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 →

Viceroys Kate, Jon, Nicola and Lisa travelled to Blenheim Palace to take part in the nationwide ‘Swim Britain’, a series of team relays to encourage the nation to get swimming. The target was 4000m per team, with each team member swimming 4x250m legs.

After losing their weakest member Kate to (ex) Wimbledon Ladies RFC team and picking up a ringer from the crowd who had just come to support (a bridesmaid that photographer Jon had met at a wedding a couple of months previously), Viceroys were feeling confident and the race was on. Viceroys’ opposition however, included a swim coach, an ex GBR age group triathlete and another third swimmer who could match either of her team mates (and Kate).

Jon ‘zig-zag’ Tennant swam hard, trying to keep a straight line and even managed to lose his swim hat on one leg; he was soon shown up though by the Viceroy ladies, as Lisa ‘whippet’ Yeoman (fastest 250m at 05:10 and fastest 1000m at 21:17) and Nicola ‘mysmartcoach prodigy’ Jordan swam the team to a 2 minute victory over the Wimbledon Ladies RFC team. Go Viceroys!

The conditions on the day Saturday’s Bushy Park run were perfect: warm, dry and still. The enormous field, over 1000 runners consisted of four Viceroys competing for the inaugural club 5k running championship. After a season of coached track sessions and lake side runs, our 4 fastest: Alex Rothwell, Andrew Tugwell, Peter Bell and Tim Ferguson, took advantage of the conditions to all set new personal bests. 

Pete Bell had awoken that morning knowing victory was well nigh impossible – he woke up with a sore throat and aching muscles on Thursday and was still suffering… even his attempts to sabotage the event for his competitors had failed. Pete’s ally Anna (at his suggestion) had told competitors that the dress code was tri suits, helmets and flip flops – but alas, no-one fell for this. Continue reading →

‘After starting my triathlon career with Ironman Wales last year, my aim for 2013 was to fill in the blanks with a super sprint and sprint at Dorney then this weekend’s Olympic at Reading. The day was well organised, the lake lovely and I’m happy with the result (10th in AG) BUT this isn’t one for a PB.  The bike is long (44k I think) and on open roads.  I got stuck behind a car a few times, there’s a full stop right turn on both laps and a couple of hairy hairpins (there was a pretty bad crash today) The run is great for spectators as its 6 laps off road round a lake but it does make it tough to spot someone to keep pace with as by lap 3 or 4 everyone racing is out there. If anyone knows a closed road Olympic for next year I’d love to hear (8 laps of Dorney is a boring prospect!)

Joel’s biggest lesson from this race?’ I made a BIG race mistake!  Taped one energy gel to the bike for lap two and stuck one in my running shoe to grab in T2.  Forgot about that one, remembered half way into lap one but had a bloke breathing down my neck so couldn’t stop.  Nice blisters on my toes after 10k with a gel stuck in my shoe; not to be recommended!’

As raced and reported by Joel Stainton