Can’t keep up

That’s not just a commentary of when I go out for a bike ride with my wife or swimming with any member of my immediate family except the cat. No, […]

That’s not just a commentary of when I go out for a bike ride with my wife or swimming with any member of my immediate family except the cat. No, a whole bag load of top quality racing has been flying passed so I’m going to go for a quick summary but apologies if I miss something out! Way back over a month ago a load of us headed up to IM Staffordshire 70.3 – major performances from some of TriPurbeck’s finest as well as a major crash – you can read all about it here: Staffs report

On one week and the pull of the last Exmoor 70.3 ever was too much for Fran who decided to attempt 2 70.3 races in 2 weeks. She was joined on the start line by Adam and Terri with the weather once again turning out nice for the big race – not.  Given the situation, Fran’s 2nd place finish was a massive achievement and a 6th podium finish in 6 attempts at this race. Adam was on fire having chosen his tt bike and flew round in an impressive 5hr33min time and an excellent 11th place finish in his age group. Terri swam well before handing over to her relay buddy for the bike and finishing it off with a solid run to cross the line well within the cut offs in the relay.

Clodie, Mark and Evan then made it 3 weekends of 70.3 racing in a row when they took on 70.3 Edinburgh on the following weekend. Now I’m not claiming to have powers of foresight, but when I saw the blurb for this race and it said that the swim would be in the Firth of Forth I distinctly remember not thinking – ooh that will be nice and calm and I bet the water will be pleasantly warm to boot. It was allegedly summer but I swear I can see an iceberg in the background of some of Laura’s live video action – and you can’t hear anything because of the 30 mile an hour wind across the microphone – presumably the reason why the swim was cut short and the athletes were given the warning ‘swim really hard to start or you might not reach the first buoy!’. Mark pulled out a good swim despite this and a great bike leg put him in contention for a podium spot as he started the run. Clodie and Evan both survived the swim and both had solid races overall with Evan improving all the way through to post the 7th fastest run split in his age group and finish in 9th place. Clodie, on the comeback trail, executed an even paced race and finished an excellent 12th in her age group. On to the run and it was nip and tuck all the way for Mark but he was just pipped for 3rd despite a 1.36 run, finishing 4th.

Adam Raymond continues to go from strength to strength and produced his best performance yet and a rather spangly feature photo in Tri220 at the Bastion iron distance event. 8th overall and 3rd age grouper represents a great performance and reward for the hard training – and he never picks an easy event – this is man who likes a challenge :-)

Dave Kelly continued his journey from total novice to ironman as he upped the anti at the Boskman triathlon which is a bit longer than a middle and again a challenging event. Great swim and bike and 2nd place in his age group despite a few issues on the run and everything is in place for IM Copenhagen next weekend. On the same race card was the Gladiator Iron distance event. There are some races where you should look at the name and think…… is this sensible? The Beast for instance. But all the same, Alison Milmer lined it up as her first go at an ironman event and bagged an age group podium finish with 3rd place in just over 15 hours.

Lots of the TriPurbeck Juniors had a crack at the results triathlon race at Purbeck Sports Centre with Lexi Taylor producing the stand out performance, once again beating all comers, boys and girls, in the TriStart event. Harley was an excellent 2nd and Isla and Euan also went very well. And…. great to see Monty and James racing for the first time and doing very well indeed! Well done chaps.

Last but not least, triathlon without the bike. So while Laura had a few sneaky goes on the Cervelo P5X, Mark and Justin headed of to Sweden for a Otillo swim run competition. Fantastic result for the chaps finishing 10th overall – yet to hear if that qualifies them for the world championships but brilliant racing all the same.

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!