A bumper feast of results across multiple weekends to tell you about this time……..

First up, the Vachery Triathlon Festival, a fairly new event taking place at the Vachery Estate near Cranleigh in Surrey. The event included a Road Tri, Cross Tri (with bike course designed by our own Sam Gardner, who unfortunately had to pull out with a run injury) and a couple of swims.

Well done to Nicky Williams (nee Way) who was 4th woman overall in the Sprint Distance Road Event with splits of 14:35, 33:21 and 22:38 for a final time of 1:12:14

Also in attendance were Jane Drapkin and Salvatore Albanese, both of whom did the 1500m Swim, in times of 32:30 and 34:31 respectively, with Jane finishing in 2nd in Age Group.

Most years, John ‘Fred’ Booker heads overseas to do a race at some point. In recent years this has included Austria 70.3 and a rain drenched Alpe D’Huez. This year it was the little know gem of a tri festival in Gerardmer, Northern France. With plans to compete over the Half Ironman distance of 1.9km Swim, 90km Bike, 21.1km Run.

To say things didn’t go as planned might be an understatement……

Firstly, the race was on Saturday, and started at 9.30am….something that Fred discovered at 8.30am…on Saturday… whilst still in his hotel room more than a few miles away from the race location!  So the HIM distance race is gone! After turning up at the venue, he negotiates an entry into the Olympic race on the Sunday. All Good!

Sunday morning, John is invited out on a ‘short warm up ride’ with a friend who was in the area, but heading off in the afternoon. Having parted ways at the top of lung-busting climb, John takes a wrong turn on the way down……….85km later, he gets back with an hour to spare. Nothing like resting for a big race.

And so to the race itself. Details are sketchy, but apparently the Tour De France isn’t the only event with animals and people getting in the way. Thanks to a small child running out into the road, which John did his best to wipe out, our intrepid traveler was thrown over the handlebars, losing a lot of leg skin to the road and other injuries.  As for results, I can’t find any, so will have to come back and update this story with an ending. 🙂

Like Fred, another lone race representative from BTS was Julia Hodkinson, who  traveled just an hour west to the Newbury Triathlon.  Over a 300m, 16 Mile, 5km course, Julia was 2nd in the Vet50+ woman category in a total time of 1:10:47, over 4 minutes ahead of 3rd place. Full results here

Another week on, and this time to Milton Keynes (nearly) for the 2nd Big Cow sprint of the year. This race was special as it featured Tim Don (former Olympian and World Champ) competing in the Men’s under 45 wave (author: that would be mine then!!)

He obviously decided that he fancied coming along and easing his 2012 Olympic disappointment by smashing everyone on the course to win the sprint race by over 5 mins. However this didn’t stop two other New Zealand bound athletes from BOTH winning their 35-39 age group on the day. BTS’ Louise Croxson and Paul Fitzpatrick both taking the win in 1:11:39 and 1:07:42, respectively. Splits available here 

Well done to all competing!