August Racing – Swanage, Wimborne, Leweston, Alpe D’Huez, Wiesbaden

Well go on holiday for 3 weeks and loads of stuff happens while you’re not looking………. In reverse time order – big congratulations to Harley Taylor won his age group […]

Well go on holiday for 3 weeks and loads of stuff happens while you’re not looking……….

In reverse time order – big congratulations to Harley Taylor won his age group in the Dorset Tri  a Tri junior race this weekend – apparently beating a young man on a £1500 bike into 2nd place…………They’re going to need a more expensive bike to beat Harley :-) In the adult race, Cheryl Weeks produced an excellent 1.13 finish and Paul Thomas had a good race in his first ever triathlon.

Last weekend saw the Swanage Triathlon back to full quota which is great to see nd plenty of TriPurbeck action. Tania Kaplan produced an excellent result in her first ever triathlon posting a 2.11 time in the sprint event. Tom Stone also competed in the sprint, ducking under 2hrs in a 1.58 finish. In the standard distance event, friend of Tripurbeck Olivia Hetreed finished second in her age group behind TriPurbeck’s Jane King who stormed it in a time of 2.48. Another great age group win for Johnathan Foot in the 60+ category in 2.47 ( really need to persuade this man to go for an age group qualification……). Charlie Craven (who we don’t see enough of) moved up to the standard distance race in an excellent 2.40 time and David Kelly posted a great 2.45 time (with a little help from Chris) in his first triathlon in the quest for ironman next year.

Lily Burnet is starting to show how quality training pays dividends with an age group win at the end of the Leweston summer tri camp – great result.

Also on the 9th August, the head coach was racing in the ironman 70.3 European Championships – testing how the body holds up to a couple of weeks of generally chilling out and having a nice time in France. Turns out… not too shabby. Ironman’s new rolling start swim (alternatively known as total carnage) didn’t suit her so Fran was distinctly grumpy heading out on the bike. Grumpy enough to overtake a few pro athletes who had started 10 mins earlier and despite tasting the pavement during the 3rd lap of the run due and complaining of a broken ankle, Fran took her 3rd Ironman age group in a row and possibly her biggest race in to date with a 6 min margin, securing her number 1 world ranking as she heads to the World Championships in Austria….. so quite good.

Fianlly we were inconvenienced by a triathlon being put on outside our house in Alpe D’Huez so Fran and Derek ( who inexplicably pitched up just before the Tour came through) felt they had to compete. Joking apart…. this is one of the best triathlons in the world. The short course consists of a 1200m swim followed by a 30km timetrial, 15km flat and then the legendary climb up Alpe D’Huez, and then a 7km hilly run at 1800m…. it’s simply amazing and the crowds cheering the riders up the hill are superb. So when the mighty Franster arrived in the Alp in 6th place we were impressed. Ish. 8th place finish overall was fairly impressive in a race with at least 10 pro athletes in it. Derek had a bit of a shocker on the swim as he mirrored his normal Monday morning pool entry i.e. he got in after everyone else and sat on the side for a while. still, once he got going, bike time was significantly quicker than last year and despite an ongoing heel issue his run was quicker as well. We think there’s more to come now and derek has already lined up the race for next year and….. it will be lovely to have them with us again.

Weymouth Classic this week with several of Tripurbeck’s finest in action and we’re off to france and Austria where Liz Hall and Fran are racing the IM 70.3 World Champioships.

 

About Ade

What ever your goals in life may be, there is always time to achieve them. You might want to lose weight, run your first 5k, or improve your personal best, whatever your specific goals are you can achieve them with structure, time management and determination!