Tri action at Rutland and Harwich

19 June 2016 - By James Montgomery

Lots of Triathlon action over the weekend with 6 club members taking part in two very different events.

Early on Saturday morning in England’s smallest county of Rutland, at Rutland water Alex and Liz Stucley and Tony Wallen took on the GB Team qualifier event The Dambuster. This standard distance event, is known throughout the triathlon community for the infamous “Rutland Ripple” the bike course passes over, a series of nasty climbs that help make this a tough bike course.

But before that the competitors had to endure the cold of Rutland water, providing it’s own challenges and after a series of swimming-related wardrobe malfunctions on finishing the 1500 meters cold swim, Alex decided a hot tea and bacon buttie was far more tempting than a bike ride and run, even if he had posted the fastest swim time of the trio! Liz and Tony carrying on after the swim endured further issues on the 40 kms bike, born from the cold, with feet and hands “like blocks of ice” and to compound matters, Tony suffered a puncture.

Both thawed out on the run and had good solid runs to the finish with Tony edging ahead by 4 minutes at the end.

Tony Wallen
Swim:     34:53
Bike:    1:23:36
Run:      44:26
Total:  2:46:45

Liz Stuckey
Swim:     34:41
Bike:   1:26:17
Run       46:02
Total:  2:50:44

Alex Stuckey
Swim:     32:23

In the popular Harwich Triathlon, based at the Dovercourt Swimming Pool, another three members were taking part in the Sprint Triathlon, taking in a 300 meters swim, 24kms bike and 5 kms run.

Scott Darney, finishing 12th, Andy Notley finishing 29th and David Jobling finishing 53rd took part in the well organised afternoon kick event, conditions were good for Harwich (ie no heavy rain!!), a little breezy on the bike and mostly overcast making it a little cool at times although ideal conditions for the run section. The 300m pool swim was followed by a 24k bike section, quicker in the second half, and the flat 5k seafront run. All in all great day out for our combatants with some fantastic individual sections, Scott blasted the bike and run with Andy recovering from injury blitzing the swim they finished 4 & 5th in their age group. A bit further down and finishing 3rd in his new age group was David Jobling putting in a decent bike section.

Scott Darney
12 Scott Darney
Swim:       5:31
Bike:      44:08
Run:       19:35
Overall: 1:11:28

Andy Notley
Swim:        4:44
Bike:       48:14
Run:        22:18
Overall:  1:17:17

David Jobling
Swim:         8:00
Bike:        47:58
Run:         24:16
Overall:   1:22:14