Alan ‘Clarkie’ Clark has wowed his fellow Viceroys this season as he has took the club championship’s Vets’Swim, Vets Bike title and made it to the Euros –  amongst other accolades, but how did he do at Hyde Park, racing for his country against the best in the world?
‘Grand weekend away at the world finals.

When I first thought of having a crack at qualifying last year I thought I’d stand a good chance of getting a place and looking at previous results thought I’d do rather well if I got in. This proved to be totally misguided as every lycra clad 45 something in my age group clambered for a chance to race in GB spandex in front of their friends, family and any other random person who made the mistake of asking what they did in their spare time.

By the time I actually managed to get to Sunday’s race  I was just glad to be there.   We all panicked about the weather the random rules they made us comply to in the name of fairness but  just confused the life out of us all. They shortened  the swim by half as it looked like it was cold, but the sun stayed out so we all moaned.

I swam biked and ran as hard as I could. My swim was average, by time I got going it was time to get out, I ran a mini marathon in transition and biked a bit better than I swam, I then ran till I thought my legs had been replaced by lead tubes, but it was all done to the sound of  cheering  on a closed  course that was amazing to race.

I finished some where behind a lot but in front of a few. My kids cheered themselves senseless fuelled on a mixture of family pride fruit shoots and Cornettos.

It was hard getting there, great to race and I felt great wearing my GB kit in front of my family especially my littlens.’

Alex Rothwell also reports on his race: ‘ The swim was cut down to 750m because of the water and air temperatures and they were worried about people getting hypothermia. The water did actually feel pretty chilly but by the time I had started at 10:15 the sun was out so as soon as the wetsuit came off it was quite a pleasant temperature to race in.

I had a tough time on the bike as the legs weren’t there (nothing to do with going out last week!) and was getting cramp on the first lap, which has never happened before! but the experience of riding around Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace on closed roads lined with cheering supporters was something really special. The sound of “Come on GB” from the side of the road really does spur you on. I felt quite good on the first few run laps and was gradually working my way up through the field, the support from the side was great as by this point as the crowds had started to build in anticipation of the elite race. Getting my name on the race suit seemed to be a good investment as plenty of the shouts of encouragement were directed at individual athletes and hearing your own name be called by strangers was pretty cool – in a super vain type of way.

Legs fell off completely on the last lap of the run and was in pure survival mode, I was definitely paying the cost of lots of missed training over the summer after a fairly strong spring qualification campaign. Crossing the line on the blue carpet was a nice insight to how the pros must feel when racing and I was pleased in the knowledge that despite a lacklustre performance I couldn’t have put any more effort in on the day. 55th out of 168 – to be bettered next year!’