BACK TO BASICS

Lifting the crisp race suit out of the kit drawer. Giving the bike some TLC. The pre-race butterflies. Raiding the nutrition cupboard for the best gels (raspberry ripple, of course). The transition chat with both familiar and new faces. The satisfying clip of the race belt. Leaving the timing chip in the car. Okay, maybe the last one is just me, but if you’re similarly inclined, the Stay at Home rule being lifted in April meant only one thing: the ability to race an actual multisport event.

Some 167 days since the Cowman Duathlon closed the fractured 2020 multisport season and five days since Stay at Home was eased, the setting of UK age-group racing’s return was a woodland somewhere near Reading in April. And I’m one of the lucky 76 at the TrailX Easter Off Road Duathlon to begin a monumental year for multisport racing in this country, one that’ll determine the health of event organisers across the land and just what the landscape may look like