Deal Tri Dinosaur 10km

Last Sunday, Indie ran for the second year in the kids 1500m race, running alongside Izzy who was running her first ever race. They looked so sweet finishing together.

Since Cath and Terry were staying with us for the weekend, Terry was roped into running the annual Deal Tri 10km with me. It was a very hot weekend and Sunday morning saw more blue skies and high temps, not a day for PB's. I set off a bit fast and almost vommed going up the big hill but hung in there. Saw quite a few runners collapsing, most likely due to the heat. Terry 'treated' Jason and I to some professional stretching afterwards, I think we both managed not to cry!

Jason 45.46

Chantal 53.47

Terry 54.10

Zoe 55.13

Kofi Graduates to a Big Bike

No more stabilizers for The Kof......and he's loving it!

The Beaver

Travelled up to Belvoir Castle near Grantham on Friday evening, managed to pitch the tent in the castle grounds in the dry (the biggest miracle of the w/e considering the week of torrential rain that literally stopped as we drove into Belvoir). Dom had travelled down from Manchester and was waiting the in trees for us to arrive. We were soon joined by fellow Dealies Simon W, Dominique and their four girls.

Saturday saw Dom racing the LITTLE BEAVER, an olympic distance tri. We cheered her off on her swim, but due to race timings, she wasn't back before I then headed for my swim start for the BEAVER (2km swim, 85km bike, 20km run). The swim was round and up and down a muddy old puddle that you could stand up in. Spent 5 mins being swum over and being bashed into before settling into a decent swim stroke. Was out of the water in 35mins which I was well chuffed with (especially after my panic attack in Dover harbour a couple of weeks ago).

Then a long run up to the bike transition (and I mean long!), through sludgy grass and cowpats (real rural this race!). Out onto the bike where, of course, I immediately lost any advantage I had built on the swim. Felt ok apart from my usual rubbish struggle up any little hill on the course, and there was quite a long one that had to be tackled on all three laps, GOD I HATE HILLS!

Back to the castle and out onto the run, amusingly 3 laps of the castle grounds including three times to the top of the hill where the castle stands. Very funny, not....Felt rather sick by the last lap and my back was pretty seized up but finished with a PB for this distance so the effort was worth it. Dom had done really well in her race despite being undertrained and not feeling 100%, moreover she had enjoyed it which is really cool. Simon did great in his first attempt at this distance as not the easiest course to begin with....

Had a cool evening by the tents, you'd have thought the kids were in the most amazing 5* theme park/hotel complex, so happy were they climbing trees and weeing in the woods.

(Dom 3hrs 19, Chantal 6hrs 12, Simon W 6hrs 22)

Bewl 15

Ran this off mainly off road undulating race yesterday around the edge of Bewl Water in East Sussex. Chris and my parents looked after the four kids, as Zoe racing too. Poured with rain for the last couple of miles, even the brass band at the finish line packed up early!

Left hip hurting more and more every long run/race, hope it holds out until 7th September......

Chantal 2.10.25
Zoe 2.19.57 (her longest ever race!)