Mostly mud

Well about time we made a contribution in 2016, especially has we have some great TriPurbeck performances to mention! Muddy Dorset County cross country championship races finished with the now […]

Well about time we made a contribution in 2016, especially has we have some great TriPurbeck performances to mention!

Muddy Dorset County cross country championship races finished with the now familiar sight of Serena O’Connor cruising to a victory in the under 17 category and Sam Brown piicking up 2nd place – both, along with Lola, will be racing in the Southern Counties Parliament hill race next weekend.

Multiple runners in the Broadstone quarter on New Year’s Day (yes a running race at 10am on New Year’s Day – that’s normal). Laura Julier’s road to 70.3 Vichy started up with a good first run and Serena started of the new year with 2nd lady overall. There were lots of other good performances but the results page has disappeared so I can’t tell you about them!

More mud at Bustinskins weekend of racing on the Bovington tank range. First up in the Duathlon, Mark Julier opened his account for the year racing with Evan, team GuyRoddy and Jonathan Foot. They were all quaking in their boots though when they heard that yours truely had decided to come out of Triathlon exile after a wine fuelled night at the Julier’s resulted in multiple entries to Vichy 70.3. My advice is………. never discuss race entries and wine in the same evening. Anyway off we all went and 50m into the first run we came across a lake. Sensibly I decided to climb around the outside while all the other lunatics just ran straight through it. However, when Evan went piling through and disappeared out of sight I decided to jump in anyway and  set off through the mud. The run was hilly and muddy – it took me about 2/3 of the run to catch Mr Julier who had gone off fairly quickly to sneak the TriPurbeck lead over the knife edge for the first time. Into transition and Mark pulled out his secret weapon – a virtually self powered super bike with wheels that don’t sink in the mud. Either that or he’s just very fit! Anyway as the rest of us laboured along on our miniscule 26 inch wheels (there’s no euphemism here) Mark disappeared into the distance. Punctures for Johnathan (who managed to get a bit of help from a slow old bloke he overtook) and Evan who’s bike preparation skills rival mine in that he only had 4 gears to start with – mind you he was riding some kind of shopping bike – meant slower bike splits – I’ve got no excuse and team GuyRoddy were just admiring the view. Great finish from Mark in 7th overall, I was quite pleased with my level of fitness given a total lack of training – Johnathan had a great race, Evan had a long run and team GuyRoddy finished as first team in the category of symbiotic relationship (that’s a long word kids!) All good fun.(Kids – note the school boy errors in the picture above – Evan (green coat) is walking away from his bike too early – well prepared athletes continue to tinker with their wheels until the last possible moment :-) . Also, note how Guy, Roddy and I are having to wear sunglasses despite the cloudy weather. This is because of the glare from Mark’s bike frame)

I fairness to team GuyRoddy the duathlon was just a warm up for the 15km Stampede on Sunday. Incredible event with over 700 starters mostly in fancy dress as far as I can tell from the picutres! Notably Justin came in 5th as his preparation for the legendary Otillo continues and there were great performances from Liz, Rose and Jane amongst probably many others but the results are a bit tricky to decipher so you have to tell me! Here’s Rose’s view of the race:

The race went really well today. I think it was a bit of a slower course than last year as there were new trickier sections through the woods – made it even better though! It also ended up being about half a mile longer overall. My team finished in 1:42:03, I was really chuffed with that as I’d managed to run all the bits I considered ‘runnable’ – that didn’t include the knee deep mud or the water that was bum deep! A really fun day, legs are very tired now though! Glad it’s rest day tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

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!