Haywards Heath Triathlon

Sunday 29th April was my first "Triathlon" racing under SDB and boy what horrible weather it was (many other events had been cancelled, so we got lucky). Strong wind and rain with twigs and leaves all over the road. The race was a 400m pool swim, 25km bike then a 5k hilly run.

I only entered earlier in the week as wanted a bit of a "pick me up", as felt frustrated with some recent road races where I wanted to position better than I did (no change there then). The TT course was tough, what with the winds and rolling hills, but posted the 3rd fastest swim, fastest bike time and 6th run in the male category. I finished 1st out of 96 overall, but unfortunately I could not claim my goodies as had to shoot off to watch my 4 year old's first football "match", which was highly entertaining...... Next week I have Steyning Tri (800m swim, 36km bike & 8km run), which even though is a local event, it attracts a lot of good triathletes around the South East, so lets see if I can continue my luck - cant see I will position top 3 but a top 5 would be respectful.

A weekend of rides starting at QE Country Park on the 19th/20th May.
The weekend kicks off on the 19th with the Garmin Road Sportive with a choice of 60km or 80km routes and the MBUK Royal Rumble 4hr Enduro Mountain Bike Race in the Park.

No entry on the day, online entry first come first served.

Gorrick Spring Series - Final Round

Sunday was the final round of the Gorrick Spring Series and what a contrast to the slippery, claggy trails of last week. The guys at Gorrick had put together a belter! Fast flowing singletrack with very little fire road and a couple of short, stiff climbs to test the legs. The early races helped clear anyway any remaining puddles as the laps times dropped under 20 minutes. Since it was the final round, series positions were to be decided so there was a lot at stake.

In the Masters race Alex slipped past me at the very first corner and then rode away to an excellent 6^th place. I was pleased with another top 10 and Matt grabbed the final series point in 15^th on a loaned Stumpjumper.

Will racing to victory

Earlier in the day Will Taylor took a narrow win in the Youth category to make it 4 wins in 4 races and take the series.

Ian rode another great race to finish 2^nd and more importantly claim the series victory in the Grand Vets

Fay successfully switched to 4 laps in the Expert women.

Again a good turn out for the club and some excellent results. Final series positions will be published next weekend but I’ve done my own calculations below! (Apologies for errors or omissions)

Ian collects the series win

Gorrick Spring Series Positions

1st    Ian Petherbridge  Grand Vets

1st    Will Taylor           Youth

4th    James Bailey       Sport

6th    Alex Taylor          Masters

11th  Ben Connor          Masters

Well done to everyone who has taken part this year in one of the best XC racing series in the UK. XC racing continues to flourish, as demonstrated by nearly 600 entries at the 3rd round! Certainly Gorrick are the standard by which other events should be compared – a superb variety of courses and different venues, always meticulously well organised.

Southern XC Round 2 - Pippingford

Despite a couple of dry days the clay soil of Pippingford Park had held onto last weeks rain. This made the course an evil mix of long strength sapping climbs and scary decents!

I think everyone took at least a couple of tumbles, on a day when just reaching the finishing line was an achievement!

Results:

Will Taylor                6th   Youths
Fay Cripps               1st   Masters Female
Alex Taylor              8th   Masters
Ben Connor             12th  Masters
Gary Dodd                6th  Vets
Steve Calland           8th  Vets              (Was that your broken front wheel in the pit area?)
Ian Petherbridge       6th   Grand Vets    (Still racing despite a broken rib!)