Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Jonas Deichmann completes Challenge 120

Thursday, September 12th, 2024 | Sport

Back in May, Jonas Deichmann set out to try and complete 120 long-format triathlons in a row. Last week, he finished it. This surpasses Sean Conway’s previous record of 105. Congratulations, Jonas!

Illaunmanagh parkrun

Sunday, August 25th, 2024 | Sport

I finished the namely challenge! I was the last letter I needed to spell my name. It’s a lovely parkrun: along the banks of the estuary, trail, plenty of shade and friendly.

Thorp Perrow parkrun

Friday, August 23rd, 2024 | Sport

Thorp Perrow is an estate near Bedale. The parkrun is almost entirely off-road. There are bits of track but moatly you’re running across grassy fields. It makes it quite aoft underfoot, and therefore hard work, and I imagine much more difficult in winter. So not a PB course but a beautiful one. Nice cafe, too.

Cycle Against Suicide

Thursday, August 8th, 2024 | Sport

Cycle Against Suicide is a mental health charity. I recently took part on their King of the Castle Sportif which had celebrity guest Sean Kelly leading the ride. Kelly has four green jerseys at the Tour de France and red jersey from La Vuelta and is now one of the leading cycling commentators.

I have taken my bike outside about a dozen times since IRONMAN Copenhagen two years ago, so I signed up for the 65k rather than the 120k, and even then this was a lot further than I have ridden this year. I was nervous after having so many problems with getting my bike fixed.

They did a neutralised rollout at the start with motorbikes stopping cars at junctions and keeping everyone together. It was a bit chaotic but no crashes and felt very pro. The first half was lovely. There was one small hill but otherwise it was relatively flat. And was the ride went on, the rain lifted and the weather became much nicer.

I was following everyone else but my GPS said we were off course. I discussed it with a few other riders and everyone agreed we were on the right road. I decided to slow down and stick with the group so that I would have some local knowledge around me. After all, my GPS was clearly not reliable because it was saying we were on the wrong road when everyone agreed we were on the right road.

We were on the wrong road. But we managed to find our way to the feed stop. After some lunch, there was another rollout and we headed back down the coast. The view was lovely but it was also into a headwind and I started feeling pretty bad. I just stuck with it and tried to eat some more. At 10k to go, my nightmare scenario did happen and the rear tyre lost pressure entirely. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been: I was able to pump some more air into it and it held foe the remaining ride. But there is clearly still a problem there.

Overall, a lovely chilled out event. With a burger included at the end as well.

Oldbridge parkrun

Sunday, July 14th, 2024 | Sport

Oldbridge parkrun takes place at Oldbridge House. It’s a country estate which now forms the Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre.

The course is all off-road. Most of it is grass with some on dirt. It’s a lovely course in several ways: off-road, pretty flat, around some beautiful fields and a single lap (although some of it does form an out back bit). The main limitation would be if you like road or if you want a PB: the narrow tracks through the long grass mean there is not much overtaking room.

I’ve been ill with one of those colds that you it is difficult to believe is “just a cold” because it wiped me out. This was my first attempt at a run back and I was around 35 minutes, and even that felt like a slog. But I got around and ticked off my second O, leaving me with only one letter left for the name badge challenge.

Challenge Roth 2024

Thursday, July 11th, 2024 | Sport

Lots of exciting thing happened at Challenge Roth this year.

In the men’s race, Magnus Ditlev set a new men’s course record of 7:23:24. And in British interests, Tom Bishop moving up to long format, came second with 7:37:54. He was actually overtaken by Rudy Von Berg on the run but battled back to regain second place.

In the women’s race, Anna Haug set a new women’s course record of 8:02:38. It was only two years ago that Katt Matthews set the first women’s sub-8 at Sub7 / Sub8 under artificial conditions and now Haug is less than three minutes from doing it in a race. Also, she’s 41!

Further down the field, Jonas Deichmann completed his 60th full distance triathlon in a row to mark the halfway point in Challenge 120. He’s been taking up to 15 hours to complete them, meaning less than a full night’s sleep, and yet incredibly is still banging them out every day as he chases Sean Conway’s record.

Queen’s parkrun

Friday, July 5th, 2024 | Sport

Got my Q!

Queen’s parkrun takes place at Queen’s University’s sports fields and consists of a couple of laps around the campus. Nice, enough, not too hilly. Friendly place. I got chatting to one of the staff at Queen’s and it turns out he does computing. There were also tonnes of tourists, including a woman from Finland so I tried out some of my Finnish, which mostly went well.

Back on two wheels

Monday, July 1st, 2024 | Sport

I was without my bike for three months earlier this year so I wasn’t sure I would remember how to ride a bike. Even without the gap, I cycled inside exclusively over winter so my last proper ride was Helmsley Triathlon last summer.

Luckily, I did remember. I had forgotten what a joy it is to be out on a bike when the weather is beautiful. Will have to do this more often.

My next challenge is to workout how to stop my sun cream clouding up my prescription sunglasses.

Kilkenny parkrun

Saturday, June 29th, 2024 | Sport

This is a lovely parkrun in the grounds of Kilkenny Castle. But hill, but nothing too steep, and I was familiar with most of the route having done Kilkenny Triathlon last year. There is an outdoor cafe in the grounds, too, but they could use a public toilet.

I needed a letter K for both the alphabet challenge and spell your name challenge, so this ticked a lot of boxes.

I managed to make it into the background of one of the photos by accident:

Thoroughbred 10k

Wednesday, June 26th, 2024 | Sport

Thoroughbred is a series of runs with a 5k, 10k, half and full marathon option. It takes in some nice country roads before coming back through the National Stud. Very scenic.

Parking was a nightmare. There was no event car park and all of the suggested car parks were full. After 30 minutes, we decided the find a quiet street to park on. Should have done that from the start. I feel bad for getting in the way of the locals but nobody else seemed to bother.

I haven’t done much fast running recently so I decided to go out at an easy pace and see how it went. I did my first kilometre in around 5:30 and that seemed fine so I gently sped up and soon found myself running sub-5:00 which I was delighted with. In the end, I finished:

48:39

I was thrilled with that as I don’t know when I have done a last 10k but it felt like it could equally have been a 65-minute run/walk job.

Lovely to hang out and chat with the club, too. We had 24 people running across the distances but someone I managed to mis all of the group photos 😭.