Fabulous One Two at Steyning!!

An excellent 1st and 2nd for James and Mike at this year's Steyning Tri in atrocious conditions.

Report by Mike McLoughlin

"Well what a day at the races, day started well enough, patchy clouds with minimal winds, a few hours later and competitors found themselves in a full on snow storm! 5 members of Mid Sussex Tri Club entered all eager to get their first tri of the year in under there belt, especially James Dear for which this was his first ever tri.

James was off first due to his brick like swimming credentials, James put in a good solid swim and was happy with his pool performance and he even found time to do his hair spending nearly 3 minutes in transition! venturing out onto the snow free bike course it was now time for him to do "proper sport" and promptly tore up the bike course recording the best bike split of the day by over 5 mins! obviously his bike hadn't tired him out and he went on to put in a top 5 time on the run course, great work, first tri and first win, will be great to see how good James will get once he grows gills!

Next off was Tamsin with a slightly later swim start time, she put in a good swim and went out on the bike course and battled against the elements to put in a very respectable time, Tamsin was last seen on the run sporting a rather lovely snow hat and looked strong running with no issue with her recent serious knee injury. She was generally just happy to have completed such a tough race!

Steve Mac put in a good performance in the pool and was out like a shot trying to maximise the gap between him and mike, Steve put in a strong bike and was able to hold off the advances of Mike for some time (not a usual feat) and battle with the white out conditions as the blizzard intensified, however the weather and his knee problems were causing too many issues and unfortunately Steve DNF'ed, hopefully this will be the one and only time this year.

Last off for the club in the long course was Mike, due to starting off last he had the joy of trying to chase down Steve, this must have spurred him on to a better than usual race swim performance, out onto the bike his chosen wardrobe for the bike course was a little questionable to say the least, opting for just a tri suit and optional arm warmers, to his cost half way round the bike course the blizzard hit and the effect was like a ice cube being rammed up his back side. Getting into T2 it took ages to get into shoes and once on the run it was like running with ice blocks, however he was able to finish the race in a very surprising second place! Mike was last seen mumbling like Wallace and Grommit accent in the shallow end of the pool!

Due to the weather getting so bad the organisers cancelled the bike for the sprint tri event and was turned into a 400m/5km aquathlon. Claire Cresswell's time is unknown at the current time of writing as the organisers are still trying to sort out all the times. Claire was disappointed that the cycle was dropped from the event such was her attitude to want to get out there and compete, however she was very happy with her result.



Newbie Chris Durrant also put in a good performance in his first ever triathlon finishing in a perfectly respectable 02:20:21. Not sure if he wore his cage fighting gloves throughout the race, but they will have certainly come in handy during the chilly bike leg?





Results



Long

James Dear 01:47:07 (1st)


Mike McLoughlin 01:51:11 (2nd)


Chris Durrant 02:20:21 (51st)


Tamsin Douglas-smith 02:23:08 (53rd)


Steve Mcmenamin DNF

Sprint

Claire Cresswell (tbc)

Well done to all for competing in such challenging conditions and at least you know that this is the hardest tri that you will have to do this year! Full tri247 race report is here and full results are here."