Toasty, Richard S and Basher headed up to the Cotswold Sprint Triathlon.
After previous camping expeditions (pre blog) Basher decided to splash the cash and book into a hotel leaving Richard and Coach Toast to brave the elements. Once on the campsite Toast was first to embarrass himself by spending an age (and valuable pre race energy) trying and failing to inflate his air bed before discovering the handily positioned vent that he'd left open. Of course it wasn't his fault ;) . Later that night Richard showed his age by moaning about some reckless yoofs partying until 3:30am while he was trying to get some much needed beauty sleep. Long gone are the days when he would have got out of his tent, drank all their beer and either partied the night away or flattened the lot of them.
The two races had close to 450 competitors and was run over a flat and fast course (750mSwim/20kBike/5kRun). It made up one of the South West Series Events and even included a small Elite field. On the day the weather cleared from a very wet and windy week before the event, however it had left a very muddy race site and what was now a x-country run course. This meant many a competitor falling as they tried to make it through the transition area on very slippy grass/mud underfoot.
Come race morning the boy wonder Toasty had a splendid race winning his age group and finishing 7th overall in a time of 1.01:51. Richard put in his normal stellar performance finishing 51st in his age group in a time of 1.28:23. Lord Basher was racing the Novice event and feeling left out after hearing the tales of the nights camping decided to cause his own little bit of trouble by conveniently 'losing' is timing chip during the swim section which deprived him of any race splits. Thankfully the manual back up worked well enough to give him a finish time of 1.22:00 and 65th place overall.
While the Cotswold crew were bathing in the calm waters of Keynes Water Park 107 lunatics including James, Phill and Tim were braving the Newquay Classic Triathlon.
With big winds and waves making for a very 'interesting' race the organisers had no option but to shorten the swim from the planned 1500m to a more manageable two lap swim inside the bay (much to the relief of Tim). Even in this more stable area the swell was enough to make sure the bouys needed extra manpower to hold them in position.
James led the field out of the water in 12:04 but the hilly bike course soon took its toll on his hulking great frame and his pathetically weak back which saw him dropping back through the field and finishing 22nd in 2:20:42. Phill kept himself within a minute of James through the swim and bike before using his new found running prowess (ok, I'm kidding) to leave him floundering on the hilly run course finishing 18th in 2:19:31 - will James ever be able to show his face again? Tim was the club star on this day though and after bobbing and floundering his way (jellyfish stylee) through the swim he found his land legs in time to chase Phill down on the bike and charge past James on the run to finish 9th in 2:15:00. No doubt his victory speech mentioned his impending retirement from the sport - yet again!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment