Dan is 2010 National Duathlon Champion

Dan McCarthy reports from the 2010 National Duathlon Championships:

"Delighted to have the title of National Duathlon Champion for this season. The race started with a brisk 10km, with Mark Buckingham and Dave Anderson - both top quality international distance runners - leading me through 5km in a time close to 15mins. I decided to let them go and settled into a chase pack behind which helped me recover as I cruised into T1 with a deficit of 2 mins on Buckingham and 1 min to Anderson.

After a swift transition I had 2nd in my sights by the end of the road after a short narrow decent. I took the first tight corner 'crit style' knee out in order to stabilise the bike on the greasy/wet road. Shortly after I was up into 2nd. Next I was looking for Buckingham and could see him as I approached the long Avenue back into Clumber Park. I passed him exactly on the start of lap 2 and put my head down. The second lap was a bit dodgy at times with all the age group athletes taking up the road, but the lead motorcycle did a great job in clearing the 'traffic'!

By T2 I had a 3 minute lead having made up over 5 mins on the bike leg. Getting my shoes on with my hands utterly frozen (even with gloves) was so painful that I was shouting at myself to hurry up, with my heart rate at around 180 bpm at this point. I ended up banging the shoes on as I ran up the road, stopping once again to sort them out. The final run was nervy, but relaxing once I had found my rhythm. I made sure I enjoyed the home straight and ensured I picked up the pace a bit for the cameras too! To my knowledge, it was also a new course record to add to the victory.

Both Wayne Smith and Lee Piercy had good performances in 2nd and 3rd, so great to add my name to this list of former winners. I was however gutted to find that Wayne had beaten my bike split on the day by just 8 seconds for a new bike course record! If only I had taken one or two corners a bit harder.... "