TriPurbeck Juniors at the Bath Duathlon

No jokes today.

So here’s the thing….. 4 and a bit years ago Fran had this crazy idea of starting a tri club in Wareham – primarily with the aim of introducing the sport to local juniors to get them involved in regular exercise but also had the idea that if you mix it up with adult training, we could build up a club involving parents and kids training together. Here’s a link to the first post I published about a training session in October 2010 at which we had 8 kids with us – 3 of them were ours.

http://www.tripurbeck.com/blog/hardcore-juniors-out-in-the-rain/

Whether by luck or judgement, this weekend has been amazing! On Friday night we had the (now) usual mix of 60-6 years olds doing their stuff on the astro. Then yesterday, the Tripurbeck junior squad descended on mass at the Bath Duathlon. For most of them this was a new level of competition and with many of the Southwest and National squad members turning out to race as part of the BTF South West series the competition was hard. So, after lots of hard work and fun over the winter, how is the squad shaping up? Legendary. Serena O’Connor ripped through the field to win the whole thing – first female, first junior, first youth. Jed Skilton (we think) also came in as first youth male. We know Lola can run but Zena’s super turbos clearly made their mark as she powered out of the turns on the bike to finish 3rd in the TriStar 3 race ( this was the Southwest Championship for the tristars) and Will Baker finished an excellent 5th in the Tristar 3 boys – just a few seconds away from the medals. Lily, Joe, Annie, and Max also race brilliantly – all slightly disadvantaged by a recent move into the higher age group and Sam would surely have added to the medal tally if he was not at home nursing man-flu (oh yes it’s very serious, take it easy Sam, I feel your pain) (ok one joke). Fran and I and the other coaches could not possibly be prouder of the achievements of the juniors and we’re sure this is just the start………

So, you’d think that was enough for one weekend? Errr… no. TriPurbeck seniors clearly weren’t in the mood to let the juniors grab all the glory and Simon, Rose and Liz were in action at the Weymouth 10k. All posted great times(44mins for Simon and Liz and Rose ran the fastest she’s run for 3 years) in windy and cold conditions and Simon had maxxed a big hill set on the bike yesterday and followed it up with a gentle swim in Fran’s Saturday afternoon squad (:-)) (two jokes…. come on have a heart).

And last. but not least (apart from if you are thinking about size), the head coach herself was cleary inspired by the juniors as she ripped through the field at the Winchester Duathlon to win by 10 minutes from the second girl, finishing 5th overall. Now there’s something to aim for kids?

On the left: Difficult to spot on her new Planet X bike, TriPurbeck’s super-squirt ripping it at the Winchester Duathlon. For goodness sake woman – get on the tri-bars! (I’ll pay for that ) And on the right mini Max doing the same at Bath.