A TRIO of Stratford Triathlon Club members headed over to the stunning National Trust setting of Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire on Saturday for another early season duathlon challenge.
The 2015 event offers age group qualification places in both the sprint and the standard distance events at the ITU World Championships and ETU European Championships, so it was guaranteed to have a high quality field of competitors from the start with almost 1,000 athletes taking part.
In the sprint event, Stratford Triathlon Club member Zoe Chandler – competing under her university team umbrella – made a stunning debut performance at this event, coming second female overall and first in her age group. A seasoned runner, Zoe proved all her bike training over the winter months has paid off with this dazzling performance.
Alison Bagnall, no stranger to this type of racing, competed in the standard distance event along with club-mate Yvonne Caswell, although this was Yvonne’s first foray at this distance.
Both performed well on the day, with conditions very cold and windy at the start.
Alison proved once again she is a force to be reckoned with and she finished the first run in the top ten, then proved how essential good transition skills are by putting in one of the fastest transition times of the day before heading out on the bike.
Always a strong cyclist, Alison overtook many competitors on the challenging bike course before the final 5km sprint to the finish to bring her home third in her age group.
Yvonne was slower on the first 10km run than she would normally expect but, considering all the racing she has done recently, it is perhaps not unexpected.
However, being the endurance athlete she is, after a solid performance on the bike she managed to shake off her frozen hands and feet and put in a blisteringly good second run to bring her home sixth in her age group.
This meant all three of the club’s competitors will have won qualifying places for the World Championships later in the year.
Results: (sprint: 5km run, 20km bike, 2.5km run); standard (10km run, 40km bike, 5km run).
Zoe Chandler – Sprint – Run 18:35, T1 1:07, Bike 36:59, T2 1:04, Run 9:17 – Total 1:07:00 2nd female overall, 1st in her age group.
Alison Bagnall – Standard – Run 45:05, T1 0:56, Bike 1:11:38, T2 1:16, Run 24:16 – Total 2:23:09 3rd in her age group.
Yvonne Caswell – Standard – Run 48:25, T1 1:15, Bike 1:22:19, T2 1:08, Run 25:05 – Total 2:38:10 6th in her age group.
