30 Jun 2023
News from June 2023
There has been a lot going on this month as the triathlon season gets into full swing. Members have been getting up to all sorts of activities, representing WTC and of course, there have been not 1, not 2, but 3 club championship events this month.
Starting with the club championships, June has seen the bike event: The Chilterns Classic, swimming: The Henley Classic and triathlon: Hever Festival of Endurance. Each of these events were worth triple points for the club champs.
The Chilterns Classic offers 3 distances, 50, 94 or 122km through the chiltern hills. 7 of our members took part, with Phil & AHS taking on the long route, Harriet, Kate & Chris on the medium and Tanya and Matt on the short course.
The Henley Swim is an early morning event with swimmers starting before sunrise. The course runs along the Henley Royal Regatta course upstream. Richard, Scampy (Matt Clamp), Ash, Phil & Clare all swam the course early in the morning in good conditions, although it was suprising how much stream was present.
And then there was the Festial of Endurance. This was our events coordinator (Matt's) choice and we've all decided he's not allowed to choose the events ever again. Whilst it was a lovely event, the word endurance didn't do the course justice with endless hills on the bike course and an off road hilly run course, it's fair to say that all the WTC athletes had a good night sleep afterwards.
We had a number of other achievements this month too. Tom Mayor and Alex Smallshaw both compelted Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire (in 7h 21m 24s and 5h 47m 51s respectively) and Adam James and Olivia Keogh both completed the Royal Windsor triathlon in 2h 39m 11s and 2h 54m 56s respectively. Richard Thompson completed the Bowood Triathlon whilst Rosie Rand completed the Seahorse Swim and Jim Lemin completed the Great North Swim which involved 2 miles on Lake Windermere.
And club members continued with charity fundraising. Colin swapped his usual ironman magnificence for a Pretty Mudder with his daughters raising money for Cancer Research UK whilst Rosie Rand completed her mammoth London to Paris cycle ride. Phil Wortley, Mike Unwin, Graham Taylor and Gary King formed a team for the James Gesner Charity Golf Day.
Finally for the month, WTC ran two training camps in the Lake District. A number of our members went up in two groups with the intermediate and advance groups both complete structured training with open water swims, fell running and some rather hilly bike rides - along with many laughs along the way.
