Watch out World!

Well the tri season is finally here - I think I'm allowed to say that as D2T had loads of athletes racing at the weekend both here and abroad. We'll start off with Ampleforth as that's where the majority were racing - firstly we've got to say we're impressed so many athletes turned out to race on April 4th - it didn't get above 10 degrees in Devon until mid afternoon so I've got no idea how they managed to keep warm and race so well.

Alex was the first finisher, 18th overall and 6th in his age group was very impressive for a relative newcomer to the sport. Nicci put her Big Weekend training to the test to come home 5th in her age group, I'm still investigating how she picked up a 2.00 penalty for 'sporting impedance.' (Update - apparently it was for marking her transition spot with Talc) Bill, was also 5th in his Age Group which should have given him qualification for the European championships in Holten.

Further South Amanda recorded a PB (1.44) at Taunton Half marathon, taking 4 minutes off her time from last month which shows great signs of progression leading up to the season. Steve also knocked a massive 10 mins off his half marathon PB to finish in 1.27

I'm slightly biased because I coach her but I'm going to give performance of the week to Joyce. Her aim this year was to run under 41 mins for a 10k - her fastest time last February was 44 minutes so that was going to be no easy task. However, she decided 41 mins was far to easy and ended up running 40.09, proof that hard work does pay off as she's nailed pretty much all her run sets this year.

Nicola stromed to 2nd in the National Colleges Cross Country Championships to follow up her 16th at the English Schools two weeks before.

Last, but by no means least two of our coaches (Julie and Jim) were racing half way round the globe at the Guam Xterra triathlon. The swim was pretty much as expected with Julie leading out by a couple of minutes. It took Sam Gardner (1st male pro) about 20-30mins to catch her and Julie headed into T2 second overall with Jim not far behind her. According to Julie, Jim passed her on the waterfall section and he never looked back. Jim finished 2nd overall and Julie was 1st lady and 3rd overall - apparently she even managed to stay upright for the whole bike ride.

Pete