Cholmondeley Castle Standard Duathlon 2024 Race Report

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Event	Cholmondeley Castle
Distance	Standard
Date	23.06.2024
Location	Cholmondeley Castle
Condition
Kit Highlights	Huckson trisuit, Specialized Shiv
Entry fees	Free entry from British Triathlon

Run	Bike	Run
10km	42km	5km

Goal	Target	Result
Run 1 (10k)	~40:00 (4:00/km)	~41+ min Close — the hill had other ideas
Bike (40k)	Sub 1:00:00	~1:10:00 Missed — qualifier pace out there
Run 2 (5k)	Match run 1 pace	~23:00 Solid given the legs
Overall	Sub 2:20	2:18:15 Job done

Finish Time	Age Group	Gender	Overall
02:18:15	Winner	14th	14th

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The race briefing was going well. Brian was on form — clear, warm, the kind of race director energy that makes you feel calm before a hard effort. Then he mentioned it was a qualifier. A qualifier. Cue a quick scan of the athletes around me and the dawning realisation that this was not a field to be casual about.
The Cholmondeley Castle Standard Duathlon is part of the Castle Race Series — a British Triathlon-sanctioned event that punches well above its weight for atmosphere, organisation, and course character. I had my plan: run the 10k as close to 4:00/km as the terrain would allow, ride the 40k in under an hour, and run the 5k to match the first run. Simple. Sensible. Mostly achievable.
Featured snippet: The Cholmondeley Castle Standard Duathlon is a Castle Race Series event in Cheshire, covering 10k run, 40k bike, and 5k run across road and off-road terrain. The course features a significant hill at kilometres 4 and 8 on the run legs, with around 50% of the running on grass. It operates as a British Triathlon qualifier, attracting a strong age-group field.

Nutrition was dialled in before the start gun. Porridge three hours out, 500ml of electrolytes between breakfast and the warm-up, a gel five minutes before the start. That’s been my standard duathlon protocol for a while now and it works.
On the bike I had Veloforte chews at the 45-minute mark and sipped electrolytes every 10 minutes throughout. I had a gel ready in T2 and decided on the spot to skip it — the stomach was settled, the legs were turning, no need to complicate things.

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The plan was 4:00/km. The reality was something close to that on the road sections, and considerably less heroic on the grass. About half the course is off-road, and the hill at kilometre 4 is exactly as unpleasant as that sounds when you’re trying to hold a target pace.
The strategy was patient. I started steadily and picked off the fast starters one by one — not all of them, but enough. A qualifier field means the people who went out hard actually know what they’re doing, so you don’t catch everyone. The 40-minute mark came and went. A bit of the plan left behind on that hill.

I’m not naturally good at judging 12 metres on the bike. The solution I’ve landed on is to ride near the front of any group, which eliminates most of the ambiguity. It works, until it doesn’t.
Midway through the 40k, I found myself behind two riders and put down around 300W to overtake cleanly. Job done. I settled back to 240W or so — and within a few minutes one of them came straight past me, disappeared up the road, and that was that. Never saw him again.
One hour and ten minutes after leaving T1, I was back in transition. One thought only: that hill at kilometre 4 is coming again.

Both transitions were clean. I had the second gel staged in T2 and made the call to leave it. When the stomach is happy and the legs are ready, the best thing you can do is move.
Smooth transitions don’t make for interesting race reports, but they do make for better finishing times.

The second run is 5k. That sounds manageable until you remember that kilometre 4 of the 10k is now kilometre 1 of this run, which puts the hill much earlier than your legs would prefer after 40k on the bike.
Twenty-three minutes later I crossed the line in 2:18:15. A special mention to the commentator, who nailed my name on the way through. In a sport where my surname gets mangled with impressive creativity, that was genuinely appreciated.

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Run	T1	Bike	T2	Run	Finish
00:21:02	00:01:38	01:09:28	00:00:53	00:23:14	02:18:15

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Cholmondeley does the post-race experience well. I stayed around for a while — refuelling at the plant-based food stand, listening to live music, cheering in the later finishers, and wandering through the castle gardens while waiting for results. It’s the kind of race where you’re happy to linger.
Then the results went up. Age group win.
Now, about that podium. My record with podiums and the logistics of receiving them is, at this point, a running joke. I won the London Ultra Duathlon — no podium ceremony. I was 3rd at Castle Series Chantilly 2023 — no photographer in sight for the moment. I was 1st in AG at a Do3 70.3, and 2nd and 3rd had already left the building. At Cholmondeley, on the day I actually won my age group, only the top three overall were recognised at the ceremony. The universe has a consistent sense of humour about this.

• Nutrition plan was clean start to finish — Veloforte protocol did its job
• Run 1 pacing was disciplined given the mixed terrain and qualifier field
• Transitions were fast and fuss-free
• Run 2 held together after a strong bike effort
• Age group win — even if the podium ceremony didn’t quite materialise

• Bike power management — a 300W surge to overtake is rarely the efficient move
• Course recon — knowing the run gradient in advance would sharpen the pacing plan
• Draft zone awareness — riding at the front works until it becomes its own problem

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Organisation	9/10
Course	7/10
Atmosphere / Crowd	5/10
Post-Race Experience	8/10
Value for Money	10/10
Overall	7/10

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A proper thank you to my coach Nath at NL Fitness, who has been exceptional since I started working with her in January. The structured approach shows up in results like this — a strong qualifier field, a lumpy course, a 2:18 finish. That doesn’t happen without good coaching.
And to Huckson for the trisuit, which performed brilliantly on both the run and the bike. Comfortable, fast, and good-looking.

Cholmondeley Castle is one of the best-organised events on the British multi-sport calendar. The setting is genuinely beautiful, Brian runs a sharp briefing, and the post-race experience is worth staying for. A qualifier field makes it honest — you earn whatever position you get.
The podium curse continues. But a 2:18:15 age group win in a qualifier field, with a clean Veloforte-fuelled nutrition plan and no mechanical dramas? I’ll take that.

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