Heat & Mud Affect Burnham Tri

Sunday 10th June saw almost 20 local triathletes from Somerset Rc Tri travel up the M5 to Burnham for a pool based sprint triathlon. The event has a 500m swim, a very flat and fast 20km bike and a strength sapping 5km beach run. With recent rain the athletes had a much harder than normal challenge as parts of the notoriously dangerous stretch of sand were almost un-passable as the athletes had to cross over from the water front to the inshore finish.

Nick Mace of Galmington and Susan Fulford of Hillfarrance finished with the fastest Male & female times for the club, Nick coming 7th overall in a very quick 1 hr 4 mins 38 secs continuing the clubs strong history of success at this local event but this time just missing out on silverware, perhaps not helped by carrying a virus that came out later in the week. His run of 22:46 reward for a gutsy effort. Susan in her first serious season at the sport did remarkably well coming home 13th in her race, making her achievement even more impressive as like many new to the club she could not swim properly a year ago. Her time of 1:18:08 was done at the peak of the day’s heat as temperatures soared to 26 degrees, but didn’t stop her completing the run in a quicker time than many of the club’s men with 27:10.

Matt Goodman was close on his team mate’s heels coming in 11th but out pacing his team mate over the swim & bike only to conceed a minute on the run as the gruelling quick sand like surface took its toll. Next was Malcolm Greenslade, despite having broken his hand in a biking accident earlier in the year he set the quickest club swim with 7:04 for the 500m distance finishing the race 5th in his age in a time of 1:09:53. A minute later Paul Jones came home in 1:10:51improving over 2 minutes on last years result.

For the women Penny Morgan was 2nd home for the club in 1:19:27, giving her an excellent 5th place overall for her age group. She also set the club’s quickest female bike split in 40:11 with recovery of her recent chest infection almost complete.