The main headline from my personal point of view over the last 2 weeks has been my Highland Fling race. I’ll do a brief post race analysis as part of part 2.
Over the course of the same weekend though 4 of my athletes were out in action too 3 of them at the Kinross Sportive and one of them at the Selkirk Mountain Bike Marathon.
The following weekend I had 3 competitors doing the Selkirk Triathlon, one person doing the North Berwick Novice Triathlon and we had some action at parkrun.
I’ll discuss these events in this post with some thoughts on the Fling, a trip to Manchester with some bike observations and Chimp Management and some Training Camp detail in the following post.
Kinross Sportive and Selkirk MTB Marathon
Ian, his wife Mo and Carolyn were all due to start Kinross on the same day as I did the Highland Fling and as such were blessed with similar calm, cool and sunny conditions. Ian’s plan was to do the black route with another club mate while Carolyn and Mo would ride together on the Red Route. Kinross has 3 different route options with black being longest and hilliest, red being a bit short and much less hilly and blue being short and not very hilly.
Mo and Carolyn never got to ride together as they got separated before the start and Carolyn’s attempts to catch up with Carolyn were halted very abruptly after 21km as her chain came off and got jammed between crankset and frame. Game over for Carolyn’s ride and a lift back to the start on the broomwaggon.
Mo and Ian’s rides went notably better than this even though they were both carrying a bit of fatigue from the recent training camp they had been on. In Ian’s case the fatigue clearly showed as he seemed to have a number of ups and downs and this wasn’t just referring to the hills. He did though achieve to goals of being able to ride all the climbs and actually complete the black route, this being a big step forward from 2015. Mo’s ride went very much to plan as she was able to stay with 2 club mates and thus complete her 2nd sportive after the Tour de Borders in 2015. She continues to thrive at nearly the age of 70.
The following day Simon was in action at the Selkirk Mountain Bike Marathon in which he completed the 50k course in 5:30 hours. The weather unfortunately wasn’t as pleasant as it had been on the Saturday and Simon went into the event with back problems. The event therefore was neither to Simon’s liking nor to his backs but he completed it and as an endurance day out ahead of Staffordshire 70.3 it was useful. The back has since then been getting better although we opted to sit out Selkirk triathlon to let it heal up fully.
Selkirk Triathlon, North Berwick Triathlon and parkrun
As already mentioned Simon sat this one out but Lynn and Fiona were both in action at Selkirk Triathlon which is a standard distance race with a pool swim, a very scenic bike course and a soul destroying run.
After their Gala Triathlon experiences this race was there to restore the balance and this it did for both of them – mostly.
A bit like with the Highland Fling race day the Selkirk race day found the perfect weather window, especially for the Borders. Nearly too perfect. 20 degrees were forecast and 22 degrees is what the competitors got. A Scottish summer’s day.
I had made it my mission to cycle down and watch them and a couple of other club mates race. Selkirk turned out to be further away than I thought so I missed their swims entirely but caught them on the bike. Key for both Lynn and Fiona was to execute their swim and bike legs well which they both were able to do. Lynn did overdress a bit though expecting it to be cooler on higher ground, which it wasn’t and the heat got to her a bit towards the end. Fiona nailed her transitions and put in a strong run after the bike finishing the 10k in 43 min just over 3 min over her 10k PB which she set recently. The heat definitely got to Lynn on the run as did the very uninspiring run course (it had been changed from previous beautiful riverside paths to pavement along a busy road). Lynn knew the old course.
Fiona finished 2nd in her category with Lynn finishing 3rd in hers. Both were overall pleased with their performances.
Fiona did to Edinburgh parkrun the day befoe and stayed roughly 20 seconds outside her PB. We used that as a pre race tester to also see if this would work for her and it appeared it did. Carolyn did the same parkrun and ran a new PB by 1 min taking her 5k time for 24:12 min to 23:12 min and her age grading up from just under 78% to just over 81%. Obviously we are not looking at a sub 23 min time for her.
Final race update comes from the North Berwick Novice Triathlon which Tracey took part in. As mentioned in a previous post has had some swim coaching with me recently but now is part of the coaching program. North Berwick was technically done outwith the program and Tracey’s first event on a road bike. She narrowly missed her target but now is on her way to her first sprint distance triathlon in a few weeks.
Close
Tune in on Sunday for part 2 of this double where we’ll manage some chimps or gain a better understanding of them.