Weekend's Results!

Dear All

 

Well, whilst some of us were out tearing up the tarmac down the freeway bike-path in muggy conditions on Saturday morning, others from the team have been posting some impressive results literally around the world!

 

The big race of the weekend was Ironman New Zealand which saw Justin Palmer (Perth) and Andy Smith (UK) heading over to the Land of the Long White Cloud to tackle some tough, blustery conditions. Andy crossed the line in 14h37.38 (see his finish by clicking here) to finish 116th in his age-group, and Justin just snuck inside the top-100 (98th) in his age-group in a commendable first-Ironman time of 11h48.04 (see Justin's finish by clicking here). If you want to see just how much elation an athlete can feel after crossing the finish line of an Ironman for their first time, make sure you watch Justin's finish, its quite something! Both Andy and Justin suffered some considerable set-backs in the run-up to their races (Andy with illness and the British winter, Justin with knee injury which requires full surgery), so to both get across the finish-line says something about their spirit and determination - well done lads!

 

We then take a long hop across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to the Emerald Isle (Ireland) where Tony O'Grady posted a personal best 10km time of 35:30 at the "Adare 10". Tony is currently training up for the Challenge Roth event in mid-July, so it looks like things are progressing nicely on that front!

 

Down in sunny Albany the "Dark Horse" (Mickey Gee) raced supreme. He's had a little bit of time off after Ironman WA in December, but bounced back at the Albany Olympic Distance triathlon this weekend to post a 2h04 finish time over the tough undulating course. Word from our "ears on the course" (Rob & Helen) was that Mike seemingly destroyed all but two of the field on the bike after a relatively "slow" swim to take 3rd overall. A great result. What's all the more impressive was that Mike held a Normalised Power on the bike of 357watts for the 40km course, and if you know your watts, you'll know that that is impressive for someone who weighs ~78kg! A welcome return to the Dark Horse!

 

Over in Victoria, Lindy Brand took on the Holden High Country Challenge which is a 230km 3-stage cycle event in the Mansfield-Mt. Buller region. On the second day the stage finishes with a gruelling 16km climb up the Mt. Buller tourist road and Lindy reported back that she was one of the top-10 ladies to the top of the climb - awesome effort! Looks like those Reabold repeats and all the work in the Kalamunda Hills paid off then!

 

And lastly, down at Matilda Bay was this year's running of probably the world's largest female-only triathlon event. I'm still yet to see all the results from yesterday's event, so if you have some news on how you went, please let me know! Having spoken with Mary Tennant this morning who stormed her way around the course yesterday, it appears that the event went well and was enjoyed by all. If you're sat there reading this and have maybe stepped gingerly into some swimming with us just recently and are thinking about taking up some triathlon next season, this really would be the one to aim for...that is assuming you are a girl! ;-)

 

Have a fun labour day everyone!

 

Paul