As a First Time Age Grouper, Competing for TEAM GB in both Sprint and Olympic events, Pete advises that you choose your races carefully and learn to love Cheap Hotels!

What made you want to commit to world champs qualification?

I recall Mark’s email late last year encouraging everyone to have a go – I though why not…with a bit of effort it might be possible.

What were the best and worst bits about qualifying and how did you qualify? Continue reading →

Lara agrees to train for the Worlds on an Alcohol Fuelled High – and has a hen do the weekend before Chicago!

‘Towards the end of last year I thought I would sign up to the qualifying races for the world qualifiers. Partly because at Mark’s birthday I ‘made a deal’ with Colette. We said ‘it would be fun’ (I was very drunk!)

So I set about training over the winter and my Achilles and ankles kept playing up. Numerous trips to see the physio and I kept being told to stop running for periods of time, but it wasn’t helping. Then my friend announced her wedding date (I’m her bridesmaid) and it coincided with Chicago. So I just kind of gave up on training, although I continued to swim.

The 1st qualifier at St Neot’s was the most freezing swim ever, I’d already made my mind up I hadn’t trained enough to qualify, the swim really just made me feel like I’d complete the race but not really compete. The run was tough after a severe lack of training, I walked a lot! Continue reading →

With the Triathlon World Championships on the horizon, we ask ourselves how a club that only had its fifth birthday last year has managed to produce 17 (yes 17, that’s 15% of the club’s triathletes) triathletes who are good enough and have trained hard enough for qualification to race in Chicago for their country, you are awesome Mark Yeoman, Colette Kitterhing, Lucy Collins, Colin Hinsley, Kevin Dargue, Scott Forsyth, Hannah Thompson, Tim Gray, Jen Isaac, Lara Clay, James Turner, Richard Jones, Peter Bell, Yann Umbricht, Mark Edmunds, Moira Larkin, Mike Essex

First, we talk to Mark Yeoman, Viceroys’ founder, chairman and coach – who as you will discover is not entirely uninvolved in the successes of many of his fellow Viceroys’ motivation and qualification too. Continue reading →

Check out this article about the Viceroys on 220Triathlon.com….

http://www.220triathlon.com/training/key-training-sessions-from-viceroys-triathlon-club/10399.html

Congratulations to all of the Viceroys who took part in the London Ride 100 this weekend. See below a list of times with OT (Official Time) and MT (Moving time). Looking forward to seeing some of the pictures…

First running of Thorpe Olympic distance. Swim was one lap – pretty awful swim at 28.55 mins due to leaky goggles and generally not swimming well, not helped by the fact one contact lens scrunched up from the leaks half way round so sighting (not my forte!) was hard. Bike was good- nice flat, mildly undulating but fast course. Overtook lots of people, and a few nice battles with people to keep me on my toes. Heavens opened half way round, a few dodgy corners ensued. 1.12 for the bike split. Run three laps around the park- felt hard and slow due to an injured foot but marshals told me I was third lady- tried to catch number two but legs wouldn’t do it. She beat me by 10 seconds. Final time 2.28.14. A great race for building confidence and nice and fast.

Recommend for next year- local always a bonus too. very chuffed with result, third lady and 2nd in age group.

I took part in the first ever Croyde Triathlon standard distance this weekend. It was a sea swim, possibly not the best part of the country for a sea swim as North Devon is known for its surfing beaches. There was a 4ft swell in Puttsborough beach so they allegedly shortened it (my Garmin clocked just shy of 1500m however!). The waves were so big I struggled to even get off the beach and then I couldn’t see the second buoy until I was 10m away. I couldn’t find any distinguishing cliff features to sight from either! I was one of the first women out of the sea so I was pretty happy. Not so happy with the kilometre hike (with 400m steep uphill slip road to navigate) back to transition on a field above the beach. I grabbed my bike looking forward to the cliff top views of the coastline but 5km in I decided it was no longer a race but a training ride! There was a long drawn out climb that lasted for what seemed like forever. Then the steepest of descents into Ilfracombe for a couple of kilometres before starting another even more drawn out climb. I spent 80% of my time in the easiest gear my bike has. After 600m of climbing on the bike I started the 12km ‘trail run’. It took us up and down the cliffs past Croyde and Saunton beaches, through farmers fields with crops chest height, many styles to cross over, before dropping down to the coastline to run across Croyde beach. Then one final push up another steep climb over and round Baggy Point back to Puttsborough. Needless to say it wasn’t fast paced with 250m of climbing! Not sure I’d do it again!!

Pretty views if you’re in any fit state to take them in 😀 Lara

I had my first race a fortnight ago at the Marlow Triathlon (Olympic), using it as more of a training race for an adventure race I have this weekend in Scotland, so just thought I’d drop you a bit of an overview!

The swim (always my weakest discipline) was a two lap course of in the river; although I think I must have been swimming upstream for most of it as I clocked 31mins when I finally made it out! The water was warm enough but I struggled to find any room to get into a rhythm, and I think not racing since last season didn’t help.

The bike was an out and back course on Open roads, with a bit of a climb at the turning point which meant that the end of the ‘out’ section was a bit of a plod, but the start of the ‘back’ section was a quick few km! My ‘good’ racing bike had also been taken up to Scotland so I was on my old ‘touring’ bike (I did take off the mud guards and pannier rack, which helped a bit!!), but came in at 1hr 14.

I managed a decent transition into the run, and the track sessions with Mark definitely paid off as my legs felt pretty fresh (…either that, or I hadn’t pushed particularly hard on the bike!). The first half of the lap was a river-side, off-road track which was pretty uneven before turning back on the road to transition. I don’t think I was overtaken on the run, so made up a few places and clocked 40.40.

All in all, it added up to a total time of 2hr 26mins. Definite room for improvement (and I think I’ll take up Mark on his offers of a 1-on-1 swim lesson!), but a really enjoyable race and a decent marker in the sand for the rest of the season.

I finished the Steelman race at Dorney on Saturday morning. My second ever try at a tri on a warm sunny morning.

I finished in 2:56 which was better than my 3 hour target and was chuffed to bits that my garmin informed me I’d just run my fastest ever 10k (after the swim and bike I was faster than any of my 10k training runs!).

Didn’t quite manage to reach Chairman Marks transition masterclass target of 60 seconds for T1 but snuck in at just over 2 minutes.

Now need to figure out what’s next…..!