Friday 12 September 2014

Weekend recap 6 - 7/9/14

Last weekend was definitely a busy one for the club, with no fewer than 19 members out racing at various events – nearly half of the club!

Things kicked off with Steve Williams' epic swim at Coniston on Saturday – an end to end swim of Coniston, coming in at a total of 5.25miles! Steve put in a brilliant performance, finishing in 3hours 2seconds. While he might have preferred 3 seconds less, I think we can all agree that this is a fantastic achievement.

Also competing in a swim-only event was Sean Harrion – taking part in a 3.8km iron-distance swim at Kielder Water, as a first stepping-stone to 'going long'. Sean was 17th out of the water – 11th male – in a time of 1:15:03, great stuff.

Last weekend was also Great North Run weekend, always a fantastic time for the region. Originally we were going to have 4 athletes out running, but Garry Walker managed to get a last-minute number, taking our total up to 5. Hot conditions on the day made this a tough event, but all 5 CFRT runners coped admirably. Garry put in a spectacular 1:22:01 run to come 206th overall after an already tough weekend of training – looks like you'll have to come back and do it properly next year to see what you can really do! Next in was Gavin Sword in a time of 1:28 (a bit of a stroll for Gavin given he was still jetlagged from Edmonton!), followed by Chris Wright (1:46:19) just ahead of brother Rob (1:48:34). Kris Heskett had made the day infinitely more difficult for himself by running the event barefoot for charity, making his final time of 1:54:14 very impressive indeed. Update from Kris' JustGiving page: "Thanks again to all that have donated so far, we are on target with offline donations and the finishing time sweepstake that went unclaimed as no one had selected my finish time of 1:54:14. I'm chuffed and chafed. Feet are doing well despite being stamped on!!"

While the GNR was underway, a further 10 of our athletes were taking on Helvellyn triathlon. A marvellous day out was had by all (even if Micky did think that the climb up Swirral Edge was "**** ridiculous – that's not a triathlon – are they trying to kill everyone?!?") on a very tough course … and miraculously, everyone came back in one piece! Paul S was first CFRT home in 4:12:24, having overtaken Mick P (4:13:50) in the final mile of the run – both finished in the top 50 of this huge, and massively competitive event, big congrats. Next in were Micky M (4:17:15), Dave Wallace (4:22:54) and Mike Wallace (4:23:00), closely followed by Jen Batey (4:27:24) who stormed home to a fantastic finishing position of 2nd lady! Next were Georgia C (4:53:08), Angela C (5:11:27) and Lisa I (5:42:06), with final CFRT finisher Andrew coming in after 6:10:32- a very respectable time given the half hour spent sorting out a puncture on the course. He says never again, but we've all heard that before :P Some excellent free photography on the day - check out Helvellyn photos at awoladventure.com

This weekend is looking a little quieter, with just Rob and Chris Wright out racing again at buttermere triathlon. Clearly looking for another challenge after Wensleydale 'cheeseman' tri, this looks to be another vicious event – good luck!