Duathlon: Winners tune-up for worlds

Brenda Wotton in the zone during the cycling leg of yesterday's duathlon.

Aiden Dunster and Sarah Backler showed they were on track for next month's ITU Cross Triathlon World Championships with victory in the long course races at the fourth Smith's Sports Shoes duathlon series at Tauriko yesterday.

Both are in the final month of preparation for the championships in Sardinia, Italy on September 26-27, and with the exception of the third race, have dominated the series.

The ITU event, a 1.5km swim, a 30km off-road cycle and 10km run is a far cry from the run-bike-run of the duathlon series, but there's no such thing as wasted effort.

Matt Backler powers into a corner at The Lakes, Tauriko, yesterday.

"The disadvantage of racing at the end of our winter is we haven't had a summer of racing, so it's good to come out and have a bit of a battle and test a bit of nutrition and see how that goes," said Backler.

"In terms of nutrition, I didn't feel queasy and didn't throw up and this [duathlon] is probably of a higher intensity because it's a shorter distance, so the heart rate can be still quite high."

Backler says the length of time the bike leg in Italy will take will depend on how technical the course is and, while the run course is reasonably flat, because half of it is on sand, it's "going to be a tough one".

With less than four weeks until she leaves for Italy, she is happy with her preparation.

"Looking at my run times, with the training I've done over the last couple of days, I definitely haven't got slower, so that's good - so I'm probably in a good position now to do the finishing touches over the next month."

While Dunster's weekend win was comfortable, there is a back story.

"It wasn't really that straight forward, it was pretty hard. I went out riding this morning [before the event] and did about 60-70 km and yesterday I did about five and a half hours training as well, so I was backing up today and will probably be a bit stiff tomorrow."

After a few weeks of feeling unmotivated, the return of friend and training partner Andrew Lloyd has renewed his enthusiasm.

"It's lifted me up a bit more and it's given me the motivation to do some hard training before I head overseas."

Dunster is entered in the under-23 elite race in Italy and knows little about the course. He is scheduled to arrive two weeks before the event.

"You can look it up on You Tube and on the website and see the elevations and that kind of stuff, but it doesn't really give you much info until you get there and ride it for yourself ... I'll probably have a week or so training [on the course]."

The final event of the duathlon series is at the same venue on September 20.