Wow, what a great weekend of racing! The Blenheim Triathlon was run over both Saturday and Sunday. I headed out there on Saturday to watch our girls race. Sarah Deeney and Karla Shield competed in their first triathlons and both had great races. Claire Tomlinson competed in her first sprint distance triathlon and also did really well. Kate Murray-Browne is competing in her second season of triathlon and perhaps only her second race. She finished very strongly. Ailanore Harper finished 11th in her age group, Amanda 'Minky' Wilmer finished 3rd in her age group and Sarah Allen finished 1st in her age group. Now I don't want to start a battle of the sexes and obviously we all compete for the love of the sport and not for competition but the last three girls I mentioned beat all but one of their male club mates! Well done to the guys too. It's great to see that everyone who started got across the finish line and hopefully you were all happy with the way you raced.
If you didn't see the ITU WCS event from Madrid you should watch the highlights here and here. The Brownlee brothers were unstoppable once they hit the lead on the run. Both had fantastic races from start to finish coming out of the swim near the front, doing a lot of the work on the bike and then unleashing their incredible running abilities that left everyone else in their wake. Helen Jenkins placed second in the women's race keeping up with one of the fastest runners in the sport all the way to the end of the run before finally dropping off the pace a little. Not bad having just come back from injury after crashing in the opening race in Sydney.
Our Tuesday run will have to move as of tomorrow night because the summer festivals have taken over Victoria Park and our ash track is now behind a big green wall. Kind of like the big blue wall that will surround the Olympic Triathlon! If there is no cricket or football getting in the way we will use the grass track just a little further east of the ash track. It's not easy to see until you are right on top of it but it is not far from the new cafe and toilet block at the eastern end of the park so if you head there I'll look out for you.
Best of luck to those competing at Fritton Lake this weekend. It's a great race. For those not competing we will be focusing on technique in this week's swim session with some open water skills and drills to polish up your stroke. Bring your paddles if you have them as well as pull buoys and fins. Karl's run session looks like fun too. Building the pace throughout the session with a mix of 200m and 400m intervals. Looking forward to it.
See you tomorrow at the grass track or Saturday at the Lido. Tim (LFTC Coach)
