Bedford Parkrun - 26.07.14

Les, Liam & Sarah were the FlitwickTri representatives at this week's Bedford Parkrun event.

As has become normal now the weather was warm and sunny and lovely to run in.

Out of 223 finishers our results were:

Liam Ko            29th in 22:49

Les Potts         67th in 24:55

Sarah Eke      184th in 32:32

Les

Challenge Roth - 20.07.14

Well at the weekend I travelled to Roth in southern Germany for what was the first Ironman race in Europe until the challenge group bought it a few years back and have continued to grow this into one of the largest triathlon races in the world. To add to all this is was very sunny and very warm at around 33 degrees or 90 degrees depending on where you come from!  

It was an amazing venue, and some of the biggest crowds I have ever seen. The 2.5 mile swim was lovely with crowds along the whole of the river bank, the 112 mile bike was on the best surface I have ever ridden a bike on so I know what the German government spends its money on!  The run which was a single lap marathon which makes a change from the loops you run in Ironman, and went through some very scenic German towns with great support. All the way round German supporters were shouting ‘Hup Hup Hup’ to me so I would love someone to tell me what exactly that means!!!???

So in short I had a great finish time, a great day in a fantastic part of the world and I would recommend a visit there for any reason.

I’ve attached my finisher certificate which I don’t look to happy on, but that was nearly the finish and it tells the story of my times!!!!

Garry

Wycombe 10K - 20.07.14

Liam & I tackled this 10k race last Sunday. Fortunately it was an early 9.30am start and the temperature was not too warm with cloud cover and importantly decent for running.

The Wycombe 10k is really about 2 hills - the first at the start sees you rise  a gentle 28 feet in the first half mile followed by 264 feet in the next 1mile. More than a few runners resorted to walking on this hill but many were reduced to a very slow run by the time they were reaching the peak.

1.5miles to 3.3miles were generally a gentle downhill section and a good opportunity to recover. 

The second mentionable hill came over the following half mile which was a 217 feet drop. Too steep to run fast and effort was wasted holding back. Thereafter it was a mainly downhill until the finish.

A well organised event with a decent goody bag at the end.

There were 286 finishers with Liam coming 61st in 49m56s, and I came 96th in 53m47s (a massive 29 seconds faster then last year!!). 

  

Les

Bedford Parkrun - 19.07.14

Another good turnout for the Bedford Parkrun on 19 July with 5 FlitwickTri runners taking part.

The times were:

Liam Ko           22.54
Les Potts          25.07
Pete Jones       26.45
Sarah Eke         32.05
Sian Jones        38.29

Well done. 

Stowe Triathlon - 12.07.14

I took part in the sprint distance triathlon at Stowe on 12th July. The event was held in the lovely grounds of Stowe school which encouraged a large number of family and friends to spectate (sadly none of mine though). 

Standard and middle distance events were also being held so there were 5 planned waves, with mine due to start at the relatively civilised time in the triathlon world of 11.15. However, the organisers appeared to miscalculate how long it would take the slowest swimmers to finish with the result that they combined the two waves of the sprint event and even then it started 45 minutes late. 

There were 98 starters in the sprint event, though it didn’t seem too crowded in the lake after the first 50m.  My time for the swim was approx 16.5 mins which is by far the quickest I have swum 750m, still only good enough for 68th at that point though. That did mean I got to pass a lot of people on the cycle (24.6k) which was fun and in fact I was 11th fastest in that segment. That combined with 32nd on the run (4.9k) pushed me up to 20th overall, with a time of 1:39.50. For a high finish, the trick is clearly to enter an event where there are also longer distances on offer as the best are more likely to enter those.

 

I really enjoyed the event and the setting was superb. My only gripes apart from the delayed start were that there was quite a distance pushing the bike from transition to the mount/dismount point (they should look at moving the lake for next year) and there were no distance markers on the run.

 

Steve

Bedford Parkrun - 12.07.14

5 FlitwickTri runners were in action at the weekly Bedford Parkrun on 12 July and their times were:

Liam Ko              23.35
Pete Jones          25.58
Fiona Jones         28.25
Sian Jones           39.14
Christina Eke       41.06

Well done all!

Isle of Wight Ferry Sportive - 05.06.14

Having taken part in this event in 2013 and found it very enjoyable but somewhat challenging I decided to go back for another go this year. Having heard me say what a good event it is Pete Jones agreed to join me for the ride. 

By way of an outline the ride starts at Fawley (near Southampton) and the first section is a 10 mile ride across the New Forest  to the ferry at Lymington. The timer is then stopped for the ferry ride to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. From their the ride goes round the island via some rather unpleasant hills, of which more later. The riders then return to Yarmouth where the clock is stopped for the ferry ride back. That is then followed by a 10 mile ride back across the New Forest to the finish at Fawley. 

There was some good and bad news on the day for us. The good news was it didn't rain as had been forecast. The bad news was it was windy and the first 10 miles were all into a headwind. Even worse though was a route change on the Island meant the riding distance went up from 68 miles to nearly 74 miles. Worse still the amount of climbing went up from 3600 feet to 5000 feet!

Unfortunately I managed to be one of the many who picked up a puncture in a section about 18 miles into the ride. This was made worse but the replacement tube that I had just fitted and pumped up to 70psi separating from the valve and requiring a repeat replacement. (Insert picture of angry cyclist here). This put paid to a fast overall time and also meant we got separated from a very friendly group from our local Icknield Road Club who were taking part.

Having done the ride last year I was anticipating, and had warned Pete about, a series of hills around Carrisbroke which are not long but are steep (think lots of people walking up even with compact or mountain bike gearing). Having got up the steepest part and the long drag afterwards I was looking forward to turning right towards the food stop at Ventnor (as we had last year). The organisers had other ideas and made us turn left towards Bembridge. It's not that Bembridge is a bad place it just meant we would be doing more miles going west along the bottom of the island through Sandown and Shanklin into the wind to get back to Ventnor. Although I didn't realise it at the time, it also meant going up the hill out of Shanklin which was the hardest climb of the whole ride. 

The food stop at Ventnor was a welcome relief as by then Pete and I were running on empty. Having refuelled we continued on along the south coast of the island and up the last two big climbs and round to the ferry. 

After a much needed recovery period it was off back across the New Forest to the finish, thankfully with a tail wind. Then a much needed ice cream and a very tired drive home. 

Overall a real challenge, especially with 5000 feet of climbing in the 74 miles. My Garmin tells my average speed was 13.7 miles per hour and that I burned 5237 calories. We were both very pleased and rather satisfied to have finished.

We'll be looking for others to join us for the challenge next year!

Chris

Bedford Parkrun - 05.07.14

This week it was left to Liam, Sarah and Christina to represent FlitwickTri at the Bedford Parkrun on a damp and breezy morning. Despite the conditions Christina managed to achieve a PB, very well done!

Times were:

Liam Ko                  23.19
Sarah Eke               34.36
Christina Eke          35.44

Welwyn 10K - 28.06.14

322 runners lined up on 28 June for the inaugural Welwyn 10K. It was billed as multi terrain and undulating. They weren't kidding! I think Les and I would describe it as hilly. We weren't helped by the fact that it was also a very warm sunny day.

The route was actually very scenic with the route taking in the village of Welwyn, some lanes, woodland tracks, farm yards and field boundaries. The uphill sections from 1 to 3 K and from 7 to 8 K provided a real challenge.

The times were:

Chris Wright          63rd in 47.53
Les Potts               124th in 52.17 

Bedford Parkrun - 28.06.14

With Chris and Les in action in Welwyn it was left to Fiona and Sian Jones to represent FlitwickTri at the weekly Bedford Parkrun.

Fiona finished in a time of 27.44 with Sian coming in with a time of 37.36.

Well done both.