Mallorca 70.3 and gibside fruitbowl

Many congratulations to Garry Walker for an excellent performance at this weekend's Challenge Mallorca 70.3  Only Garry's 2nd half-iron tri, this new event was serving as the European Middle Distance Triathlon Championships for 2014 - allowing for a third outing of the GB colours for Garry this year! In brutal conditions (+30°C temperatures leading to many athletes requiring saline treatment by the finish), Garry finished in an excellent 112th overall/ 11th in age group, finishing his season on a definite high. Look out for his race report with more details of the day, coming soon :-)

Also racing this weekend were Gavin Sword and Steve Williams at the Gibside Fruitbowl. Gavin put in an excellent performance to come 28th overall - up 14 places on last year - and second in his age group on this demanding course. Steve Williams was under physios orders to take it easy, using this as an opportunity to test out his recovery from this year's ankle injury, and finished safely in 44th in his age group.

Well done all!

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Final multisport weekend of 2014!

Our CFRT multisport season is finally coming to a close this weekend - and what a relief it must be for Garry Walker to finally be able to hang up his trisuit for the winter and take some well earned and much needed rest! Just a little half-Ironman to get out of the way first though ...

This weekend, Garry is competing in the ETU middle distance championships, in just his second ever middle distance race, at Challenge Paguera-Mallorca. With a relaxed lunchtime start (11:10 GB time) and a beautiful setting, this looks to be an excellent end to the season. There will hopefully be an athlete tracker live on the challenge mallorca website tomorrow - Garry is race number 262 if you want to see how he's getting on  Best of luck Garry!

Also, more locally, this Sunday is the 18th Gibside Fruitbowl - a tough 7 mile run hosted by Blackhill Bounders and appropriately advertised as 'not flat'! This year we have both Gavin Sword and Steve Williams taking part in this sold-out event - best of luck both, enjoy it :) 

Kona Update

As I'm sure your all aware, CFRT athlete, coach and committee member Elliot Gowland competed at the Ironman World Championships at Kailua-Kona, Hawaii this weekend. (Not even for the first time -  what an athlete!) Update from Elliot post-race:

"Hi all thanks for all your support today and all the good lucks over the past few weeks. Today I went to hell and back and struggled to cope with all 3 disciplines but I still finished the race in what turned out to be my biggest test since I done my very first Ironman in 2005. This is why I love racing Ironman this is the challenge I love starting a race not knowing if I will finish it. So now it's feet up and time to repair for a while before I get ready to head back to Lanzarote next year. Thanks again and cheers."

Elliot completed Ironman Hawaii in a final time of 10:55:04, after a 1:16:20 swim and a 6:45:25 bike, finishing with a very impressive 4:05:36 marathon. Many congratulations from everyone at Coalfields RT - time to enjoy a well-deserved rest!

Also racing this weekend we had Chris Barnard finishing off his season at Hartside Duathlon. This year's training has obviously paid off with an excellent 5th place finish - very impressive, and looking good for some time on the podium next year after a solid winter of training :)

Finally, marathon-running duo Linda and Paul were representing CFRT at the Yorkshire marathon this weekend. That's 17 down now for Linda

 (quite the collection of medals!), after a run of 5:10:03, while Paul posted an awesome time of 3:02:33. Get those shins sorted for next year and there's a sub-3 on the cards?!

Well done all, and enjoy your well-deserved rest before the winter work starts!