Members of Wight Tri have been very busy over the last few weekends with several members competing in local running events and others taking part in Duathlon events on the mainland.
Jen Gallop ran her first race in Wight Tri colours at the Gosport Half Marathon. As a fairly newcomer to running, Jen’s goal for 2021/22 was to step up her triathlon distance from sprint to standard in 2022, but the first thing screaming out for attention was her running capability.
Jan has run on and off for years, 5ks, 10ks and she also completed the Great South run a couple of times, albeit at a slower speed. She always saw herself as the ‘slower’ runner, something she felt hard to deal with now as her cycling and swimming have got faster.
At the start line of the Gosport half marathon she felt nervous and excited, but knew she had done the training, and completed the half marathon distance in 2:03:30, and 37th in 35 age category in her first ever half marathon.
2 weeks later, she then ran the Portsmouth Victory 5 mile road race and finished in 42:49 and 74th female, again a huge improvement on earlier times.
Completing her final race of 2021, Jen finished the local West Wight Sports Centre’s Chilly Hilly in 1:49: 47 in 6th position in F35 category as part of the strong contingent of Wight Tri runners taking part.
The Chilly Hilly is a very tough 10 mile off road run, demanding extreme strength and endurance to run through often very muddy and very hilly terrain!
First home for Wight Tri was Sean Williams who finished in 1:13:54, 8th overall and 2nd in the M50 category. Craig Wilson, Joe Norman, Mike Kimber and Neil Cooper ran strongly in the same category to finish 4th, 9th and 20th M50 in 1:15:58, 1:21:08, 1:2519 and 1:44:45 respectively.
Loic le Floc had a super run to finish 1:24:43 and 5th in M45 Age Group.
Husband and wife Rob and Lucy Doorly achieved fantastic podium places, with Rob taking 3rd in M35 category in 1:22:50 and Lucy 2nd in F35 in 1:32:15.
Mary Norman got back to competition after a long injury to take 3rd in the F55 age group in 1:35:29, with Chris O’Connell 5th F45 in 1:43:28.
19 members took part in the 3rd of the Wight Tri Winter Duathlon Series, the Niton Nightmare Duathlon.
The route started with either a 2.2 km or 3.75 km run up to the Pepperpot monument from transition at the Niton FC grounds, followed by 1 or 2 laps of a 13km cycle loop from transition continuing through Niton towards Bierley, left at Appleford Cross, through Chale and then left up Blackgang Hill, back to transition.
First in the nominated event was Lorien Waterer who completed the short run/ long bike/ short run course in 1:13:19, 41 seconds inside her nominated time. 2nd was Mike Kimber, 1min 24s inside his nominated time of 1:45 for the long course, with Simon Plumpley 3rd, 2 mins faster for the long course in 1:38:00.
The fastest male for the long course was Sean Williams who had a tough battle with Andy Wheeler who posted the fasted run of 17:59, over 1 min faster than Sean. However Sean’s strength on the bike saw him pull away to win the event overall in 1:24:57, even though Andy made inroads on the 2nd run to finish in 1:25:54. Jan Fletcher posted the fasted female time for the long course in 1:40:25, with junior triathlete Kaitlin Wilson, posting the fastest short course time of 58:08.
Wight Tri would like to thank Niton FC for the use of their grounds as well as the organisers Neil Cooper and Kevin Winchcombe and all the marshalls and timekeepers for their support in the smooth running of this event.
The next event in the series is the East Cowes Enema Duathlon on Sunday 2nd January 2022.
Sean Williams got back to winning ways with a superb performance at the TrailX Mountain Bike Duathlon, taking place at Crow Hill, Burley in the New Forest.
This all off road Mountain bike Duathlon consisted of 2 x 2 mile runs on mostly woodland twisty single track, mud, bogs and a couple of stream jumps, slightly undulating with a couple of steep ups and down on on very peaty and rooty terrain.
The bike basically followed suit running around the outer edges of the run course, fast in places, not too technical but again, quite rooty and boggy in places with some right cornering through the woods out of the start finish transition area. … Last year Sean finished 12th overall and 1st 50+ by neatly 7 mins. This year he improved to 6th overall and still won the 50+ but by a much smaller margin, in a superb time of 1:13:58, 51 seconds ahead of the 2nd in his age group. Posting 15:25 for the first run, and 41:03 for the bike and a fast 15:59 for the second run, Sean managed to finish 51 seconds ahead of the next duathlete in his age group.
He is hoping this result with qualify him for the 2022 European Age Group Cross Triathlon Championships in Bilbao, Spain in September, but will have to wait for confirmation from the BTF.
