Cheltenham Triathlon (Sunday September 11th 2011)

Sunday was the Cheltenham Triathlon in the beautiful surroundings of the Sandford Park Lido. The race is a super sprint over the following distances:

Swim - 500m (10 lengths of the pool)

Bike - 15km around Cheltenham

Run - 2.8km around the Lido and surrounding area

It's a great event hosted with the aim of the game being participation and fun. You get every type of triathlete attending from those with aero helmets and full carbon bikes to MTB's and bikes with baskets. This year there were around 700 entrants including three of the tri-club; Mark on the last day of his 40's, Stoddy in the last year of his 30's and Marcus er aged 40.

We all completed the event in the following times with finish places out of the 410 male participants that completed the event.

Nigel - 40th position in 00:52:04

Marcus - 57 position in 00:53:28

Mark - 88th position in  00:56:01

an honorary mention for Rob Barnes who in his first ever triathlon, with (I believe) no training completed the event in 01:16:47 finishing 381st.

The last male competitor completed the course in 04:03:22 with the winner completing it in a blistering 00:44:20!

Fantasy TDF - July 2011 (Powered by Velogames)

So with a frankly brilliant TDF now complete te final fantasy league standings are compiled.

The Shurdington Tri Club mini-league was won by Edlin who pipped Darren (who had been in yellow all the way through) on the last day to win by a meagre 127 points. Tim, who finished as the Lanterne Rouge managed a stage victory on stage 17 and was off the bottom for stage 20 only to drop there again on the final day.

Chapeau to Velogames for their free game - once again an excellent site set-up and maintenance. Ready for the Vuelta?

2011 Fantasy Tour de France (Rest Day 1)

Darren moves into a seemingly unasailable lead winning 6 of the 9 stages so far...

 

UK Ironman 70.3 - June 19th 2011

The three musketeers/amigo's/blind-mice (delete as applicable) took part in what by all accounts was a brutal course for the UK 70.3 Ironman triathlon.

The results are in although Nigel's are subject to a stewards enquiry with him currently listed as a DNF.

Nigel

Position - DNF (tbc)

Swim - 00:41:51 (pos. 1,224)

T1 - 00:07:56 (pos. 1,201)

Bike - 03:41:52 (pos 1,119)

T2 - 00:03:41 (pos 1,116)

Run - 01:51:43 (1,110)

Martin

Total Time - 06:45:49 (698)

Swim - 00:49:57 (pos. 1,117)

T1 - 00:12:14 (pos. 1,138)

Bike - 03:29:24 (pos 468)

T2 - 00:04:39 (pos 925)

Run - 02:09:37 (733)

Mark

Total Time - 07:13:00 (885)

Swim - 00:53:51 (pos. 1,168)

T1 - 00:11:14 (pos. 1,081)

Bike - 03:44:03 (pos 694)

T2 - 00:06:25 (pos 1,060)

Run - 02:17:29 (855)

Tony Fairs
Total Time - 07:13:00 (998)

Swim - 00:38:55 (pos. 539)

T1 - 00:09:28 (pos. 895)

Bike - 04:00:01 (pos 911)

T2 - 00:04:23 (pos 876)

Run - 02:41:14 (1,060)

The mens race was won by Mikel Elgezabal in a blistering time of 04:25:15. Victory ensured by posting the fastest bike time by just short of 5minutes to give him a win over 2nd placed Stephen Bayliss by a mere 00:01:15.

Swim - 00:25:53 (pos. 10)

T1 - 00:03:21 (pos. 13)

Bike - 02:31:32 (pos 1)

T2 - 00:01:30 (pos 84)

Run - 01:23:01 (5)

Gloucester Sprint Triathlon - 29th May 2011

Nigel took part (for the second year running?) in the Gloucester triathlon which is raced over sprint distance (400m pool swim/25km bike/6km run) from Brockworth sports centre.

According to the website results are still be finalised (2 weeks after the event??!) but Nigel was 93rd out of 169 (with 3 DNF's) in a time of 01:32:46.

The reported splits are as follows:

Swim - 00:19:06 (169th pos)
T1 - 00:00:49
Bike - 00:47:24 (32nd pos)
T2 - 00:01:05
Run - 00:24:20 (28th pos)

Not sure that swim time is accurate but treating this as a training session in a weekend of BIG training he recorded decent bike and run splits.

He also managed in T1 to put his helmet on the right way.

Edinburgh Marathon - 22nd May 2012

The team continued their participation in events across the British Isles with Mark competing in the Edinburgh Marathon. Patched up by physio's, chiro's, chiropodists and some bloke he met in tesco's. Held together by compression socks, tape and glucosamine he took to the streets of Edinburgh completing his debut at marathon distance in a time of 04:19:09.

His splits were:
10k - 00:57:58
half - 02:03:34
30k - 02:58:56
Full - 04:19:09

Well done Mark!

Fantasy Giro d'Italia 2011 (Powered by Velogames)

This years fantasy Giro was a good contest with the lead changing on a number of occassions...

The final standings are:
1. Marcus - 6,372 points
2. Darren - 5,405 points
3. Martin - 5,318 points
4. Rob - 4,409 points

Next up the fantasy TdF in July also to be powered by Velogames.

Fantasy Football - Final Standings 2010/11

With the Premier League season 2010/11 finally over the final standings can be confirmed:

Winning at his first attempt despite being only 11years old is Luca with a total of 1,440 points. At the rear was Le Fasset with 1,082 points.

Final standings:

Luca - 1,440
Darren - 1,410
Nigel - 1,405
Marcus - 1,387
Marcus (2) - 1,285
Martin - 1,082

Based on the initial team selection, that is without any substitutions, the league would look like this:

Marcus (2) - 1,288
Darren - 1,231
Luca - 1,223
Martin - 1,102
Marcus - 1,093
Nigel - 1,063

Based on Goals Scored

Marcus - 82
Nigel - 71
Darren - 70
Luca - 62
Marcus (2) - 60
Martin - 55

Runners World Forest of Dean Trailblazer 10k - 22nd May 2011

Runners World Forest of Dean Trailblazer 10k - 22nd May 2011

I blogged earlier in the week that I wasn't looking forward to the Runners World Forest of Dean Trailblazer 10k. The main problem I had with it being that rather than considering it a decent race I was viewing it as an opportunity for a long run missed. It was after all a Sunday morning and, as I latterly found out, the same day as the Tewkesbury Half Marathon. If it wasn't for the fact that I had paid £29 to enter, which seems pretty steep, I wouldn't have bothered.

So I drove the 20 or so miles down to the race village at Speech House. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised. There was a race village with a running shop, bar,cafe and various massage tents etc. Very professional. I checked in, got my number (54) and then milled about a bit. For me this was a novelty - I had plenty of time - normally I am scrambling to get to the venue and then in a panic to get ready. So far so good.

When I picked up my number I did see there was a baggage drop and a valuables drop point. With about 1minutes to go to the warm up start I went to drop my bag only to find that the baggage claim was unattended. Cue a mad dash to the car to leave my bag there and then check my valuables which were my car keys!

At the start of each wave there was a warm-up period - this was led by a lady on a podium with a microphone who took everyone (reluctantly) through some stretches and limber up exercises. Some easy stuff to get the muscles working and get the heart rate up a little. It was pretty funny watching the other people in the wave do this as no-one looked comfortable doing it. We are so reserved.

To read the rest of the report click here:

Forest of Dean 'Trails' Half Marathon - Sunday 27th March

Mark was the sole club representative at the Forest of Dean 'Trails' Half Marathon completing the course in 1:50:54 which was good enough for 694th place out of 1833 finishers.

 

He offers no excuses for his performance other than the fact that his hads were cold!

The winning time was 1:13.20 and the slowest a gutsy and determined 3:52.12.

Mayhill Massacre 6th Feb 2011

Nigel made it a hat-trick of Mayhill Massacre's and smashed the club course record in the process with a time of 01:12:21. That was good enough for 112 out of 480 entrants! 

The big question is will he blog?

Gloucester Marathon 23rd January 2011

Best Laid Plans.....

Back in September 2010 I decided to attempt another long distance tri event. Although I started 2010 well by completing some running events, my plans to complete a further 3 triathlons during the summer fizzled out as I seemed to loose my mojo for training and racing. I guess this was partly due to lazyness, but also due to a change in job, complete refurbishment of the house, and the ever demanding but rewarding role of father and husband.

Mindful of the demands that an Ironman would have on my personal life I opted to enter the UK 70.3 – 1.2 Ironman event. I also decided to enter the Gloucester Marathon in January, focus solely on my running from October to January, and then start the Tri training post Marathon. I am much more successful at focusing on short terms goals, and the Glos Marathon came with a further challenge… Marcus had completed it the previous year in a very good time which I wanted to get as close to as possible. This was to be first Marathon in isolation, the previous two being a shuffle walk at the end of an Ironman. So, armed with a 16 week training plan, new trainers, a Garmin 305 and a renewed mojo I set myself the following targets.

• To beat my previous best Marathon time of 4:39 – set at the UK Ironman in 2008 – Shouldn’t be too difficult
• To complete the Glos Marathon without stopping to walk – Achievable
• To finish under 4 hours – Getting harder
• To finish in under 3:15 – Going to be mighty tough

Read the full blog entry here: http://stoddy.blogspot.com/2011/01/best-laid-plans.html

Gloucester 10 Mile - 9th January 2011

So the first event of the year for a member of the team was the Gloucester 10 mile road race which Martin took part in under his pseudonym of Mark Pierce.

The race was won by Robert Farley in a time of 00:58:07 with Le Fassett finishing in a respectable 64th (out of 207) in a time of 01:15:29.

2011........what lies ahead?

So here we are in 2011 and plans are being hatched, entry forms submitted (some already) and cheques for ever-increasing amounts being written. Training plans are being dusted down with the first challenge being to rid the body of the Christmas excesses and then larger goals ahead.

First up is meant to be Nigel with the Gloucester Marathon on 23rd January. Judging by his tweet this morning, "...No running for 2 weeks nowand no sign of when I will. May have to revist my aspirations for the glos marathon..." this looks to be in jeopardy as a dose of man-flu keeps its grip on him.

Martin is probably the most prepared and with plenty of time on his hands will probably be the most trained. He's entered the following.....

9th January - Gloucester 10 mile run

20^th March - Cotswold Marathon (26.2 mile run)

22^nd May - Swashbuckler  (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) – The New Forest

19^th June - Ironman UK 70.3 (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) - Brompton Regis

31^st July - Ironman UK (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) - Bolton

3^rd September - Vitruvian (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) - Rutland Water

? September - River Dart 10 km swim

Mark will continue to plough a furrow throught he veterans field and is entered into the Ironman UK (70.3) event for starters. The Dart 10k will also feature i am sure.

As for Marcus - it is a case of continuing recovery from ACL surgery and so no hard targets are set. The River Dart 10 km will be on the calendar and hopefully a late marathon (particularly if either Nigel or Martin break the club record of 03:15:00 in the coming months).

Details of Darren's events will be added once he has decided what his wife will beat him at this season :). 

Good luck to everyone with their training and Happy New Year! Lets hope 2011 brings some great performances at every level of competition.