IM 70.3 Staffordshire and Junior County Athletics

Well what a weekend that was.

Juniors first this week. 2 county champions to report. Serena smashed the 3000m in the under 17 girls race posting a pb by 1 sec and destroying the field in customary fashion. Jed Skilton followed up an excellent performance in the Mallory Park Tri with an 800m win in the county championship on Saturday and another 800m win on Sunday – presumably because he wasn’t tired yet.Sam brown was also racing but we don’t have the results yet as he’s busy doing his GCSEs or something. Prioties Sam.

Up in Reading Mandy and the Milmers entered a 24hr enduro running race….. for some reason. Anyway the report on poolside this morning was…… they all enjoyed it and ran a long way.

So on to the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire. Quite a TriPurbeck contigent on show with Fran, John, Liz, Cheryl and Simon all racing and Gary, me and the Juliers up for the support. Special word for Mark who of course should have been racing but for the Italian Job. Nut Job that is. Anyway the weather was as expected for ‘Up North’ on Saturday but thanks to 4 years of Wimbleball with Fran we remembered the boots and full waterproofs. Bizarrely, in a twist of unpredictability, the sun came out on race day morning and 2700 athletes crammed themselves in to 4 portaloos…. this is actually true. Javier Gomez had a 1hr 40min headstart on the girls which hardly seemed sporting although John only had an hour to make up on him. Unfortunately, he blew his chances by swimming off in the wrong direction and didn’t mange to get out on his bike for 48mins. After that though, it went rather well for the big man, posting a 2.55 bike and a 1.50 run for an excellent 5.36 finish – a pb at 70.3 on this ‘not anywhere near as flat and fast as they said it was’ course. Don’t take my word for it, Javier told me.

 A big version of John standing next to a smaller version of Fran

So the scene was set for the girls. And Simon who was running for Cheryl’s legs. Fran and Liz were first up and I took my position at the bike mount line. I’d promised to let Fran know how many girls exited transition before her so imagine my surprise when Fran appeared first. The conversation went something like this. Me:’You’re first out’, Fran: ‘Really?’. Clearly this didn’t phase her as she headed off into the headwind and posted a bike split that was faster than 6 of the female pro field. Liz, meanwhile, posted a good swim and an excellent bike to put herself in podium contention in her age group. Cheryl also had a good swim and a very good bike to put the pressure on Simon to produce the goods in the run…. pressure that I had already ramped up by suggesting a sub 1.40 half marathon was on the cards. So, 1hr39mins later he pitched up at the finish – brilliant run and all the better as in was 0.25 miles long so we’ll call it a 1.37. Ah, it appears I’m now going in reverse order so I’ll stick with that. Liz ran a very solid 1.51 to claim 3rd spot in the 45-49 category in an excellent 5.41 – a pb and a slot in the World Championships in August – great work. And finally, first across the line from TriPurbeck and first in her age category by more than 10 mins (out of 89 starters) in 5.14, 17th overall including the pros and a slot in the World Championships for Fran. So not to shabby a showing for a small tri-club in the Purbecks.

Liz and Fran, of course, are completely mad and will be joining Gary, Johnathan, Mandy and Simon at Wimbleball in 2 weeks……… more racing next week as well.