Santa Cruz-Tenerife- Standard Distance

Date 04\03\2018

Not the best starts just getting to this race, due to the beast from the east, causing mayhem. The plan was go to my mates house (Michael Birtwhistle) over in Bolton on Thursday evening, then off to Manchester airport early on Friday for the flight. 1st problem trying to get the bike box from Matthew Boon house (Very kindly donated by the club) on the Wednesday night, this was impassable, then I managed to collect it on Thursday evening, and that was a challenge through the snow. I Came back home loaded up bike, bags & everything else, all checked at least 10 times, then off over to Bolton, or so i thought, got to junction 22 which had been closed due to the weather and all surrounding roads which lead over to the dark side of the Pennines, so back home with a view to […]

VERY brief race report to get the 2018 ball rolling. Yesterday I did the Kinloch ‘Erin Baker’ OD triathlon. Kinloch is on Lake Taupo and, given the early start, we were fortunate to be able to camp on site in our new VW campervan in the marina. The two lap swim in the beautiful clear waters of the lake was a real pleasure, even for me! The bike leg was also two laps and was almost as soggy as the swim. It was a very hilly course so, I was happy! The final run leg consisted of four laps around the town (?) and due to the heavy rain was a little boggy in parts so my best trainers took a bit if a battering. There were lots of other races later in the day the main one being the National Sprint Champs so competition was diluted somewhat. So far […]

19th Feb

Another brief race report from down here in New Zealand. Last weekend saw the third race at in a four race series at Maraetai Beach run by Panasonic. I did the Olympic Distance race which consisted of a three lap sea swim, two lap bike and a three lap run. Most of the race followed the coast with the bike section heading south on the coast road before turning in land whereas the run section headed north where the iconic backdrop of Auckland Tower could be seen in the distance. The sea was warm but wet-suits were allowed. Drafting was permitted on the bike and after chasing hard on the first lap to get on the back of a pack I ended up towing them round for most of the second lap! The mercury was rising rapidly by the time we hit the run and I was hanging […]