Daily Archives: 08/07/2024

July 2024 Newsletter

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Welcome to the Viceroys July Newsletter where we highlight all the main events, news and things you need to know for the month ahead! But before we get into July, let’s take a look at the best bits from June.

The highlights of the past month have got to be the 24hr Swim Relay (catch up here) and the Viceroys Club Championships, exciting race report coming soon!

Once again, we’ve had an amazing series of Race/Event Reports (catch up here) featuring the Martian Race, Vätternrundan, Free Tri Series Walton, the Grafman, the Bull Ring 200, Madrid Marathon, May Flyer and RideLondon-Essex 100.

Plus, Coaches Corner is back with Coach Ralph’s top tips for transitions along with a couple video examples. If you have any requests, please do let us know.

So let’s get to it then, here is EVERYTHING (well almost everything) you need to know…

YOUR VICEROYS CLUB CHAMPIONS
Sunday 30th June
Location: Thorpe Park

It was fantastic to see so many VTC members in our very own starting wave at this years Viceroys Club Champs and the encouragement and cheering throughout the course was spectacular!

Big congratulations to this year’s VTC Club Champions, Anna Chapman and Sam Holloway, and every single Pink on the start line! We can’t wait to do it again next year!

VICEROYS CLUB RELAY
Sunday 15th September
Location: Woking Pool in the Park

It’s that time of the year again to get excited about Club Relays! You know what comes next, so please read below and send us your details.

For club members who have not taken part before, get involved! This is our annual club relay event where we get together, race our hearts out in teams and enjoy a morning with lots of laughter and encouragement from your club mates. You will be finished before breakfast time so no excuses for not taking part!

PLUS!! We’ll be holding the end of the season P-A-R-T-Y later that same day!
SAVE THE DATE NOW!

What you need to do: Send Marit your preferred discipline + timing, for example 400m swim/10mins, or send details for all disciplines that you are happy to do.
Email address marit.sormus@gmail.com

Swim 400m time
Bike 20k time
Run 5k time

Teams are put together based on your swim, bike and run times. The goal is to balance the teams as much as possible and make it challenging, sorry we meant fun, for everyone 🙂

Please could you send your details before 30th July so we will have enough time to get the teams together and then readjust them (we all know it’s going to happen).

VICEROYS END OF SEASON PARTY
Sunday 15th September
Location: TBC but SAVE THE DATE it’s going to be EPIC

Don’t worry, we will still have various Viceroys things going on after this date, but it’s always good to finish the triathlon season with a party while the weather is still spectacular!

We’ll release further details next month, but for now, please save the date!

ZOGGS WETSUIT TEST
Date: Monday Coached Session (Date to be confirmed)
Location: Shepperton Lake

Are you looking for a new wetsuit or have thought about trying a Zoggs wetsuit? Well now you have the chance.

Triton Outdoors are giving Viceroys club members the opportunity to try out Zoggs wetsuits during a Monday coached swim session. Provisional date is 29th of July and we will capture information (type/size) beforehand.

Keep an eye on the club app, date confirmation and additional communication will be shared there.

RETRO JERSEY RIDE
Sunday 18th August

Our Retro Jersey ride has earned its place as an annual event in our club calendar.

So get your retro club jersey ordered so you can pretend to be our very own Chris Lillywhite winning the Milk Race back in ’93!

NB: buy your jerseys early from AliExpress

ISLE OF WIGHT SOCIAL RIDE
Saturday 24th August

Join us on our social ride following the famous ‘Randonnee’ route around the island.

If we can group up in a few cars, we can park them near the ferry terminal and go over as foot passengers. The ferries run regularly, so it’s normally straightforward to coordinate and it’s a fantastic route around the island, especially the stretch along the spectacular Military Road on the SW coast!

Race Report: Ophelia Vesely

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Event: Staffordshire 70.3 Ironman
Date: 11th June 2023

I’ve had my heart set on completing an Ironman ever since starting triathlon, but I thought a Half Ironman would be a good challenge itself, so signed up to Staffordshire 70.3 with some friends from university. I was pretty confident about my ability to finish the race given I was comfortable with those distances and had done other endurance events (although no triathlon longer than a sprint distance), but had very low expectations of my times.

The entry prices are very expensive as the race takes a huge amount of administration, road closures, equipment, etc. Granted, you do get a lot of freebies with your sign-up like food, drinks and a T-shirt or having a tree planted, but it still seemed a bit steep compared to other race organisers.

Unfortunately, about 8 weeks before the race I got Achilles tendinitis so running in the build-up was minimal. It seemed every tester run just sent me back to square one in recovery. This meant my race day plan was to not do the run at all, given my main race of the season (World Sprint Championships) was only a month after.

The day before I spent travelling to Stafford via 3 conveniently delayed trains, meeting my overheating family in the car who had driven there to support me and rushing around the split transitions to get everything in place. Getting out of transition one minute before it shut was a wonderfully relaxing way to spend a birthday.

After good food and a good sleep however, I was ready to give it my best shot and woke up at 05:00am on race day feeling pretty stress-free given my low expectations! That didn’t last long though as I stood in the Portaloo queue hearing the swim time I wanted to self-seed myself in (the 30-35 minute wave) was being sent off. I eventually entered the water in the 40-45 minute slot and quickly found a good rhythm, keeping within my aimed pace despite having to swim around quite a lot of people. Leaving the water after 1.9km I got stuck behind dawdlers on some uncomfortable matting over rocks but executed T1 fairly efficiently.

Onto the 90km bike, the first 10km was pretty nasty, stuck behind people on tight and potholey roads. Then I realised sub-3 hours might be within reach given the run would be a write-off anyways. The ride was pretty rolling in terms of hills with an incredible amount of side-line supporters. It was a nice, thankfully shady route and I absolutely loved it. My ankle started to hurt at kilometre 20-30 but lessened as the ride went on. I’m not sure if I could’ve ridden at this speed if I was planning to run a decent half marathon after, but it was a good lesson in what my body can cope with. My only complaint was that my trisuit gave me chafing but it wasn’t too painful and peeing on the fly might not have helped but getting off the bike is a waste of time when racing (sorry to the competitor overtaking me at this point).

Rolling into T2 in 02:58:22 I was very happy with myself and the pain in my ankle had gone so began the 21.1km run. The heat hit down hard but the town centre atmosphere carried me for a few kilometres. Then the pain set in and I slowed down to a jog. After another kilometre or so I realised that although I certainly felt fine otherwise to keep racing, it wasn’t worth the damage to my tendon. So, I pulled out of the race and walked about 3 kilometres to the finish line through many frustrating “GO ON”s and “KEEP RUNNING”s which was pretty mentally crushing. My family were a bit surprised to see me on the outside of the finish chute and not in it, but had also been expecting me not to even start the run.

It was nice to try out an official Ironman event and I definitely plan to be back for more – the organisation and atmosphere were otherworldly.