In an attempt to complete five triathlons in five weeks, Mark Kelly attended the QE2 Triathlon at Woodhorn Museum with Andrew Gowens and Kelly Hymer being the other representatives of Ponteland Tri. It did take a bit of cajoling from Tina when Mark got up at 6AM to be confronted by rain and high winds. The weather did improve dramatically on the short drive to Ashington and the lake was like a hot bath in comparison to the sea swim training the Kelly’s have undertaken at Tynemouth. The race was in two waves with the men being set of first, closely followed by the ladies 5 minutes later. Overall it was a very nice race (if a bit longer than the usual sprints at 750m swim, 24km ride and 6.4km run), the swim was straight forward, the bike was scenic if a bit windy and the run twice round the lake was again very scenic. Next up is the Castles Tri at Bambourgh Castle with several Ponteland Tri members intending to compete this Saturday 25^th July.

Results as follows

Great weather set the scene for the next go-tri event hosted by the club. The volunteer marshalls were excellent and a credit to the club. This event had great participation from club members ( 11 of the 28 participants were club members ) so between the participants and the marshalls it was great to see so many of the club around enjoying the evening. The event was a good combination of club members who are active triathletes having a training session along with many others just experiencing the fun of a multi-sport event.

Kelly was first out the pool, first out of transition, and so it continued, she was really enjoying herself trying to stay ahead of everyone.

The top end of the field was very competitive with first for both the mens and ladies race going to club members, Matty Bell and Nicola Conlon. Positions 3 – 6 all finished within 15 seconds so a very close finish for Martin Lloyd, Stephen Craig, Tom Fullen and James Leiper. Well done all. Best transition goes to Chris Kenyon for falling over backwards whilst trying to put his trainers on.  Wish we had a picture of that…..

Well done all and don’t forget we have a aquabike event in August that should be great fun. Results shown below.

Last Sunday Martin Hallissey was in Bolton competing in the full ironman UK event.  Below is Martin’s report. Great result for Martin in finishing 3rd in age group and 18th overall and qualifying for Kona World Championships. So looks like continued long distance training for Martin…..

It’s quite a relief after spending so much time training and focusing only on 1 event to come to race weekend with no injuries and ready to go. The day before was a bit hectic, registration, swim in the lake, split location for T1 & T2 and checking the weather constantly for the next day. The big day started at 3.30am, coffee, plenty of nutella on toast and red bull. I could hear the rain outside so knew the storms predicted the day before had not pushed through over night. T1 was as hectic as every transition. I got there early so not to be stressed too much on setting-up and then the rain came. The swim start was a rolling walking start from outside the lake, you position yourself in time order (similar to a run race) and then walk over a timing mat – jump in and go. The buoys always seem like miles away ,especially in bad light but the time passed quickly. I got in with 2 guys who were targeting same time and pretty much swam the complete course with them without any of the normal washing machine start. Was aiming for sub 1hr so was pleased. The start of the bike was horrendous – torrential rain, rivers flowing down the road, people ending up in a hedges. The bike route is a good course, I was pretty confident after my recce 3 weeks before but there was no wind or hail storms that day. Felt strong to about 90 miles and then the head wind got me – The last big climb was a killer. Eased off at 105miles to get ready for the run. The first 1 mile is pretty much uphill and then it’s a good rolling course onto the loops in the town. I felt fantastic for the 1^st Half Marathon, I ran with a competitor in the same age group and we kept the pace constant and had a good chat(he eventually won my AG). Passed through half way on for my target of 3.05 and then hit a very big wall and both calves seized. From running 6.30 pace to walking within 400m – From then on it was a fight. I had 2 dreams for the race – sub 10hr and a Kona sport – so was delighted to come out with both, getting on the Podium for my age group was a big bonus. For anyone thinking of doing a Ironman, I can recommend this one. The course keeps you honest but is not supper hard, the organisation is perfect, the support is amazing on both the bike and the run and the volunteers are so nice and helpful.  Overall a fantastic weekend, suffering now but it’s worth it – 2 weeks of recovery and then back into the training for Hawaii.

Great race report below from David Stroud and Duncan Butterworth, both with excellent finish times in the Staffordshire Ironman 70.3 in June this year.

“After trying the Pont triathlon last year for fun we decided we needed to follow it up properly and before we knew it we were signed up for Staffordshire 70.3 or a middle distance tri.

I’d been running for a few years and Duncan the same on the bike but neither of us had a clue how to swim having retired from that in junior school.

Having started with Tri4u on a Monday night courtesy of Pont Tri, our swimming had progressed enormously (neither of us had swum since junior school) before starting real training in earnest in October about 8 months out from the event. Unfortunately after a summer off it was pretty much off a base of zero.

We signed up to online coaching – pretty much daily training and by spring it was good to know that after only four or five months we had the base to complete the distance and it was now all about getting faster.

First test came with Keswick Mountain Festival and the sprint tri. A real plug here for perhaps the best event I have ever attended – great family activities, bands, concerts, camping and a whole heap of events – triathlons, swims, sportives and runs from 5km to ultras. Thoroughly recommend it and hope to see many more Pont Runners and triathletes there next year.

After that Staffordshire came round pretty quickly – it’s the first time Stafford had held the event and whilst there were probably too many issues with overall organisation on the whole, the race itself was fantastic although not quite as flat as they promised. Clear blue skies for the swim and part sun/cloud for the bike and run finishing in the grounds of a local stately home. Great to have completed the event and a huge congrats to Duncan for a two hour half marathon at the end – he couldn’t even run just a couple of months out!

Ponteland really does provide a great base to get into triathlons. A big thanks to Woody (the Barn) for the coaching – all three disciplines have gone from night to day. Tri4u swim sessions on Monday nights, their open water swim classes and a C2C bike ride were ideal preparation and Ponteland Runners  / tri club for general support and advice when it gets pretty dull running round Darras in the dark.

Of course an Ironman 70.3 is just a rebrand of a half ironman which just doesn’t sound right. Next year will be the full one – would be great to put together a group if anybody else is doing longer distance triathlons next year or just fancy the longer bikes or runs.”