As the rest of us were having a Bank Holiday lie in, Mick Tumilty, Carl Fisher, Lance Keeson and Rachel Hall were heading to Hampton for Thames Turbo 2. For those of you still in bed, the weather could not have been better.

After a winter of training hard, this was Carl’s first triathlon of the season and with a banner of ‘Clarkie’s Curse’ on his post race commentary, one cannot but wonder how this much awaited race panned out: ‘I got held up by the four guys who started in front of me on the swim, threw my toys out the pram but that’s Thames Turbo for you and I should have taken it in my stride! Cocked up T1 ran 10m past my bike still fuming about being held up in the swim.’

The much calmer Mick, although beginning with an equally unspectacular swim, was blazing by T1: ‘a very quick T1 (credit to Mr Yeoman) and a flying start that drew gasps of “slow down” and “oh my God” from the marshals on the road. Don’t they know it’s a race???’ But Mick, you can’t get stats like these without a bit of drama: 9.06 / (46.0) / 37.50 / (5.25/48.0)/22.09 !!

Carl was having an equally dramatic time on his bike: ‘Smashed the bike until it literally rattled itself to pieces on the roads of Sunbury.  I was about to quit and head back, when my good mate George showed up with his tool kit and got me back on my way after a 5 minute delay. Determined not to last one on the road and in an attempt to outrun ‘Clarkie’s Curse’, I turned myself inside out to catch a few guys up the road in front of me.

T2 was better than T1 and finally out for the run; I a new 5km PB (by 5 seconds) so all in all, I am please with my effort and despite being riddled by mistakes, school boy errors and equipment failures, It’s great to be back out there racing again.  Next up London Hyde Park.’

Statistics:Swim 7:01; T1 – 1:11; Bike-43:59; T2-0:59; Run-21:43; Total -1:14:52

37 mins later cycling later (with no mishaps) and Mick was back into T2 for another flyer before heading out for a steady 22min 5k and a well earned cup of water, meeting up with Lance and cheering Rachel over the line. 1.10.38 finish time and a 10th in age group.