Martin christened and a club one-two at Crawley

Four Mid Sussex Tri Club members competed in the Crawley Late Summer Triathlon on Sunday 27 September, including Martin Back, taking part in his very first triathlon.

The distances were 600m swim, 25k (I think) bike and 6k run, with swim times including a fairly lengthy jog from the 50m pool at K2 sports centre down a footpath past school sports buildings to the transition area by the A23 roundabout.

The cycle route involved dodging around Sunday footballers making their way to nearby pitches in two underpasses beneath the roundabout before emerging on a residential road that joins the dual carriageway from Crawley to Horsham, familiar territory to anyone used to Crawley Wheelers evening ‘10s’ in the summer.

Martin was 73rd out of 106 in a highly respectable time of 1:31:42, after getting the swim out of the way through a combination of front crawl and breast stroke, before a strong 42:57 cycle and an excellent 27:03-minute run, the fastest of the four on the day.

Martin was 35th out of 49 in the highly competitive Vets 1&2 category (the first three places in the race overall were taken by competitors in this category).

Not far behind Martin in 86th place, with a time of 1:35:27, was Hazel Tuppen, showing huge improvements in her cycle (47:07) and run (32:38) times, to complement her expected fast swim time of 15:42.

But the star of the MSTC show on the day was, without question, newly-appointed club president Mark Jordan who was 29th in an overall 1:21:53, after setting a blistering time of 14:28 in the pool, despite still struggling with a broken wrist.

Mark then put in a 39:27 cycle (“without once coming close to falling off”) and a 27:58 run on the tough, out-and-back, cross-country route through Tilgate Forest, culminating in a vicious hill that reduced some competitors (but not ours) to walking, just before the turn.

Callum Murray, the only Mid Sussex athlete with ‘previous’ in this race, was 44th, with a time of 1:24:59, an improvement on last year’s 1:27:11. Most of his improvement came on the bike, enabling him to pip Mark to the title of ‘fastest MSTC cyclist on the day’ – by four seconds – in 39:23.

He also improved his run time slightly with a 27:21, but must return to the ‘special needs’ section in swim training sessions, after a disappointing 18:15 swim – just two seconds quicker than last year’s time. So, just to be absolutely clear, that’s a whole year of battling up and down the pool, cajoled and encouraged by David, Rose and Mark, for just two seconds improvement. Dear oh dear.

With just eight competitors in the Vets 3&4 category, the good news was a club one-two for Mark and Callum in this category.

By Callum Murray