The last two weeks

There are a few races to catch up on so here goes..........

Over in Ireland we had a number of starters at Eireman. Unfortunately due to poor weather and some slightly dodgy course markings the day was slightly different to normal. Joyce and Dave took on the Half Ironman which turned into a duathlon of 4k/90k/ about 15k. Joyce ignored this and had a stormer to win the ladies race by a large margin and Dave put his great training into practice to record 5.14 and set him up for a good race in Barcelona later in in the season.

The star performer of the weekend was Emma who aged 19 put herself on the start line for the full Ironman. Despite the swim being cancelled the weather conditions made it a very hard day at the office. However, after 7 hours biking and over 5 hours running she crossed the line as 6th woman and just in time to get out the rain and head off to somewhere sunny on Holiday!

Nicola's also been a busy girl recently, 4.40 on the track for a 1500m and 4th at the National Junior Championships - the 'reward' for these performances and her hard work is a French Grand Prix start. 70 bitchy girls trying to tears strips off each other - it's more violent than the guys race! Rhys had his best result of the season coming 6th in the British Junior champs and despite a bad transition Sam had a solid race to finish 18th in the Youth race after winning a round of the South West series the previous week.

Piers took on Norseman a few weeks ago and lived to tell the tale. He got to the bottom of the mountain early enough to get the coveted Black T-Shirt and at one stage on the run was in the top 25. It all got a bit emotional late on in the run and when there's literally a Mountain to climb this isn't the time to blow. It soon became apparent that there would be a little bit, in fact a lot of walking up a Mountain involved and when you're blown a walk up a Mountain can be quite slow. Harry and Piers figured everyone would walk up it a similar speeds, however the first woman walked up 26 minutes quicker which disproved the theory and showed how tough the event is!

Harry and I went to the Czech Repiblic to race a Eurpoean Cup. We decided to do this about 4 weeks ago as there weren't many races around. This seemed like a good idea until we realised there was a 20% hill on each of the 7 laps! Not perfect if you've been running lots and not doing big bike training. I avoided this problem by crashing in a crit race the previous week and therefore ended up watching the pain fest. Harry sat in the front pack which was "easy for 4 laps, mental for 3 laps!" His running legs were left halfway up the hill so we haven't looked at results!

Off for a FGP round a race course in Paris.

Pete

Ein Ei Bitte

XTERRA Austria .. European Championships .. needed something special .. so they say that eggs are the whole food .. and I'm inclined to agree. After a 2 day transfer from Zittau to Klopein, I settled into Pension Agnes (yay for Agnes, what a wonderful host!) and enjoyed mostly breakfast. :-)


After a good breakfast, I feel I can do anything ... and so had some good rides around the 16km bike course -- with its steep ups and downs and noticeable lack of the flat stuff. The run also is undulating -- again 2 laps winding its way around the forest over many many roots. Two days training on the courses and the rest of the British Cross Triathlon Squad started to arrive from the day jobs.. We all got excited at the prospect of rain on race day especially the Welsh contingent) and kept wet tyres handy just in case.

Race day came, and the rain didn't. But the compass in my head behaved a little like Jack Sparrow's .. (and still didn't show the way darn it!) and so I swam an interesting course -- missing the pack badly. After slipping from my super fast XTERRA V0.02 skin, I dashed up to transition -- 800m! -- and hopped on the faithful On-One steed for what turned out to be a fairly anaerobic bike session .. By lap two I was loving it and coping well in the slickish conditions.


Coming off the bike stronger than I have felt in the last 4 months I was shouted on by many friends to really dig in around the 10km undulating run course. The rainbow song (up above the streets and houses.. la la la) and stars came in my head as I climbed 27 million steps (ok about 300!) to some high up Go Ape type overhead gantry that the course designers had thrown in for a laugh .. what a great course .. Launching myself into the final 'Rober Latchschen' special pit of water before the finish line I was happy to get home safe, in 18th a solid time of 2h 46mins. Only 1 minute off Macca .. watch out man, I'm coming back! Top awards go to Sammy G for his 3rd place, Nicola Duggan for a similar bronze in the girls and commiserations to Ryan, Llewelyn and Paul who were out with mechancials.

Noticeably at the after party there were several beers and some music -- a super race video from the day. I finished off a questionable evening of recovery with Franky Batelier (1st), Olivier Marceau (4th), Renata (1st), Carina (2nd), Astrid and Christian from the race team. All in all a great nite and good to see top athletes enjoying themselves!!

Last round of XTERRA Europe in 4 weeks -- Mandilieu, Cote D'Azur. Email me if you'd like to come along!!

Evs and McConnel do it German style

Hey all, Happy Monday. Just a note to say how it is out here in Zittau at XTERRA Germany. 1500m open water, 36km MTB and 9km Run. Over 400 hundred racers and 12 nationalities present ..

Ryan Evans (token Welshy) and me (loud talking ainglander) had a fun packed weekend .. although we each had our own races ...Ryan started well with a confident swim .. I swam terribly slow for me and a bit like a zig zag pinball (more paddle work Jim!) .. then on the bike I had a flyer for me with 12th quickest whilst Ryan had the day from hell with broken spokes, getting lost and then a woppa puncture ... and then into the run Ryan survived and I hobbled round best I could returning from long term achilles and knee injuries. Not sure where Ryan placed but we both shared a bit of watermelon after and consoled ourselves. I even managed a good massage!

Great race, super party after with live music -- van halen -- amongst other covers and a really nice recovery day in the sun riding around the lake and swimming.

L to R -- Kartoffel, the Swiss Miss, Ryan, Jim, Transalp, Macca

Now I´m getting in the car with Renata for 850km to travel to Klopeinersee in Austria for the Euro Champs next weekend. Looking forward to that so much you can imagine!

Ryan´s off to wind his way thru Germany to Austria with Llewellyn Kartoffel .. and to swear loudly at Harry. Hope he can make it back full of zing next weekend.

See yáll later!

Cultural Learnings of Russia For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Hungary

In Short, the Russians gave us a Triathlon lesson in Hungary at the Tisavarjous World Cup. It's quite a simple lesson, they swim fast, bike hard and run fast. My mistake was not swimming fast enough, in fact I could have done with running a bit faster too but the 35 degrees put that on hold. Mr Wiltshire had been to the Russian swimming and biking classes but wasn't listening in the running seminar and as a result ended up 35th with me 39th........... The weekend was saved by the Borat impersonator who served us at the restaurant post race and Vanessa who couldn't believe that Ali G, Borat and Bruno were all the same person..........

Julie obviously had been attending the Russian School of Triathlon as she put the Smackdown at a Half Ironman in Boulder to win by 1.30 from Chrissie - not a bad scalp to take!

I'll update news from the domestic scene when I have some results in.

Pete

Super, Super fast

That describes our athletes at the weekend and the speed at which I'm typing this blog post due to my imminet departure for Hungary. 2 hours until departure with a ride to do, bike to pack, kit to pack, breakfast to eat and most importantly a D2T Blog to update so here we go.......

Harry was the star of the weekend, 6th in the elite race at London and coaching Nicola to her first major podium, 3rd in the Junior elite race at London. I might have got invloved in a race with Harry if I got undressed in T1 slightly quicker but it wasn't to be so ended up 16th. Jill in her last race of the season before marriage next week finished 11th in a very strong ladies field. This meant she finished 3rd overall in the Britsh Elite super series. James Bunney was 5th in the Junior elite guys and Rhys 13th so all in all a great showing from the elite guys and girls.

In the age group waves Nikki was 4th, Daz 5th, Marcus 42nd in 2.08 and Javier survived his dodgy ankle to finish in 2.29. Elsewhere, Nathan set a big PB in Antwerp.

Well that was quick! Hopefully more fast racing this weekend and then a more complete blog next week!!

Ciao

Pete