Manchester Airport Duathlon

Arrival

Please arrive 15 – 30 minutes before your wave start time. This should give you ample time to familiarise yourself with transition, warm up, discuss any queries you may have with the team and use the facilities if necessary. Wave 1 starts at 09:00, Wave 2 starts at 11:00 and the Sunday sprints start at 09:00.

Car Parking

There is ample free parking at the hotel. This parking is usually pay and display, however as we are hotel guests, we can ensure free parking by entering your vehicle registration in the tablet on reception. Please note it is your responsibility to ensure you have done this and any parking fines resulting in not recording your registration, will need to be appealed by yourself.

Registration

Your race number and medal will be at an allocated place in transition. This will be your area to keep your bike and trainers and any nutrition/hydration you may require during the event.

Transition Area

You will have a specific area within transition where you can keep your bike, running shoes and any nutrition/hydration you require during the event. Please keep any bags or items you will not need during the event in your car. There will be no additional storage available.

Spectators & Support

I understand that your friends and family may wish to come and watch you participate. Spectators are always welcome at our events, however, as you know, I have amended the format of this event in order to conform with social distancing guidelines. There will be 120 participants in any one wave and up to 3 staff members, so we are not encouraging spectators on site at transition. We are making every effort to keep the gathering size to a minimum and reduce number of people using the pubs facilities.

If your friends and family wish to come and support you, then I would recommend they head out onto the course to see you run and or cycle past. If they wish to stay at event HQ, then they must not enter transition and we ask that they remain in the designated spectators area.

Please understand that the safety of all my participants and staff as well as venue residents and staff are my priority in setting out these guidelines.

Another effort we are making to reduce risk is that there will not be any marshals on the course. Again I am making every effort to reduce the number of people at HQ at the start and finish and to minimise contact the whole day. I will be ensuring the course is well signed as always and we will be putting additional signs out as well as cones at various points along the course, to ensure you don’t get lost. My contact details are also on all signage, so any issues, you will be able to contact me.

Start

The start line will be marked on the ground, with Black and Yellow tape. It will be away from transition, positioned appropriately for social distancing.

We are reintroducing a staggered mass start. we will be starting 10 participants every 30 seconds at all events. This means less hanging around at the start for you, while enabling an opportunity to maintain social distancing where possible and avoiding any bottlenecking early on the run courses.

Please ensure you maintain social distancing while waiting to start. And be ready to start a your allocated time to avoid holing up any other participants. If you arrive at the start time after your time has gone, you will have to wait until all other participants have started to commence your race.

Run

Please run on the left side of the pavement to allow for overtaking and returning runners.

Please ensure you are adhering to social distancing measures while running. Overtaking is allowed but if you are overtaken, please drop back slightly to allow for adequate distance. If you overtake, please move over to the right, but ensure you avoid any oncoming runners.

Ride

The mount line will be well out of the car park/transition area, and it will be marked with a flag. The dismount line will be at the same line as where you mounted your bike. Please walk/run with your bike from/to transition. DO NOT mount or dismount before these points. This has been put in place to avoid any confusion between cyclists, runners or motorists as well as providing additional space to adhere to social distancing.

All riders MUST wear a helmet and will not be allowed on the course without one.

Finish

The finish line will be at the start line where your time will be manually recorded. Please make your way safely from the finish line back to transition where you will be able to cool down and catch your breath.

Please do not return to the finish line at any point after you have finished. This is to avoid any unnecessary contact.

Results will be posted online and emailed on early in the week following the event, please do not ask for your time at the finish. Please also be aware that results are recorded manually and while we make every effort to ensure accurate results, human error is possible. If any results appear incorrect, please let me know by email and I will endeavour to amend these before submitting to Go Tri.

I thank you for your support and patience as events were put on hold during Lockdown.

If you have any questions I haven’t answered here, please get in touch by email, social media or text and I will be happy to answer any questions.