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.”

The local triatlon in Ponteland ran by Total Racing Internation was ran on Sunday 12th July and we had 18 individuals and 1 team entry in the event that shares a name with our club.

Club results were excellent with Miriam Jessett winning the Junior & Senior race for the ladies, Nicola Conlon coming 2nd in the ladies senior race, David Stroud 3rd in the Men’s Vets, Sue Heppell 3rd in the ladies Vets and the Ponteland Tri Team coming 3rd in the Team competition, well done to Team Kelly Enderwick, David Houghton and Nikki Renton. Photo shows ( left to right ) Emma Turnbull from Elswick Harriers, and Sue Heppell, Nicola Conlon and Kelly Enderwick from Ponteland Tri with their well won medals after the event.  Well done to Emma gaining a 2nd place in her first triathlon!

On what was a windy but warm morning we have great results.  Below are the results for Ponteland with full results available from Resultsbase.net.

As always, triathlon means an early morning start, but it’s so much easier when the weather proves to be warm. Ponteland Tri had 2 in the sea swim and 6 in the pool swim based events on Sunday.  The brave athletes in the sea, Andy Gowens and Dave Legg had a 07:00hrs start from the hooter for a run into the sea,  but for braving the cold and the early start they were finished before the rest had even started the pool based swim. The video above looks great and does not give any indication of how cold or how strong the current was when Dave and Andy swam out.  Can’t actually spot them on the video but worth posting anyway.  In the pool we had Miriam Jessett, Mark Kelly, Paul Gerrard, Keith Errington and Sue and Chris Heppell.  All starting at times between 09:04 and 09:30. Well worth the wait to swim in a heated pool……

I did manage to cheer Andy on as he ran from the sea to T1 but he wasn’t enthusiastic about the sea swim and mentioned something about it being cold, can’t recal exactly what he said but I got the impression he was glad to be out.

Dave came across to the finish line to support the pool based participants and looked fresh and warm, so you won’t have be able to tell he’ll already finished his event.  As we all arrived we all suffered the same problem of not knowing exactly where the finish line was and having to run that additional 100metres really costs you.  Great support was provided from the fire bridage and their volunteers.  The event also included kids triathlon’s so it was great to be crossing the line along with 6 year old tri-stars.

Highly recommended to all as it’s a great 8-lane pool, closed roads and a great run along the sea front. I’m sure Andy and Dave will promote the sea swim also, although we may find them in the pool next year…..

Results for the sea swim are 9th for Andy Gowens in the Supervets and 47th for Dave in the Vets.

Results for the pool swim are 1st for Miriam in the Youths, 2nd for Chris Heppell in the Vets and 4th for Sue Heppell in the Vets,  Keith coming 8th, Paul 16th and Mark 20th all in the Vets.  Great results for all,  and worth mentioning that Keith posted the fastest bike leg of all the pool based participants.

Picture to the left is Chris in the final run in to the finish which was in the park just round the corner.

Sunday 7th June in Ladywell lake hosted the Northumberland Triathlon which is organised by VO2Maxaracing events.  As usual they put on a fantastic event, very well organised and marshalled.  Saturday was extremely windy, so Sunday didn’t seem so bad but in reality was still fairly windy to be swimming in the lake and cycling with a side wind.

The club had 3 participants and a team entry in the Standard distance and 7 entrants in the sprint tri.  Great to see Richard and Kevin back to competition in their first event of the year.  Pictured here before and then after the race.  Perhaps looking a little more relaxed after they had finished than before…..

The water was certainly rough and Mark Kelly was keen to see some of the fast standard guys on the rugby pitch instead of in a lake as they had “swam over him”  when they caught up the sprint distance swimmers.

Fantastic performance and well done to finish to husband and wife team Mark and Tina for finishing and for Mark running extra distance to keep Tina company at the end of the run.

Sue completed her first standard distance event,  and maybe even a convert to the longer distance.  Danny and Dave were both warming up for half ironman distances in the near future.  Great to see Danny completing as it’s not long since surgery so the return to fitness is great to see.

John wasn’t well last week but facebook proved it’s worth and the others talked him into it on Saturday evening.  Finally well done to Steve, Dave and Sue for great times in the standard distance on a challenging daty.

Final picture from the day is some of the club members enjoying the atmosphere and sunshine as the event finished.  Awards were being made whilst the final competitors were finishing and it was great to hear the cheers and encouragement that was given to these athletes.