The first rule of tri club

The first rule of tri club is never stress about tri club! This morning at the obligatory post-training chow down and coffee someone mentioned that they had been waking up feeling ill thinking about the New Forest Middle Distance Triathlon next weekend. While losing a little sleep the night before a big race is understandable losing sleep weeks before a race just isn't worth it. If life has thrown you a bit of curve ball recently and your training goals have not been met as a result don't stress. Re-evaluate your race goals, remind yourself that you are doing this because you wanted the challenge and sleep easy knowing that your coach is also under-prepared! Always remember the first rule of tri club: Never stress about tri club.

Congratulations Ailanore ‘Duty Finish’ Harper for getting 6th at the World Triathlon Championships in Beijing last weekend! We are incredibly proud to have our first GB representative from the club and now a top 10 finisher at a World Championships. Congratulations also to Andrew Finn for completing his first Ironman in Wales last weekend and to Guy Holbrow for completing the same race under very trying conditions. Incidentally, Ellen Greaves' Mum qualified for the Ironman World Championships in Kona next year by winning her age group at Ironman Wales. I think we should make her an honorary member of LFTC!

Thank you to all those athletes who travelled up to Wells-Next-the-Sea for the North Norfolk Triathlon. Thank you especially to those involved in organising transport and accommodation. We had the biggest team there and there were some fantastic performances. It seems we can’t compete in this race without a little drama though. We had few people hit the deck on the bike and the run, a few take a wrong turn on the bike, a flat tire, a strained calf, some nasty shin splints…but it was great! The highlight for me was Sebastian Arroyave completing the race in a very small pair of speedos and a crop top for £50.

Ellen Greaves won her category and was 2nd female overall! What makes this story even better is that Ellen stopped to give Sarah Allen a spare tube and tire levers when Sarah punctured on the course. Amanda Wilmer finished 6th overall even though she strained her calf and practically limped over the line. Sarah finished 9th overall despite losing 15 minutes when she punctured. She went on to post the fastest female run split of the day. Well done also to Katie Hocknell, Kate Guscott, Jane Dennyson, Kath Brasier, Wendy Musique and Lindsey Smith.

The boys did pretty well too. Joe Dale had the fastest run split of the day and finished 6th overall. It was a hard fought battle between Seb Balcombe, Rob Boulding and Tim Smith. There was less that 6 minutes between all three and less than a minute between Seb and Rob. Tim had a wee accident on the bike unfortunately otherwise I’m sure he would have been right up there with Seb and Rob. Russell Webley had a fantastic race knocking a whopping 43 minutes off his previous best time for an Olympic distance triathlon. Congratulations to all the other guys who competed. It was a mighty fine effort by all and we keep the interclub challenge shield for another year!

And if you didn't already know GB has two new world champions in Alistair Brownlee and Helen Jenkins. I am very pleased to report that a Kiwi won the women's elite World Championship Grand Final in Beijing. Andrea Hewitt out-sprinted Helen Jenkins to win by 14secs. You can watch the highlights here. Remember next year the World Championships are in Auckland, NZ. Here is the perfect excuse to fly half way around the world and visit little old NZ!

Get those entries in for the final London League event. The Jekyll and Hyde Duathlon is on October 30th. I would love to see us enter our biggest team yet for a London League event.

See you Tuesday for our final session at the Victoria Park track before heading back to Well Street Common. Enjoy your weekend. Tim (LFTC Coach).

Zone 3 wetsuit trial this weekend.

I can thoroughly recommend 'the Clash' as an event to compete in next year. It is extremely well run with great prizes on offer to winners as well as spot prizes. 500m in a 25m pool followed by a 5km run which is mostly flat and predominantly on grass. Unfortunately we did not have a veteran racing so the club missed out on getting the maximum points available. Those athletes from the club that did race raced really well and there was a healthy dose of in house competition especially once Sarah told me her run time as I put my shoes on in transition! Sam Burch posted the fasted time of the day from LFTC. Nice one Sam!

This Saturday we have Zone 3 coming along to the swim session on Saturday. They are sponsors of the London League. They will be bringing a number of wetsuits for people to try. So if you don't have a wetsuit, or you are not happy with yours, test one of the Zone 3 suits this weekend. You'll get to be a human shoehorn for a friend. We'll get you to swim a time trial in the suit and then without the suit to see if you are any faster. I have heard you can also win a brand new wetsuit if you can get it off in a little over five seconds. It can be done I'm sure! This great little video shows you how the body position of one of the best swimmers in long distance triathlon can change wearing a wetsuit compared to a speedskin, using a pull buoy and wearing just a pair of trunks.

Lausanne in Switzerland is the host of a huge weekend in triathlon again. We have the sprint distance world championships on Saturday and the team triathlon world championships on Sunday. Johnny Brownlee is the defending sprint distance world champion and Switzerland are the defending team triathlon world champions. All of the races should be great to watch and will be on the BBC either be shown live or delayed.

If you are coming along to the North Norfolk Triathlon it looks like we have accommodation now sorted thanks to Colin Steele booking an entire boat called the Albatross that is moored in the quay. The dorm at Deepdale Backpackers is now full too. I understand there are still campsites available if you would like to pitch a tent. Best check the Facebook page for up to date information.

I'm looking forward to checking out these Zone 3 wetsuits. Have fun and ride safe all those heading down to the New Forest for a recce of the bike course. See you Saturday. We will still be using pull buoys and fins so remember to bring them along. Later. Tim (LFTC Coach)