Swanage Triathlon

Great to see so many TriPurbeck people racing today – this could be a long report! Roddy had publicly stated that he was trying to beat everyone… (except Fran and Justin so not everyone really) and even brought a wetsuit this time so he must have been taking it seriously! So who ended up with the club bragging rights this time? Well that’s a tricky question to answer. Charlie put in a decent swim split and run in the sprint in only his second ever race, David W had a great bike time and Mark Turner ducked under 2 hours and it was a tough race. Friend of TriPubeck Liz Gilmour won her age group in the sprint and by 8.30am they all knew what none of the classic race athletes did yet – that conceptsport had decided to include mountain climbing in the event – when I finally reached the ‘steps’ I was forced into making old man noises as I climbed them one by one. Still, as Mandy said, the view was lovely once you got to the top!!!

So back to the bragging rights.  In the classic, the girls were off first with Fran, Liz, Olivia and Mandy all racing for the club. Mandy put in a superb swim split to show how much progress she has made in the last year – amazing. Liz and Fran came out of the water together and went to work on the bike course, chasing Olivia up the road, who had the fastest swim split amongst the girls. Meanwhile, on the beach, I had pulled out my secret weapon – torpedo head – Roddy and Dave were never more than a metre apart, Richie was looking confident and Peter was looking tall – well I think so anyway. Justin ‘The Youngster’ had to wait for the next wave. My memory of the swim in basically like this….. walk as far as possible before you dive in, swim for what felt like ages before queuing to get up the steps of the stone key (for some reason?), run round and jump back in and try not to look at the flag you have to swim to next because it is blinkin’ miles away. Eventually arrive at the beach – check watch, be pleasantly surprised by time,  unzip wetsuit, remove torpedo head in case there is a photographer, run for mile and a half thereby ruining previously pleasing swim time, arrive in transition and check to see if Roddy’s bike has gone yet. Richie, meanwhile, just pipped in the swim by Fran and Liz had disappeared up the road. Dave had a fairly good swim but his obsession with sock wearing and combing his hair in transition allowed me to get passed him! Mysteriously, despite Roddy exiting transition a full 90 seconds behind Dave, he managed to catch him by Langton Hill, before they road the rest of the bike ‘together’. Enough said. Richie got all the way to Wareham before anyone caught him and Peter set to work on the bike a full 7 minutes behind Richie from the swim but put in a great bike split of 1.16 to get within striking distance with the run to come.

Meanwhile back to the ladies, Fran was tearing up the bike course, matching Tracy Cook for pace and putting time into her other rivals including european duathlon champion and friend of TriPurbeck Anya Heijnen. Olivia was putting in a solid bike split to lay the foundations of an age group win. Liz was biking well and looking like the incredibly strong athlete that she has become – anyone who beat their time from last year on the new course certainly did very well – the swim alone was an average of 4 minutes slower. Back on the beach, Justin ‘Michael Phelps’ Matthews was already out of the water with a 27min swim split and heading out on the bike. I was kind of hoping that the bike might be his achilles heal, as I said I was hoping! Turns out he doesn’t have one (an achilles heal not a bike) and I will always remember the day that I out biked him by 9 secs as I suspect it will be the last time it happens!

Dave and Roddy were still being very friendly and just about caught Richie at the end of the bike leg. Justin ‘Lance Armstrong’ Matthews came flying down the Ulwell road as I was running the other way and then we all came to the steps.  If you can imagine a gazelle bounding effortlessly across the African savanna, then you think of the exact opposite of that, that was me trying to ‘run’ up the steps. Did anyone manage to run? Fran continued her current form putting in a 42min run split to finish 2nd overall, beating her pb by 4 minutes even though the course was longer. Olivia won her age group with a 47 min run. Liz finished 3rd in her age category and Mandy 8th in her’s.

Justin ‘Haile Gebrselassie’ Matthews put in the fastest TriPurbeck run split of the day but just missed out on Fran’s overall finish time – meaning that once again the fastest TriPurbeckite was a girl… come on chaps! I finished next followed by team DaveRoddy, although the harmony may be broken now after Roddy dipped at the line to pip his friend by a tenth of a second! Peter was closing in fast on Richie and it looked like he would catch him when a small puppy wandered innocently onto the course and the big man stopped to come to its assistance – finally missing out by a mere 3.3sec.

The prize giving was smooth and well organised and overall it was a really good race – great stuff. As for the bragging rights? Honours even I think. The Weymouth Classic in September looks like the next big race for the TriPurbeck team – there are sprint and olympic races so get those entries in – and when you do, make sure you enter as TriPurbeck – if we all had yesterday the girls would have won the team prize!

(ps – I may have made the bit about the puppy up… and the prize giving!)

Finish times appear below: