Many of Ponteland Tri have competed and completed Sprint distance triathlon’s and a few have done standard ( or olympic ) distance, but this year 3 Ponteland tri members have already completed long distance ( or “half Ironman” ) and we still have 1 member to complete the ultra ( or “Ironman” ) distance very soon.  If you are not familiar with the distances then the sprint is normally 400m swim, 20k bike and 5k run if it’s pool based or 750m swim if open-water.  The olympic distance is 1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run. Long distance is 1.9k swim, 90k bike, 21.1k run and ultra being 3.8k swim, 180k bike and 42k run.

Congratulations to David Levison, Duncan Butterworth and David Stroud for completing long distance triathlon’s this year.  David Levison did the “Grafman” and reports the experience as follows…..

“Having spent the last 10 months constantly asking myself what on earth I was doing, the 28 June 2015 finally arrived and it was time to see if any of the training had actually worked when I took part in my first middle distance (half-iron) tri at “Grafman”. Grafman was hosting the National Middle Distance Championships so this meant lots of very serious competitors who appeared to have spent more on their wheels than I did on my entire bike – just something else to compound my feelings of inadequacy. The weather was pretty miserable for the swim and bike – heavy rain making the cycle a bit of a challenge at times but at least I wasn’t complaining about being too hot. The course was described as undulating and a lot of the locals seemed to be complaining about the hills – they’ve obviously never trained in Northumberland as I’d say it was all pretty flat. Having missed over 5 weeks of run training in the build-up I was pleased to be able to get around the run in under 2 hours for an overall top half finish (just) and a total time of 5:35:18 which was only a few minutes more than my “secret” target time of 5:30 (I’d told everyone else I’d be pleased with under 6 hours). The race was extremely well organised with excellent marshals throughout and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to do this distance. The course was also very spectator friendly – Sarah and the dog were able to cheer me on several times around the route and it’s also worth noting that it’s a darn site less expensive and easier to enter than an Ironman branded event but every bit as challenging.”

Watch out for race report and pictures from David and Duncan shortly and good luck to Martin Hallissey who will soon compete a full ironman distance. Massive congratulations to David Levison for completing the Grafman and writing the race report above.