WRC Weekend Triathlon Action

14 May 2018 - By James Montgomery

With the triathlon season getting under way and the water warming up… a bit, at least… WRC had several members in Tri action over the weekend at several veunes.

St Neots Triathlon

Nobody was looking forward to racing on Sunday with the forecasted weather, least of all Liz and Alex Stuckey, who’d made the trek over to Grafham Water for the St Neots standard distance triathlon, the venue having changed due to flooding at St Neots, who were then welcomed with fine and dry conditions.

The water was still a little on the cold side at just under 14 degC, and neither that nor the choppiness detered Liz, who set about recording a rapid 31 mins 24 secs swim, just over a minute behind Alex, for the 1500 meters swim.

Into T2, and while Alex was seemingly brewing up with a pedestrian 3 mins 13secs, Liz was in and out in under 2 minutes (even struggling with frozen hands and feet!) and out onto the slightly undulating out-and-back bike course, which seemed to measure slightly short at 23 miles.

While Alex took back the lost minutes, finishing the bike leg in spot-on 1hr 9mins, Liz was just a few minutes futher back getting to T2 in 1hr 12min 47secs.

Finally out on to the challenging, off-road and undulating 10kms run, with another out-and-back route making it easy to chase down those in front, especially Alex. With Liz posting the faster time of the two but just not enough to claw back the difference, however both pleased with performances on the day.

Splits:
Alex
Swim:      00:30:14
Bike         01.09.00
Run:        00:47:06
Overall:   02.31.56

Liz
Swim:      00:31:24
Bike         01.12.47
Run:        00:45:57
Overall:   02.33.16

 

Big East Triathlon

In his preparation for Ironman Austria, Lee Pembroke took on this event held a little more locally, at Bradwell-on-sea.

The 800 meters swim took place in the tidal Blackwater Estuary, making for a short but challenging swim, also in very cold water temperature.

Out on to the 43kms bike leg which was around the Dengie peninsula, which is also very prone to windy conditions and making for some tough-going in sections.

Finally to the 10kms run which, along with some super-fast transistion times,  helped Lee to cross the finish line in a total of 2hrs 39mins 28secs as 6th male vet and 20th overall.

Splits
Lee
Swim:     00:23:51
Bike       01.24.43
Run:       00:48:51
Overall:  02.39.28