the Up'Ards and the Down'Ards, split by which side of the river you were born on — battle it out over two days, and half the town turns out either to play or to watch.

Against that kind of local madness, camping in a field and racing a duathlon started to look almost restrained.
I'd found a race on the moors at short notice, slept beside the start line, in a newly acquired £20 amazon tent, raced a motorcycle circuit in freak good weather against a sharp field. There are less active ways to spend an August weekend.