Dan Spalding has been doing tris for about 5 years, but never got round to joining a club. He claims to be impressed by the welcoming and friendly approach of Viceroys, plus,” Judging from the running session I attended, I think I could learn a lot too!!” Dan has competed in Blenheim, Hever, Windsor and played lots of sports previously (cricket, squash, touch rugby) but an interest in running and cycling meant it was only a matter of time before I got into triathlons. Well done Viceroys, we’ve caught another one …

Good luck with Windsor tri this weekend Dan and your season’s targets:’ having done Windsor in 2.31 two years ago, I would love to go sub 2.30, but it’ll be hard work!’ And if Dan disappears off the scene (temporarily) during July/August, it’s because him and Mrs Dan are expecting their first baby.

ETU 2014 Qualifier – Grendon 26th May:1.10:41; 2nd in AG; 16th overall Qualified

Anyone who spoke to Alan Harris after this race would have thought he’d had a shocker. According to him: “Splits were slow … I’d come out of the swim some way back from the bunch and kept expecting to see them later on.  I felt rubbish on the bike and saw only a couple of others in my AG all the way round. I couldn’t get my legs going on the run and only picked-up one place.”

He was second in his age group.

 ITU 2013 Qualifier – Nottingham 1st June:1.01:06; 10th AG; 63rd overall

The Nottingham course is pan-flat and much like Dorney; narrow road space and a cross-wind. The swim was mental and a few seasoned racers said afterwards that they were ready to throw-in the towel after 200m. Alan had a comedy T1, taking a while to untangle himself from his wetsuit (refund Mark?),then had a comedy first lap of the bike  – Alan thought he was pushing 420w so held-off a bit having convinced himself that he was going to explode at any moment only to find that he was actually looking at his speed at 42km/h rather than his power. He pulled a load of places on the bike but was then overtaken by a ‘bunch’ on the back straight on the last lap (“drafters the lot of them, grrr”) and consequently got held up with nowhere to go and lost time: only 18 secs off automatic qualification for Hyde Park and a decent pb in the process though.