Ryton Tri only had three athletes down at the Cleveland Short Course in Stokesley today, but they clearly went down there meaning business (despite Ms Parkin's routine claims of "oh, I'm having an easy year this year and I'm not going to push it very hard" etc etc)

I knew I was fit coming off duathlons, but wasn't expecting anything better than 7mins in the swim and thought that in such a short event this would knock me back a fair way and that top ten would be absolutely best possible. But then the bike course was a little bit undulating, slightly technical on some corners and a bit windy so I was able to maximise my advantage and then polish off with a run at just over 6 minute miles. I ended up getting third overall, with Elliot Gowland in his last race before Lanzarote winning the event. Young Daniel Johnson performed superbly to keep the Ryton flag flying in 10th place, as well as being 2nd Junior, and Denise, after a few goggle problems got down to a solid bike and run to finish 2nd V40 lady, 4th lady overall and 37th of 169 finishers.

The event was superbly managed by Kath Blakey and her team with un-crowded, impeccably organised swim lanes for the 400m swim; a safe and testing 11 mile bike circuit and an equally safe 3 mile out and back run. This is one event I won't leave to the last minute to enter next year.

The swim necessitated a 200m run from the swim pool to T1 and it was best to leave a pair of shoes outside the baths for this run to the bike down a hard footpath. As a result of the distance between pool and timing mats, the swim split INCLUDES the run so is not accurate indication of just swimming. I timed my 400m manually and did 7.15, (which pretty much equates to world record pace for me!)

The splits of the Ryton athletes (with winner's splits also included):

Full results at
http://www.clevelandtriathlon.co.uk/index.html

Peterlee Triathlon 2011

The 2011 season got off to a great start for Ryton Tri ladies on Sunday 17/04/11 with a 1st, 2nd & 3rd V40 age category & overall 1, 2, 3 for Rachel Walmsley, Denise Parkin & Diane Chaney! Female junior Kyah Hall also flew the flag for our growing youngster's section, taking first spot in that category & posting the fastest female swim split of the day!

It was a nippy 6 degrees at 8am so the prospect of exiting the nice warm pool in your wet tri suit was quite alarming, but it warmed up lovely for the 5k "run round the park" (Denise's phrase)! This event has traditionally started the season off in April, but the only time I've done it before was when it was moved to September (2009) & having not done a pool based sprint tri since then I found it a big shock to have to suddenly try & find early season speed, but pretty useful!

Being one of the faster swimmers, although not sure who pinched my swim legs on Sunday, I started near the back & didn't see the race unfold. However, I can say that all the hard work that Rachel's been doing is paying off - or maybe it's something to do with her brand spanking new bike- as she got closer to Denise's bike split than most of us ever do (Denise had the fastest female bike split with Rachel only 20 seconds behind) & then went on to consolidate with the fastest female 5k of the day! Denise had a pretty good swim & then played her card on the bike, but I think a couple of new knees may have helped her on the run, although she "ran tough" to keep me in 3rd place! (Editor's note: taking one's bike down from the loft and taking said bike apart the day before a race would not be something the likes of Il Perata would do!!)

Big E (Eric Blakie) was obviously feeling in need of a change from Ironman & was 2nd Super vet (behind experienced antagonist Dave Bell of Tyne Tri) but mixing it really well with the "younger guns" on the bike - turning in the 10th fastest split overall! David Paley was our only other male representative & talking to him before the race he seems to have the same idea regarding preparation as Mark Woodhave - zero training! He said he just wanted to finish & that's what he did!

Just a little word of advice! After an early start, a hard race & the exhilaration of making the podium, please make sure you know the way home & don't drive 30 miles in the wrong direction down the A19!
Diane Chaney.

Barnsley Hilly 21, Stokesley, Durham, Borrowdale

That's the thing with write ups - you wait for one and then four come along at the same time! But well worth the wait I think you'll agree - here they are from our very own Il Pirata!

Spring is the season of the Spring Classics and, in its own way, depending upon your ability to day-dream an amateur duathlon into a road racing monument, the North of England offers its own classic menu: the large field (around 300) and the late March setting can blur Stokesley into Milano-San Remo; that short sharp decisive climb at Durham could be the Kappelmuir so making it a Ronde van Vlaanderen, and the severe ascents of Newlands, where the climbers come out to play, can only be Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Anyway, I digress. I did all three of these races and I managed to keep good form for all of them. The weekend before Stokesley, I tested out my new aero bike and got quite a respectable 8thplace at the Barnesbury Hilly 21 at Belsey, but the writing was on the wall as fellow triathlete, Elliot Gowland was there and he managed to put 50 seconds in to me. And this is pretty much how it went at Stokesley with us tied together through T1, but Elliot pulling away slowly and steadily on the bike and maintaining his advantage on the last run. He won overall and one Senior got between us so I finished 3rd. I was fairly happy with that and could deal with being beaten by Elliot when I learnt that he was out in Lanzarote doing a 10.15 at the same time as I was taking best part of half a day, so no bruised ego there.

Two weekends later, after watching with pride as Laura and Jaci won the Ryton two up, I was at Durham duathlon, feeling the hillier bike course gave me a reasonable chance of winning. For the 5k 3 lap run around the sports field I used my XC spikes with quick laces and 5mm spikes in them. They were faster than race flats on the grass and liveable with on the short pavement stretch. The run went off pretty fast but settled down and I came out of T1 in third place a good 30 seconds down. In every duathlon I've done so far I've moved into the lead within 2 miles of the bike and this was no different. Once I passed the two leaders I continued to build my advantage up to around a minute at the end of the 16.5mile bike. Things looked ok starting the run, but eventual second place finisher Gary Grounds did a significantly faster second run than his already fast first run to really push me close at the end. I kept going because the thought of getting a win in the same weekend as Laura had was too good an opportunity to miss out on.

Despite getting a bit derailed on the Friday night by red wine and the company of other "dedicated triathletes" I managed to stretch my form over three races and this Sunday headed off to Newlands Activity Centre in Newlands with team-mate Joe Horne for the Borrowdale duathlon. This is a very challenging event that I managed to win last year, including a fairly tough 4.5 miles fell run, followed by a very serious 27 miles bike ride that includes the climbs of Whinlatter and Honister (from Buttermere), as well as countless other bits of up and down, before finally finishing with a 3 miles run. Last year I came out of the first run relatively untroubled in second place and took the lead on the lower slopes of Whinlatter before soloing to the win; this year it couldn't have been more different, with a fairly compact, (around 70), but very classy field including 21 year old GB age-grouper Richard Anderson and national level fell runner and previous top three Helvellyn finisher, Ben Bardsley. So from the gun the run went off fast with these two charging ahead and another half dozen filling the space in front of me as I languished down somewhere like 8th in the first half of the run. It finally settled down and I reeled a few in on the steep stepped climb up to the shoulder of the fell to finally come off the run in 6th place, albeit a good couple of minutes down. I closed down two racers very quickly and caught a third competitor, who would eventually finish 3rd overall, on the slopes of Whinlatter. We stayed close on the bike until I finally dropped him on the lower slopes of Honister as I zeroed in on the major league scalp of Bardsley, who I could see zig-zagging a bit on the steepest slopes just 20 metres ahead of me. He bombed down Honister, overtaking a motorbike in the process, with me just a handful of seconds behind him. I finally passed him in Borrowdale valley and came by low on the tri bars and fast, intending to discourage him from following me. I was pleased to see I had immediately got a gap and continued to build my lead on him in the remaining 6 miles as I was worried about his potential to pull me back on the final run. I did a smooth T2 and changed into road shoes for the final 3 miles run, which is half road / half trail. I was happy to come into the finish having held Ben off, but it quickly became evident that I hadn't won the race as young Anderson had been way out front since the run and, despite me doing a time 4 minutes faster than last year and 19mph average bike around those roads, I was actually 6 mins down on his 2:16 winning time. A bit disappointing, but then not too bad once I learnt he was 20 years younger than me. Joe did really well, despite a crash on the descent of Honister into a ditch, to finish 18th and now looks set to tackle triathlon after a winter of training hard.

Well, that's my Spring Classics over for 2011, but it has been successful, with a 3rd, 1st and 2nd place, which is a little bit better than M. Cancellara.

PS: Only joking, Fabian!