Wimbleball, Serena nearly beats Kelly Holmes and Race to the Bill

A big weekend of racing has just past with some excellent results for the TriPurbeck team. Notably, in reverse of the normal fashion laws, Dave has sent me a picture of himself not wearing a bandana. And…. brace yourselves….. Guy has entered a race.

Normally we would have been down at Wimbleball but a combination of acute procrastination and apathy brought on by 3 consecutive years of freezing temperatures, wind and rain meant that Fran didn’t enter. Subsequently, the sun shone, the lake was 17 degrees and the fastest time in Fran’s age group was an hour slower than Fran’s time from last year. So if you want to enter Wimbleball – choose a year when Fran doesn’t do it! John Skilton did and produced an excellent 6hr13min finish to shave a few minutes off his best, Peter Fraser completed (I think) his 5th Wimbleball and Simon Carvisglia made his debut with a brilliant sub 7 hour time – plenty to smile about as you can see in the pic!

Justin Matthews made his long awaited return to tri at the Race to the Bill Sprint – 7th overall and winning his age category whilst James Sealey, Jane King and the Milmers all competed in the standard distance event. Excellent performance from James finishing 26th as he charges towards Ironman Wales and Jane, of course, won her age group again!

I was supposed to be racing in the Rother Valley Sprint qualifier but hadn’t realised how far North it was and gave up at Blandford. Derek did make it but forgot to take his arm bands and despite posting the fastest bike/run combo in his age group it still wasn’t enough to lift him above seventh place so we think no qualification spot yet. So I have entered the Big Cow Sprint – partly because it’s another chance at qualification, partly because it’s got the word cow in it so I figure it probably is near Blandford somewhere, and partly because I thought I’d try and persuade Guy to do it – which worked.

So, while all this wasn’t going on, Serena O’Connor (and Simon I think but can’t find his results) followed the lead of the Wimbleballers and Race to the Billers by racing in the Brownlee Tri South. Serena found herself lining up against Kelly Holmes – and subsequently matched her in the swim, beat her on the bike and we think probably would have beaten her overall had Serena not gone the wrong way on the run – yet another stunning performance from one of our junior athletes – still finishing 3rd overall in a field of 70 ladies in the super sprint.