It's not often that I get to start the weekly race report by writing about our Treasurer, Carl Schumacher. He's achieved something over the weekend that I couldn't do and his effort is well worthy of a huge dose of respect from us all.
I imagine many of us are familiar with the term Ironman. What I didn't know was the respective distances involved between swim, bike and run so a bit of online research later and I'm in the know. Staffordshire was the location and it started with a 1.2 mile swim in a reservoir. Swimming for me is what I do on holiday to cool down so 1.2 miles is an obscene distance as far as I'm concerned. I'd still be at it now and I'd have probably got flushed away down the reservoir and ended up in someone's drinking water. That would have been a nice surprise for them.
Assuming the swim hasn't finished you off, next up is a 56 mile bike ride that the website refers to as hilly. As if that wasn't enough, the coup de grace is a mere half marathon to finish off. So, 1.2+56+13.1 gets you to the Ironman 70.3 and they have the temerity to call this a Half Ironman. Fantastic achievement Carl and one worthy of a few photos.
How do you follow that? With difficulty. The closest I could get is with the latest race in the Hardmoors series, the White Horse. We had four of us taking part in the half and full marathon races, all starting and finishing at Sutton Bank Visitor Centre. Unusually for Hardmoors, it was a flatish first 15K and the lead pack set off at a rate of knots not often seen. I couldn't keep up and going through 10K in 46mins and Half Marathon in 1.37 tells the story of something I would regret later.
As is often the case, we were treated to some stunning scenery on and off the Cleveland Way going out to Square Corner and then back in a figure of 8 taking in a delightfully horrible climb out of Hawnby before picking up the Cleveland Way again at Rievaulx and following it all the way back to the finish.
Congratulations to Danny Clayton for completing the full in 6.22.49. I came home in 14th place in 4.31.25, just over an hour behind the winner who was very rapid.
Well done to Andrew Halcro-Johnston and Karen Travis for both successfully completing the half in 3.01.40 and 4.05.37 respectively. Lovely to catch up with Andrew at the finish where he was looking decidedly more sprightly than yours truly.
To round up the weekend we had the usual sprinkling of parkrun results starting with the Carter / Heather / Davis tourist bus that made its way to Goole.
Goole
2nd Dom Carter 18.20
6th Jim Carter 19.08
16th Andy Heather 21.06
34th Alex Davis 23.56
Heslington
90th Amanda Clark 24.50
121st Jordan Howe 26.42
124th Phil Raddall 26.50
New Earswick
6th Marc Pearson 19.59
10th Ben Briffaud 20.35
45th Harriet Sleight 26.10
101st Jackie Mitchell 31.46
124th Lucy Turner 36.27
North Yorkshire Water Park
58th Andy Ellwood 26.35
155th Lisa Ellwood 40.30
Wakefield Thornes
34th Jamie Butler 22.39
71st Rob Butler 25.37
The temperatures look set to increase during this week so I hope everyone gets chance to enjoy the weather. Details of this week's training night on Weds have just been sent out by Harriet and are on Whatsapp and Facebook. Let me know if you would like adding to the Whatsapp group where you can find info on our Wednesday night runs.