Just in case you get confused, Alan is a cyclist, not a triathlete. He got started by cycling to work on a mountain bike and couldn’t understand how people on road bikes were going so fast, so he up graded to one then noticed the difference. Then upgraded again and again and again…  He had never done any sport until he was 28 years of age, although with his passion for being on a bike now you would have thought he’d been cycling for ever!

Picture of him in France last Sunday ( red/white) doing a seventy five mile sportive… welcome to Viceroys Alan, and congratulations on your new daughter Caris.

Early alarms, anxiety and panic were the overwhelming feelings as Viceroys Carl Fisher, Dan Spalding, Mark Yeoman, Charlotte Hargreaves, Gary Brine, Phil Goss and Karen Clarke-Hoffman prepared to get to the Windsor triathlon on time – and little did they know, there was a champion in their midst. 

Carl laid all his kit out in nice neat rows checked the bike for storm damage and satisfied himself that he was truly ready to nail this one… and then he lost his timing chip. His transition space looked like it had been hit by a hurricane and panic had set in with only 20 minutes to go – not recommend as a pre race warm up. 

Swims  went really well, perhaps except for Charlotte who came away with a bloodied nose! Others stayed calm, although Dan compared the swim exit to ‘wildebeest scrambling out of the Mara river ‘ – but he still managed a pleasing 28:58 swim. As our triathletes moved through the blur of transition, Dan managed a quick hello to a rather spent-looking Mark Yeoman, little knowing at the time that he was viewing a spent future race champion.  Carl set off with an aim of 30+ km/h on the bike knowing it was a hilly course, but actually clocked a 32km/h so was very happy with his 1:18:39 bike split.  With the move to run, Dan pushed to maintain a 45-min pace, Carl was reunited with his previously lost timing chip.

 Dan: ‘Happy with my finish time of 2.32, although having done Windsor in 2.34 and 2.30, getting under 2.30 continues to be elusive!’ 

Carl: ‘I crossed the line with a 49:27 run split and a total time of 2:41:32.  Best of all a story to tell of another great day out surrounded by Family and Friends.  I was also incredibly proud to learn that Mark Yeoman, our coach; chairman and mentor was the fastest man out there and topped the table in first place.  Congratulations!’ 

Viceroys is literally the best triathlon club around.

Peter Bell and Colette Kitterhing headed down to Ashford in Kent – for Colette her second race ever and for Pete just his forth.

Based on the open water coaching sessions at Shepperton, Pete decided to “get in the mix” at the swim start – as taught by coach Yeo he set off on “2” at the countdown and loved the thrashing/kicking/hitting of all the bodies in the water and  constantly looked for other swimmers to draft off. On the second lap, Pete did a racing turn round one of the buoys and was surprised by the number of people behind him. By the end of the swim Pete was a staggering 5 mins ahead of his usual 1500m time… while Colette was still fighting with the weed that seemed to infest the lake. None the less, seeing her fellow Viceroy in the distance (well the end of the men’s wave) Colette managed to leave the bulk of the female wave behind her and was really pleased to catch up with the end of the men’s, leaving the water right in the mix with only a few ladies ahead of her. 

Biking like a pro, Pete maintained his planned pedal cadence and power output and  stayed in aero tuck (despite his back complaining), told his screaming quads to shut up and maintained visual contact with the bikes that dared pass him. Meanwhile, Colette describes, “A wonderful ride though the Kent countryside.”

Normally the run is  the strongest part of Pete’s race, but his legs were heavier than usual off the bike so there was a little bit of an “ironman shuffle” for the first km, but he took heart from the large number of shufflers he was able to cruise past around the cross-country circuit. As Pete  reached the athletics stadium for the finish, he was inspired: “ I could imagine Coach Yeoman’s track session shouts (stand tall, high knees, push off the toes, etc, etc) in my head and sprinted for the line. I stopped the watch – just over 40 mins for the 10km – reasonable for me. “ Colette too had a PB on the run and did spectacularly to finish overall 4th in the female sprint (5 mins off the leader). 

New to Viceroys, new to triathlon, Colette made the switch after gym boredom set in – a May deadline for a Dorney triathlon (it was then just December) was an abundance of time to learn the quirky insanities of the sport we all love. She remembers standing on the edge of the lake worrying about her sanity in May as she prepared for her first open water swim; tipping gracefully from her bike as she came to terms with using cleats … at least she’s a good runner!

 Then came Dorney! From the moment Colette got in the water she loved it (hardly surprising – we’ve all seen her speeding off in Mark’s Monday swim coach sessions).Colette says: ‘I was so pleased with my time but I knew I had the bug when all I could think about was how I could make it faster. I’m looking forward to meeting more of the Viceroys, what must be the friendliest club around.’ Welcome to Viceroys Colette.

Held in Exmoor National Park, one of the most picturesque but also the bleakest areas of the UK if the weather is not in your favour, 3 hardy Viceroys battled heavy winds and torrential rain during this already challenging event. Despite this, Helen Blamey and Lloyd Cosgrove both claimed to have a ‘good’ swim, but both faltered at the bike course whose ‘challenging reputation’ precedes it: the bike course has 53 hills in 56 miles, 1750m of climbing!! None the less, Andrew Pirie managed an astounding 24kph average and smashed 3 hours 45 which he was thrilled with (not bad as he had only cycled with the Viceroys twice on a Tuesday, once on a Sunday plus some spinning classes – not the best preparation for 3000 ft climbs!). Helen’s  bike was nasty, not only was the weather against her, but the deteriorating road conditions caused  three big crashes around her: ‘ I had to stop going down the steep hill with the left hand turn at the bottom of it as a girl lost control, crashed and went straight under a car – quite scary’.

 Despite the dramas (including Andrew ‘doing a Paula Radcliffe on the run section due to pushing myself too hard and ingesting enough gels to kill a small continent’) each did their pink jerseys and club proud to finish such a challenge… Helen coming 5^th in her age group too. In Lloyd’s words:  

This race could be summed up in one word “BRUTAL.”

Tim Ferguson knew this was going to be a tough event as he got to racking and everyone was in high end kit. The swim was ferocious, ‘instead of front crawl I was attempting a sort of street dance freestyle. However once I remembered the swim tech that Mark had drilled into me I started to move through the field and picked up the pace for a strong finish’. A 4km climb on the bike leg pushed him to the limit, but none-the-less he started to glide through the field.Tim’s run didn’t start well, but thankfully this soon passed and he started to up the tempo imagining he was on the track and counting down the laps until the last 500m when he really picked up the pace, culminating in a crowd pleasing sprint finish. Pleasingly and slightly surprisingly Tim PBed in both the run and swim.

Tim says:’The organisation of this event was first rate and I can say, after a few beers, much food and plenty of rest, that I thoroughly enjoyed it.’ Next time a less dramatic race perhaps though Tim?

In Phil Goss we have picked up a frustrated marathon runner, who after several injury-marred attempts at training for a marathon, turned to triathlon last August and loved it.  Scheduled to do his second Olympic distance this Sunday at Windsor (if he can fix the big hole in his wetsuit!), Phil has moved onwards quickly from his first sprint tri a year ago.Phil states his tri career (all 365 days of it) highs and lows as:  being in Ali Brownlee’s wave at Abu Dhabi in March (Phil’s wife spoke to him at the end, but by the time he rolled in he’d showered, had his lunch and left) and getting sick from swimming in the Thames.

Just one tip for Phil… don’t mention your life long football playing to coach Yeo, but we all love your season’s goal and perhaps should make it a team one: ‘to burn enough calories to offset a dangerously high cake intake.’

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.

I year ago, David Smith entered Blenheim Triathlon and enthusiastically persuaded his new tri club buddies to do the same. Kate, Jon, Nicola, Helen, Adel, Deon, Fleur all signed up to follow in Dave’s footsteps… but what actually happened on the day?

David did not turn up, doing nothing to dispel the rumour that he is no more than a  computer generated entity who manages aspects of our web site from a virtual world; Helen ditched Blenheim in favour of next week’s 70.3; Fleur was otherwise occupied with work and children; the remaining 5 competed in the triathlon, but managed to do so in 4 separate waves over 2 days!

So how did everyone do? Adel had a rather stressful start, as he turned up to transition with only 1 running trainer, but eventually had a strong race in all disciplines.Ex Iron Man Jon entered the supersprint to take on a new challenge, managing an excellent 11th in his AG despite being asked by kayak support if he was ok as he stopped to tread water for a bit during his swim. Well done to Nicola who tackled the washing machine terror of her first Open Water Swim Tri – great transitions and strong bike from her too. Kate was delighted to take 3 minutes off her swim time after drafting coaching from Mark, for the first time ever having the confidence to not just sit at the back of the pack. Great racing Viceroys.