A Day in the Lakes Tri Report

The swimmers set off into the distance

Following the Thursday request at the sports club for a Harrier Hero, Andy Henderson stepped forward and committed himself to the hill run in Kenny's place.

The final relay teams drawn up for the challenge , which consisted of a 1.9k swim open water, 56 mile bike ride including Kirkstone Pass and the Shap and the 13 mile hill run were as follows:

Calderglen A - Martin Duthie - swim, Robin Derrick - cycle, Alan Derrick - run

Calderglen B - Andrew Buchanan - swim, Billy Buchanan - cycle, Andy Henderson - run

As you would expect there was some friendly rivalry between the two teams, however there is little doubt who the smart money was going on, particularly as Robin has a bike with electronic gears and a battery. Some sabotage plans were mentioned such as stealing the battery and leaving the bike in a high gear, hiding Alan's trail shoes and making him run in his road shoes (that plan actually worked, though team A were directly responsible for that catastrophe).

At the end of the day however despite some valiant and could I say superhuman efforts by team B the smart money won and to their credit are now professional athletes having come in 3rd in the relay team contest overall and winning a staggering £20 sport voucher between them.

The day of the race was clear and bright, the water was calm enough and Martin and Andrew did well returning great swim times. The problem with a great swim time from Andrew meant I was now in amongst cyclists who knew what they were doing and spent the rest of the morning being passed on a very regular basis, I was definitely not amongst my peer group, (the ones with stabilisers would have been more appropriate) however on wards and upwards and upwards and upwards, Kirkstone Pass even had me up out of the saddle, well even Robin admitted to that, then the Shap more upwards, some of the downs were pretty good though.

Billy, never far from a Kayak, exits transition to start his 56 mile journey

Anyway eventually got back,  behind, that is well behind Robin of course (that is some battery Robin has) and released Andy onto the hill to enjoy himself after waiting so long to get going.
Alan did a great run , who needs trail shoes, and I am sure is amongst the fastest times for the run (3rd fastest). Andy came back very strongly especially once he got off the hill and passed a number of people on the 3 mile road section back to the finish.

At the end of the day everybody finished with a sense of achievement and a race well done .As usual and being competitive Harriers you will want times to use as targets for next year now you have all been inspired and can't wait to form teams for next year, they are as follows.

Team A. Martin - 34:01, T1 00:39, Robin - 3:11:11, T2 00:31, Alan - 1:38:14

Team B. Andrew - 32:16. T1 00:38, Billy -  3:43:20, T2 00:30. Andy - 1:56:54

Ps I need to say that team B beat team A in  the transition times race and can give lessons in that very important discipline for a small fee or appropriate sports vouchers.

Finally a heartfelt thank you to our support team,
Kenny for all his cooking, cups of tea, coffee, rolls sausage, black pudding etc.
Sandy for doing her photographer , and sharing her birthday cake.
Mandy for giving an insight to the bike course having done it before herself, though saying she got up the Shap without even realising she had done it was not an experience I can say I had , funny enough Robin did agree with that statement, I think they were winding me up.

 Photos on Flickr at following link. Official photos here. Full results here.

Thanks to Billy for the report and his endless energy over the weekend.
Alan