Racing catch up………

Once again there’s been an awful lot going on so here’s a quick round up of some of the highlights and if I miss something out a: sorry and b: it’s not surprising at my age and c:let me know……

Our week away at the Goalspecific camp in half term seems like ages ago but it was a great training week! Looking forward to the next one. The round up of the weeks events can be seen here.

Meanwhile……..Super Serena O’Connor won the Dorset U17 county champs 3000m in a stunning 10min19sec. Subsequently she went on to race at the Poole Festival of running 10km and posted an even more impressive 36min 32sec time in winning the ladies race by a country mile and revising for her GCSE exams as she was running along (honest teacher people she was….). This ranks her as the fastest UK U17 female 10k this year. She just keeps getting faster……..

Jed Skilton and Lily Burnet both raced at the Hyde park London Triathlon with Jed competing in the elite youth aquathlon and coming an excellent 17th despite being one of the youngest in the field. Lily raced in the super sprint event posting an excellent time, getting used to her new Planet X road bike the Andy has given her . Jed went on to race in the youth triathlon in Marlow last week, finishing in a brilliant 2nd place.

Iris Courtney won the first place trophy in the under 10 girls 800m at the Wessex Athletics. She also came 1st in the girls 8/9 age group 1 mile minithon at the Poole Festival of running in 6min57sec. Eleanor Mowbray came 4th in the same race. Lucy Courtney came 4th today in the girls age 10/11 mile in a time of 6.27 – excellent running from the girls.

Before that though, Fran was racing in Rimini, Italy in the ETU middle distance champs.When we arrived, however, things were not quite as expected. The bike course was in very poor condition – not sure how they got the risk assessment through – and this was made worse by the rain. Mark was also racing and very unluckily got knocked off his bike coming out of transition by an over excited competitor – disaster as he couldn’t move and turned out he had fractured his hip and spent the next week in hospital instead of with us at the camp Perhaps the worst element of this is that the other guy did not stop to see if he was ok – very poor form. So while I was driving to various hospitals trying to find out where they had taken Mark, Fran was going to work on the bike course a little more hesitantly than normal! The roughness of the surface still proved a problem, shaking her bottle cage out of its anchors and cracking the frame of her TT bike – not cool and caused a delay in the ride. Arriving back in T2 with no sign of either Mark or me Fran was wondering what was going on. Unfortunately, this meant that she was unaware that she was, by the end of the first run lap, in gold medal position. In the end it was bronze – another great performance but not the greatest days racing.

On Sunday, Derek and Simon went head to head in the Swanage Bay Triathlon although the head to head didn’t last long as Simon decided to swim to the Isle of White first – handing Derek a handy lead in T1. Whether it was the time he needed to scrape off the goose fat after his cross channel attempt or just a major pfaff, Simon off loaded the remainder of the initiative to Derek by spending half an hour in T1 having a cup of tea. Both performed well on the bike and run and showed pretty good form ahead of their respective challenges – sprint qualifier for Derek, 70.3 Wimbleball for Simon. Derek won his age group and collected his huge prize. Errrr no.

Finally Guy and Roddy brushed off their racing spikes to run in a 13mile Mavericks trail run on the Purbeck Hills. Guy’s race report read ”Too hot, too sunny, never again” as he raced home in 2hr30min. I’m trying to find a triathlon near a caravan site to entice him to race again whilst enjoying the comfort of his tow along home. Just remind me to leave before him. Russ raced in the 16km race at the same event and won it!! Not surprising bearing in mind the qulaity run times he’s been laying down at Friday night sessions recently.

Bound to have missed loads……… so there’ll be more to come, not least after this weekend as the TriPurbeck middle distance massive descend on the Staffordshire IM 70.3.