And Then There Were Four

As of the beginning of July The Northumbrians have reduced from 6 to 4. We reported on Iain’s withdrawal in the previous blog. Iain has now been joined in the support crew by Keith. Keith has had a torrid time following a skiing accident late in 2022. He broke his wrist which tampered, to say the least, with his swim, bike and run training. The broken wrist and constant overseas travel with work led Keith to defer his entry until next year. Hopefully Keith and Iain will toe the line at Ironman Copenhagen 2024.

Like Iain, Keith has continued to train and help the rest of the team carry out their training.

On the 1st of July Stewart and Craig took on The Cyclone 109 mile bike sportif. The lads were asked for a race report. This was their first attempt “Rode our bikes for ages into the wind and it was f***ing hard”.

Safe to say it was a tough ride. The weather was horrendous with high winds. The 2400m of climbing included all of Northumberland’s biggest climbs and most of these were into a head wind. The ride took longer than anticipated but was a huge achievement and left them both feeling much more confident about the Ironman ride.

Stew and Craig braving the conditions (looks quite canny to me)

Race day was followed by an Ironman discussion night at Kate and Keith’s pizza place. It wasn’t a late night!

With Stewart and Craig having a much needed holiday (not together!) the other four headed to Derwent Water on the 9th July to take part in the Epic Events 3.8K swim. Following some unfortunately spring like weather in the last couple of weeks the team were pleasantly surprised by a warm, sunny start to the day. As with Ullswater this event was a nice, friendly affair with lots of swimmers and spectators.

The swim actually turned out to be quite choppy and a little more testing than Ullswater. Iain had the best swim of the day finishing 4th in his age category. Jules also finished 4th in her age category swimming just 45 secs slower than Ullswater…nice bit of consistency! Kate was next finishing her first ever 3.8K swim and feeling a lot more relaxed about the Ironman swim. Keith, already knowing he wasn’t at peak fitness and just doing the swim for fun, was very happy with his time, a great marker for his training path. He was keen to point out that he had 58 weeks to prepare for his race. Kate and Jules not amused (there were expletives)!

Keith, Jules, Iain and Kate at Derwent Water

And so time continues to ebb away. At time of writing…5 weeks left till Ironman Copenhagen.

Mel’s Snowden Adventure

YOP Ironman Update