National Champion as well…..

– June 13, 2014Posted in: Blog, Headlines, News

So one week on from our World Championship gold from Sharon and we also now have another national champion with Dave Pratten taking his age category in the National Middle Distance Championships at Grafham Water on the 8th June (the picture, by the way, is not from this race – that head scarf has been banned for sone time) Impressive as he was using it as a preparation race for the legendary Norseman Tri later in the year…… Here’s Dave’s report:

The primary reason for entering this event was to give me another workout as part of my training for the Norseman. Now 54 days away..not that I am counting! This was to be my second half ironman distance race in four weeks with the 300mile bike ride of the Tour of Wessex sandwiched between them. I figure it might be useful racing with some accumulated fatigue.

The swim at the Grafman involves two laps with an exit out of the water between each lap. The 500 plus field was split into 3 waves with the young fast athletes wearing white hats in wave 1, the younger age groupers wearing blue hats in wave 2 and the old ones and women wearing yellow in wave 3. Despite a 5 minute gap between the waves I soon found myself overtaking both blue and white hats before the first turn around point. On the second lap I along with a handful of other yellow hats had to weave our way through dense traffic.

The start of the bike was also busy but I sooon found a bit of space and settled into a comfortable rhythm. The weather forecast was for bright sun by midday an I was conscious of staying well hydrated and with energy to spare for the run.

On entering T2 I realised from the absence of other bikes that I was leading my age group (our bikes were racked. by age group). Of course I didn’t know far I was in front but my plan was again to get into my ironman paced rhythm and hold it steady. The run was a two lap out and back course so it was easy to spot potential rivals. the sun was shining and the heat was on and soon many athletes were suffering. I felt strong and just kept to my plan knowing I had a good lead.

I finished in 4:57 (swim 30 minutes, T1 88 secs, bike 2:45, T2 61 secs, run 1:39) winning my age group by 10 minutes from the second placed athlete and 30 minutes from the third.

Next up is the Enduro 24 relay at the end of the month and then the Norseman.

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!