Worthing Blow-Dryathlon

James Dear secures a superb third place at the Worthing Triathlon as strong winds and choppy seas force organisers to cancel the swim.

We sort of expected it would happen, but it was still a huge disappointment when the organisers confirmed that the swim was going to be cancelled. Quite a few of us have been training hard for the open water swim and the prospect of having it replaced by another run, well that just sucks… Anyway the decision was made and at 7am the women set off on the 5K run, followed 11 minutes later by the men.

Again their was a huge Mid Sussex Tri Club contingent looking fabulous in the new kit!

In the women’s race Tamsin was first to complete the 5K run in 21:26 closely followed by Rachel with Claire back in third. Out on the bike Rachel showed her strength with a very impressive 1:28:32, which gave her an unassailable seven minute lead over Tamsin going in to the 10K run. Tamsin was only able to claw back another minute and a half on the run which gave Rachel the win by almost six minutes. Claire claimed third place a further 25 minutes back.

In the men’s race Dave Jones set the early pace, coming into T1 first overall with his main rival James Dear 45 seconds behind. The rest of us were pretty close together with Jon Webster, Rob Hoodless and Steve Alden leading the way.

Once out on the bike James Dear rocketed round to record the fastest bike split overall 1:04:28, Stu Nisbett moved up to second in the club with 1:07:27. Unfortunately Dave Jones suffered from a few Paula Radcliffe moments, which ruined his race and parts of the Sussex countryside. Dave Lashbrook and Jon Webster put in some quality rides to keep themselves in contention on the final run.

James’ legend bike split made him first athlete to start the second run, much to the delight of the crowd! Unfortunately he was unable to hold on to first place, but still finished a superb third overall and first for the club by a massive 15 minute margin. Rob managed to reel in Stu to claim second spot with Stu in third, closely followed by Jon Webster, David Lashbrook and Steve Alden. Two of the strongest sea swimmers amongst us, Mat Record and Steve McMenamin came in at 2:34 and 2:47 respectively with John Lardner a further 10 minutes back in 2:58:52.

Club results as follows:

Name Time PosOA 5km run Pos 43km bike Pos 10 km Pos
James Dear 2:03:50 3 0:17:15 14 1:04:28 1 0:40:32 30
Robert Hoodless 2:18:20 53 0:19:42 74 1:13:39 52 0:43:38 66
Stuart Nisbett 2:18:58 55 0:21:17 139 1:07:27 8 0:48:18 138
Jon Webster 2:19:23 58 0:19:35 69 1:14:39 60 0:43:55 71
David Jones 2:19:56 61 0:16:29 1 1:19:49 109 0:42:32 50
David Lashbrook 2:21:37 67 0:21:18 141 1:11:36 31 0:47:19 119
Steve Alden 2:24:45 85 0:20:03 83 1:18:40 93 0:44:38 80
Mat Record 2:34:08 147 0:21:20 147 1:22:27 146 0:48:19 140
Rachel Baker 2:47:24 206 0:23:04 192 1:28:32 193 0:53:50 202
Steve McMenamin 2:47:32 207 0:22:50 188 1:25:07 168 0:56:44 218
Tamsin Douglas- 2:53:11 218 0:21:26 155 1:37:29 227 0:52:24 188
Smith
John Lardner 2:58:52 223 0:23:19 203 1:40:40 234 0:51:03 176
Claire Creswell 3:18:28 243 0:28:45 250 1:39:54 230 1:07:59 236