Clumber, Dorney, a bit of running and an adventure race?

Racing for the year got a little bit more serious with the return to action of TriPurbeck’s most bemedalled (yes it is a word) athletes. 2014 European and World sprint duathlon champion Sharon Bardsley eased out ‘retirement’ to secure 2nd place and a qualifying slot for the 2017 championships in the Clumber Park sprint. Derek, not to be outdone, also came 2nd in his age group – qualification secured. In fact, a little less pfaff (I speak on this subject with authority) and he would have won – specifically 3min30sec of transition in a sprint duathlon is a bit sluggish, but his choice of bike top on the ride was notably dapper – yes kids, no need to be fast as long as you look good. In the standard event, Fran dusted off her tt bike for the customary early season duathlon fest – 7th place overall and a qualification slot for a championship she has no intention of racing in was a pretty good workout after several hard training weeks. And Fran does love a duathlon, in fact as she finished the run, I believe the exact words were – ‘that was great fun, I wish I could do it all again’ (some of the letters have been rearranged and others added to cater for our younger readers).

Also in duathlon, Claude  raced the 3rd in Windsor Duathlon winter series, improving on his previous best by over 3 mins in the sprint race and finishing an excellent 10th overall. Claude continues going from strength to strength despite not having enough bikes for a man of his caliber and not yet committing to getting his TriPurbeck tri suit wet! Ray Courtney, who does go swimming, produced an excellent 10k pb of 1.36 I think although I can’t find the results.

Finally, Mark Julier and Evan Davies raced in a multisport event involving kayaking (nope, me either), riding a mountain bike, running, collecting things from boxes, a jacket potato challenge, 4 badgers and a good amount of lycra appreciation. Anyway, they did rather well, but were robbed, finishing quite clearly with the 3rd fastest time but only in 11th place. Evan tells me they were penalised for having no tan lines. I don’t know what he means.