Monday 7 April 2014

Race report 07/04/14

With all results finally in, very happy to be able to update you all on this weekend’s racing – and what a weekend it was!


Before we get into the race results though, I’d like to send best wishes to any club members who were unable to make it to their respective start lines this weekend for a speedy recovery. See you all out there soon. Also, starting this week’s round-up as we finished last week – with a massive thanks to all team supporters, and those giving up their time to marshal. Your help and support has been, as ever, invaluable J.


Now diving into the results, starting with this week’s TT action. Kerry and Elliot were both riding this weekend’s Stockton Wheelers 23M TT. Elliot had a great ride, finishing in 56:34, but a standout performance was given by Kerry – 1st Lady by over 3 minutes! Don’t think anyone can argue that 2 wins from 3 races at the start of the season is anything other than epic?!


Moving on to the duathlon front, we were well represented at 2 local events on Sunday, employing the now standard ‘take over the start line’ tactic at Durham in particular! Though injury/other commitments ruled out 3 of our athletes (again, feel better soon!), we still had strong finishes from 5 of our athletes here. A place on the podium was fought for between Paul Somerville and the Wallace brothers, with David finally taking 3rd place from Mike … though Paul actually finished in third, but had incurred a 2-minute time penalty on the bike! (Very impressive bike split though – 2nd fastest of all finishers on the day.) Next in was Chris Wright – 12th overall and 4th in category – followed by Kris Heskett in his first race of the year (and hopefully not the last – some cracking race photos there Kris!).


As predicted, racing at Morpeth was fast and furious, with many athletes chasing ITU world champs qualification in the Sprint distance. Less predictable was the amount of confusion that could be caused by running multiple race distances on the same course at the same time! Sadly, 3 of our athletes – among, it must be said, many other competitors on the day – fell foul of this, leading to unfinished races from a wrong turn on the bike or too few loops completed for run 2. It’s all a learning curve! Still, there were some great results posted for the club – 2nd U20 for Matt Fearn, and 1st super-vet for Gavin Sword ensured CFRT were well represented on the podium again, while Matt Turnbull had an excellent race to come 7th overall/6th in category in a very competitive men’s open race. Looking forward to seeing the BTF qualification notices coming out! Meanwhile, in the standard distance, Georgia Campbell managed to run herself into 3rd place after hitting T2 in 4th from a tough bike – some very strong ladies out there yesterday, with a special mention for friend to the club, Fire and Rescue service’s Nat Batey for an excellent win!


On the triathlon front, we were represented at 2 races this weekend. Keith Sutton, making a comeback from injury, had great time at Halesowen sprint tri, coming 11th overall and 2nd v40 … and managing to grab a photo-op with Non Stanford! While at Skipton Triathlon we were again well represented by Michael Lavender, making a habit of his podium performances in 3rd place, with Matty Davidson coming in 9th (just ahead of Alan Copland), and Gav Richardson chasing in 18th (4th in age category).


Fantastic racing from everyone, as usual, and another great display of both work ethic and team spirit! Keep it up team, see you all out there soon J