Joel Stainton raced in Wave 4 sprint 35-39 male at Dorney Lake (run by VO2) and tells us about his experience:

‘ I Lucked out with the weather this morning; not too hot, no rain. Swim was tough as first half was straight into a headwind but came out a minute faster than last year. Bike course different from last few years so it was up into the wind on the far side then back down the middle and, again managed a faster time than last year. Felt heavy legged at the start of the run but got overtaken 500m in by someone I felt I should be beating so hung onto the shoulder for the next 4.5k and crossed the line at exactly the same time in 1:08; a PB for me by 90 seconds.

Best bit of the race ? 0:59 for T1 all thanks to Mark’s superstar transition training. Notes on my hand of bike location, exact order once at the bike, pedals in right place and lots & lots of Vaseline!’

Well raced Joel!

During winter Pete Bell set his main target for 2014: go under 5hrs in a half-iron distance triathlon;  Sunday was his first of two attempts this year to achieve that goal.

‘Imagine my despair when I find out the bike course has been changed and now includes 3 loops with tough/nasty little climbs and not the original far easier rolling route. And then, morning of the race, they change the swim – 2 laps of a very narrow swim in the Thames with a mere 500 blokes all going off at the same time – my chances of achieving my target are surely all but gone…forget it. Race and soak up the experience for the next 70.3 race later in the year.

 Very early Sunday morning and setting up my racking spot – there’s Lloyd Cosgrove getting ready. Lloyd’s a better swimmer and cyclist than me. I knew I was going to have the chase my team-mate down on the run if I could.

 Into the water – good luck handshakes with Lloyd. I warm up in the Thames then sneak up to the nearside bank out of any (minimal) current as far forward as I dare. Why are we waiting so long? I look round and there are still hundreds piling into the water…Ignore them just focus on getting away. Go! Start Swimming; Stop – There’s no space; Swim; Stop – there’s no water only bodies clad in neoprene; Swim; Stop – all the way to the first buoy about 200-300m up river. What a nightmare – get round the turning buoy. Finally! Some clear water and a pair of feet to draft off – now, let’s get going. There’s the exit – I climb out trying to avoid damaging the toe I hurt a few weeks ago (not entirely successfully). Glance at my watch – 35 mins – about 2-3 mins slower than I wanted but given the start, fair enough…uneventful transition and on to the bike. Continue reading →

Viceroys’ Chairman Mark Yeoman has qualified for the world champs in Canada, but the hard work certainly doesn’t stop now; he gives us a report of a normal manic week for those at the top of AG triathlon:

‘It started last Saturday with a new racing format in the style of an Humanrace Aquabike – 1000m swim & 20km bike. I wanted to use this as a brick session, so I hit the swim hard & pushed the pace with an ex national swimmer over the first lap, but he kicked on the second & got a 20m gap by the exit. However, by T1 I was back in the front & then hammered the bike, averaging 42kph & setting the fastest split of the day to win by over 2mins.

With no rest during the week I trained hard, with two double run days & leg busting sessions on the bike, so going into the VOTWO Dorney Olympic race the focus was not on outcome but on a tough brick session.

I was off in the second wave & Iooked to swim smartly in the lake by following the guide rolls under the water. I exited in a poor time of 20.52 (2nd fastest all day – Sorry Tom) but a healthy gap over the 2nd swimmer. VOTWO use an alternate route to human race, so I embarked on the eight laps looking to average 41kph. This is did and completed the 40km in 59.10 setting yet again the fastest split of the day. As I ran out of T2 I was surprise how ‘okay’ my legs felt, so I looked to settle in for the first lap & do a negative split on the second. I was happy with the 39 10.2km time giving me an overall time of 2.01 exactly & 2nd place overall. Only a minute off 1st (stupid swim). Considering the week & recent race results of 1st overall, 3rd overall, AG Bronze, 1st overall & now 2nd overall I’m super happy with how training is going ahead of the world championship.

Taper this week in preparation for a sprint next week where I’m hoping to see the run come good

Thanks for the continual support.’

Mark Yeoman, Suze Pratt, Ian Talbot, Tim and Libby Ferguson all headed to Marlow last weekend for the Marlow triathlon.
Mark (as ever) set out to smash and dominate the Olympic race: ‘This was a two lap swim in the Thames, two laps over the challenging bike course & 2 laps along the river and up Marlow hill. I saw Olympian Toby Garbet and über swimmer Kate Henderson so I knew it was going to be an honest swim. I went hard and led for the first 300 before Kate glided past – however I stuck close to her and only after the last 100m did she ease away – but the guy who I was swimming also with who I thought was Toby was some random. 30sec behind Kate – 3rd fastest swim.’

Tim and Libby meanwhile where both embarking on their first Olympic distance tri: ‘The swim was fantastic, a poor start position resulted in an aggressive and quite slow start, however Viceroys swim coaching had prepare me to get around slower swimmers and to create gaps. Once out of the elbows and feet of the mid paced swimmers I was able to get my rhythm going and complete the swim in a personal best of 25:49’ and Suze meanwhile was just pleased to be competing again – although she found the swim start a bit frantic she had done no cycling or running for the last 5 weeks (due to an annoying hamstring/lower back issue! Another Viceroy who ignored her physio! Ian Talbot loved the swim: ‘relatively little current in either direction so the 2 lap course worked really well for me. Plus the sun stayed off long enough to allow decent sighting (crocodile eyes to the fore !)’

Mark meanwhile ‘set the fastest T1 to move into 2nd place and looked to close on Kate after the first hill out of Marlow. But leaving the area my water bottle jumped out -shite! Kept going as I wasn’t going to allow Toby to close in. Passing Kate I moved into the led with the led motor bike I pushed hard. On the out & backs I could see Toby wasn’t catching neither was anyone else. I knew the lack of fluid would be an issue, but by how much? Over the last 5km I cramped up & my legs soon became solid. 2nd fastest bike split behind 2nd overall – Tom Burkinshaw. Continue reading →

‘Hi, I’m Mike and I did my first triathlon at Thames Turbo one very stormy bank holiday in 2008 on a borrowed bike and shorts / tee-shirt. Since then I have been hooked and seemed to have got a bit more serious with each passing year. This year I hit 40 and decided to dedicate more time to training with the aim of getting in the GB age group team. Competed in Rother Valley earlier this month and nervously waiting to see if my time is good enough to make the squad. I need some more help and inspiration and heard great things about Viceroys (mainly from Carl!) so decided to join. I am married with 2 little girls so face the usual problems of fitting training in around work/family but so far, so good! Looking forward to meeting you all.’

Good luck with qualifying Mike… are you going to be Viceroys number 4 to buy a plane ticket to Canada?

Hi everyone, my name is Andrea and I’m a new Viceroys member!  I was born and grew up in Australia (but please don’t hold that against me!) and moved to England in May 2004.  I originally only came over for 18 months, but somehow 10 years later I’m still here – it must be the weather that keeps me here!

I was an active kid growing up playing various sports with cricket (so yes you now have someone to hurl abuse at come the next Ashes!) and netball being the favourites. Come university years though at the back end of the 90’s, exercise gave way for study and it wasn’t really until 2007 when I ended up working overseas at a military base that I got back into exercising again, as there wasn’t really much to do outside of work except eat, sleep or go to the gym!

I got quite hooked on both general gym activities and also running, so when I came back to the UK in 2009 I joined the local gym and decided to invest in some personal training while also continuing running.  My trainer was a keen cyclist and as we ended up becoming good friends outside the gym, it transpired that eventually she got me on a bike and I found that I liked it and seemed to be naturally good at cycling. I believe it was her that uttered the fateful words “well you like running and cycling, so why not add swimming and give triathlon a go”.  So in the middle of 2010 I made the leap of faith and bought what has become my trusty steed and as the saying goes, from there it’s all history!
Unfortunately my triathlon debut was delayed due to getting an injury not long after getting my bike that ended up needing surgery in early 2011, but it was a case of onwards and upwards and I made my triathlon debut in sprint distance at Windsor in 2011!  I was immediately hooked but since then unfortunately the injury bug has followed me around which means I have been limited to doing only a handful of few sprint distance events over the last few years, until the weekend just gone where I finally got to make my Olympic distance debut and not only crossed the finish line in one piece (which was the first and foremost goal!) but also smashed the time that I thought I would do by about 20mins!

My ultimate triathlon aim is to do an ironman, so now that I’ve finally cracked Olympic distance hopefully it’s a case of keep going onwards and upwards from here!  Thank you to everyone for the support and advice I’ve received so far and look forward to meeting everyone soon!

Bib 227; FirstName Vaughan; LastName Moseley; Club Viceroys; Category M open; 00:47:27 03:25:52.75 00:01:34.65 01:30:46.95 05:45:41.30; Finish Overall By Category 1; by Gender 1

‘Anyway I managed to pick up a win on the weekend at a weird distance event in the New Forest called The Boskman. It’s a kind of 2/3rds ironman swim and bike with middle distance x country run.

The day before was probably the worst preparation I could have had. I ordered some new tri bars on Friday on an express delivery from Amazon. They arrived at 9am which was great as I was determined to have them on for the Sunday race. I had to register in the New Forest on Saturday in time for the race briefing at 2pm and with new cables bought I made it to the race briefing just in time. That dragged on for an hour – “Watch out for the wandering animals – last year a careless cyclists head got rammed up a cows arse blah blah blah.” I then had 1.5 hours to get my new tribars on and get it racked in T1 5 miles away. 2.5 hrs later i managed to finish and luckily the security guy let me rack my bike ready for the next day. On my feet all day faffing about – not good.

Really early start 3:45. Ellingham Lake was beautiful and clear in the swim. I didn’t feel good to start with – really gassy, was sick a little bit, it took me a while to get into my stroke but was over it coming into T1 after 2.6k and ready to chase. 

It was the moment of truth to find out whether my bike faffing the day before was wise or not as I flung myself upon my eager steed and it felt good. A higher, less aero position but I was able to stay still with less pain for longer even in tuck up the many short little buggery climbs dotted about the place. I had to stop a few times, once to allow a family of ponies across the road, once to walk around a big lorry blocking the road and once to go back and pick up my bidon that had thrown itself out of its holster, but with the Forestman iron man and a middle distance race running on the same day and starting earlier it was great to always have someone to chase down. I didn’t notice passing many Boskmen during the 120k ride but I guess I must have done as I came into T2 without a clue to how I was doing – I presumed I had some bodies to hunt down.

Despite the briefing recommending against running flats for the x country run course I thought I’d take my chances and just be careful not to get a big stone under a heel or other bony bit. With a few KM on the road to get into it the run course suddenly plunged off road and steep downhill, cadence, cadence I told myself as I dodged around the stones and tried not to put the brakes on. Then steep up the other side I ground to a crawl pumping the arms as i realised how hot it was. Up and down like this for 22k – I couldn’t see any other Boskmen coming back from the turning points but I wasn’t convinced after my crappy swim. Only as I passed the last feed station with about 2km to go did they tell me I was in the lead and I skipped merrily to the finish line.’

As raced and reported by Vaughan Mosely

‘On Sunday morning at 7am, along with at approx 1000 others I was led with fellow Viceroys Phil Sumner and Tony Marshall down to the water’s edge of Wimbleball Lake for the mass start of Exmoor 70.3UK……..talk about feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter!

At 0715 the claxon sounded and off we went. I made sure I was at the back and allowed the initial melee to die down and then off I went. It was,as a lot of people have described, like a washing machine…not that I have been inside a washing machine! I got punched in the face but remarkably stayed calm, continued to steadily count to 4, breathe, sight , touch my thigh ,make sure that my hand entered the water by my head and get round without stopping in an impressive ( for me !! ) 51.12. I was delighted to say the absolute least as the one discipline I really feared I had succeeded … I only learnt to swim front crawl a year ago!

So, swimming bit done and dusted, out and up a steep hill for 400m and into T1. The first part of the bike is up hill (no surprises there ! ) The course is 2 laps, so after the 1st lap you know what is coming and can prepare to dig deep. When they say it’s a hilly course they aren’t joking….however what goes up must come down (so I kept reminding myself !) I was feeling happy and confident and momentarily allowed myself to believe that I was going to complete the 56 miles within the allowed time. The local support was great and loads of encouragement given.

As I approached mile 43, travelling fairly swiftly downhill towards a left hand bend with an immediate uphill I changed gears in anticipation . I went round the corner and came out of my saddle to get maximum benefit and I am not entirely sure what happened but somehow managed to fall off – fortunately onto a grass verge. When I remounted my bike I discovered that my chain was well and truly screwed…it wouldn’t budge one way or the other. A marshall came to my aid, couldn’t fix it, so called for the support crew to be summoned .

In the meantime the marshall, me and eventually a member of the public were all frantically trying to sort my chain out, while I became hysterical and sobbed about missing cut off times. Eventually some 10 + minutes later the chain was freed (no thanks to the support crew….a no show ) and off I went again to complete the last 13 miles. I realised at this point that it would be touch and go as to whether I would make the cut off, but I cycled like a woman possessed giving it my all, but sadly missed it by 5 mins which meant that I was not allowed to continue. My chip was removed and I was told to go and re rack my bike….I felt a bit like a naughty child !!

To say I am disappointed, frustrated, fed up is an understatement – but I will get over it . Despite the outcome it was a fab weekend and a fantastic experience – one I would definitely recommend and repeat . Very very well done to Phil and Tony who both completed it in respectable times……and all that is left to say is roll on the next one !! ‘

As raced and reported by Debbie Stewart