TriPurbeck Rip at Challenge Weymouth

Not often that a major international triathlon decides to go past your house so it was great to see multiple TriPurbeck super athletes mixing it in the inaugural Challenge Weymouth yesterday, and picking up several of the awards along the way………

First up , in the half distance, Gary Sawtell produced an excellent  18th place in his age category in his first half distance event. Johnathan Foot, also racing in his first half, finished a brilliant 4th in the 60-64 category and, if we’re honest, would probably have been 2nd had he had a ‘normal’ run after posting the fastest category split of the day on the bike. All part of the learning process but secretly (well it was a secret until I wrote it here) we think Johnathan has some major medal potential…….. and Adam Ball put the Barcelona brake experience well behind him with an excellent 6hr13min finish. Cheryl Weeks unfortunately had to pull out after a recurrent back problem flaring up in the swim but no doubt there’s a lot more to come from Cheryl. Olivia Hetreed’s 6.04 finish was good enough for 3rd place in the ladies 50-54 category and Jane King got the 3rd place prize in her category despite some stomach issues on the run – nice of her to stop for a chat though I thought!

So, on to the full distance and 2 stellar performances from team TriPurbeck. Clearly someone forgot to tell Simon Carvisiglia that iron distance racing is not meant to be fun. I haven’t mentioned the swim yet……. suffice it to say it was a bit choppy (cut to scenes of crazy surf dudes dropping in on 40m tow in swells at Jaws) But the main man didn’t seem overly troubled and grinned his way out of the surf in an hour before taking to the bike. I saw him 4 times on the bike…. smiling everytime. Then out onto the marathon, we thought it was nice of Chris Weeks to run with Simon to pace him out. And then Simon dropped Chris on the 3rd lap to come home in 11hr9min with the 3rd fastest run split in his category and 12th place -brilliant.

Simon…………..smiling!

And so it was left to a mother of 3 and a grandad to represent TriPurbeck in the relay. Not too shabby though if the mother of 3 is the reigning (still for another week) European long course champion in the 35-39 age category and the grandad is the legendary (now norseman white teeshirt holder) Dave Pratten. However, the mighty Franster had already raced in the national sprint championships on Saturday morning (more to come on that later) and Dave was marshalling at the Purbeck Marathon on Sunday morning so in the words of the legend himself, he ‘wasn’t quite sure what time he would get there’. Not to worry, it was only meant to be a training race and they weren’t supposed to be taking it too seriously…….. yeah right. Panic ensured when it became apparent that after a 40 minute swim the undersized TriPurbeck head coach was ripping up the bike course posting the fastest age group split of the day, only a few minutes behind the pro leaders and Dave was nowhere to be seen. We shouldn’t have worried though, the ‘legend’ was in fact having a chat in transition having pitched up with a few minutes to spare and proceeded to run the second fastest marathon split of his life (he’s been running for 40 years !!!!!!!!!) of 3hr13min to ensure that Team TriPurbeck finished 2nd in a stunning 9hr44min.

The Norseman and Fran at the finish

To say that TriPurbeck was well represented at Challenge Weymouth, given the results outlined above, would be a massive understatement – not bad for a small rural tri club in Dorset! And…… haven’t even told you about the sprint champs or Ironman Wales yet…….