Challenge Henley, Half Ironman distance was taken on by Yann and Peter this weekend… yes, Yann who reported his first triathlon at the beginning of this season!

Peter Bell begins the story of his challenge:

‘Last weekend saw my first venture into longer distance triathlons at the wonderful Challenge Henley event. I had hoped that my training this year (targeted at Olympic distance events) would see me through the event ok – how naive I was!

Race day started cold and misty – that was a surprise and shock to many of the competitors. In fact the starts were delayed about 15 minutes in the hope the mist would rise. But it was still pretty murky when I entered the Thames for the start of my wave. I’ve never seen so much bedlam at the start of a race – arms and legs flying everywhere for the first few hundred metres until the river widened out a bit. After that is was a fairly uneventful swim…and I just focussed on the technique we’d learned from Mark in the open water sessions. I got out in just over my target time of 36 minutes and into the change tent after I’d found my T1 transition bag.’ Continue reading →