Duo impress at Nantwich sprint event

TRIATHLON GRAEME COURTNEY ALTHOUGH the triathlon season is drawing to a close, three Rossendale Triathlon club members found a couple of triathlons taking place on the last weekend of September.

Heather Schofield and Lauren Navan travelled to Nantwich in Cheshire for a sprint triathlon which consisted of a 400 metre pool swim, 20km bike and a 5km run.

This was Lauren’s first triathlon and although she was a little nervous all the training she’d put in with the club during the Summer paid off with a fantastic finish time of 1 hour 29 minutes. This included a superb 5km run time of 24 minutes 9 seconds.

Heather Schofield has been consistently improving throughout the season and this showed with a great finish time of 1 hour 34 minutes, with Heather cracking the sub 30 minutes mark with her run for the first time.

Travelling slightly further South was Sarah Clancy. She had decided she wanted to do one more triathlon this year and with having a friend to stay with in the area opted for the Southampton Sprint triathlon.

This event had a beautiful bike route through the New Forrest where Sarah had to keep her wits about her dodging the wildlife! With the bike completed in 51 minutes Sarah finished with an equally scenic run which was polished off in 28 minutes 36 seconds.

In order to keep their fitness levels high and stay competitive triathletes generally turn to Duathlon in the winter months. These events consist of various distances but always follow the format of run, bike, run.

Oulton Park motor racing circuit in Cheshire hosts a unique event twice a year where competitors complete the event on the race circuit allowing for a really fast bike time on ●● Lauren Navan & Heather Schofield the perfect tarmac.

This sprint distance duathlon consisted of a 4.3 km run followed by a 20km bike and finished with another 4.3 km run.

Great Britain age grouper Phil Taylor had the best result of the day finishing in an overall time of 1 hour, 12 minutes and first in his age group, ideal preparation for when Phil represents GB at the European championships in Ibiza at the end of October.

Ian Connolly posted the next best time, finishing in 1 hour, 20 minutes with

Andy Nurney just 5 minutes behind. Karen Taylor was the only Rossendale lady representative at the event and finished in 1 hour, 32 minutes.

Finally, Graeme Courtney opted for a new challenge with a Swimrun.

These events have been growing in popularity over the last couple of years and combine open water swimming with trail running. To save time, competitors swim in their trainers and run in their wetsuit, with several transitions from run to swim during the event.

The event involved just under 3km of swimming and 15km of running along the beautiful coastline of Anglesey, Wales, thankfully the weather was perfect for sea swimming.

Graeme surprised himself by finishing 25th overall out of a field of 120 and 5th in his age group and is planning more of the same in 2019.