Chris Worfolk's Blog

Last Saturday, Leeds Dock opened up for open water swimming. Jp, Graeme and I completed Woodhouse Moor parkrun then headed down for a dip.

As it was only my third parkrun back, and I have got a lot speedier since I ran a 22:06 in 2018. So, without meaning to but simply trying to keep JP in sight ahead of me, I ran a PB of 21:05. I think I could go faster as I was held up at the start, but I don’t want to pretend I wasn’t working hard!

I would sum up the swim at Leeds Dock as cold. But nice. I am dubious of their self-admitted guesses that it was 17 degrees. I would have guessed at 15-16 but could be mistaken. Once I was swimming, though, it wasn’t too bad. It was mostly the initial getting in and warming up as it was jumping in or use the ladder: no gentle bay area like you get at the Blue Lagoon.

They have a 240-metre loop and there were only a few other swimmers in the water so no traffic to navigate. The water was clean and weed-free. You couldn’t see the bottom but that’s true of basically everywhere I have swum.

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It’s not been my favourite Olympics but the Olympics is always good. Being on in the middle of the night, I kept accidentally seeing spoilers on social media or checking BBC news without thinking and that took a lot of the magic out of it. And the coverage was split between BBC and Eurosport.

However, I did stay up for the mixed team relay and that was amazing.

Last weekend, Hyde Park Harriers ran our first backyard ultra. I say Harriers, for legal purposes I need to make it clear that Toby technically “organised” the event and that we all participated at our own risk. And a lovely job he did, too.

In the “standard” backyard ultra format, you run a 6 km loop every hour and anyone who does not make it back to the finish line for the next hour is eliminated. The winner is the last person standing. The winner normally turns up around the end of the third day after nearly 500 kilometres of running.

As this was our first one, we made it a little easier: it was a five-kilometre three laps of Woodhouse Moor course and time-boxed to 12 hours. People could drop in and out as they wished but around nine of us completed all 12 laps (or 36 laps, depending on what you count as a “lap”), resulting in 60 kilometres of running.

It was raining pretty heavily at 8 am when we started but despite the weather, a large group of us kicked off the running. As the day wore on, it became warmer and less rainy which was much appreciated given we had 20-30 minutes to cool down between laps. My cumulative time was just over 5:48, so I was averaging around a 29-minute 5k. More importantly, my hips held up just two weeks after Outlaw.

Well done to everyone who took part and thank you to Toby for organising, everyone who brought food for the club picnic that took place in the middle, the good people who watched our stuff at base camp and Tim for letting us use Coffee on the Crescent as toilet facilities.

The Evolve Mixed Team Relay is probably my favourite event of the year. They held the first one in 2019 as a test event to stage one to line up with the Olympics. It was September, getting colder, and it rained all day. But we still loved it. And HPH took ten teams.

COVID delayed both the Olympics and 2020 event but when this year rolled around we were back on. And, as with the 2019 event, we woke up to heavy rain. Luckily it gradually eased off throughout the day and we finished the event in the sunshine.

The effect COVID has had on participation is evident. We only took five teams this year and were still the best-represented club. Despite this, it felt like a small piece of normality: catching up with everyone, racing with the club and having fun.

Our team consisted of TeeJay, myself, Laura and Paul and we named ourselves Paddling Peddling Plodders. The more competitive HPH teams were storming it for most of the race but alas, Wakefield came through in the final run leg to take the victory, leaving us with a still very respectable 2nd and 4th place.

The swim and the bike course remained the same but the run course has switched to the trail loop around the lake. All of these times were taken from my watch so transition times are not going to be mega-accurate as it was when I remembered to press the button. Still, a general trend of getting faster.

Most importantly, I finally made it into the club group photo! The previous two were taken at Castle Howard and World Triathlon Leeds. I was at both of these events but missed out of the photo, so I was not about to let this one happen without me!

Congratulations to Rosie, JP, Leigh and Alison who were the first HPH team home. And to Cara and Sam who were completing their first triathlon.

I’m already looking forward to the mixed team relay next year. It’s a brilliant event for both hardcore triathletes to those who have never done one before, or anyone who like interacting with other human beings.

Finally, a gold medal in the mölkky! Also it was great to see the Finns and eat some tasty food.

Congratulations to my sister and her fiancé Simon who tied the knot this weekend. It’s been a long wait due to COVID but it was a beautiful wedding and wonderful to be marking this special occasion with everyone.

Earlier this week I tried stand up paddleboarding (SUP). It’s basically canoeing on a surfboard and it’s a lot of fun. It was run by Bev at the Blue Lagoon and despite a lot of wind, she got us up and going pretty quickly. We also practised rescues. I managed to avoid falling in until the final race at the end. Can’t win them all, I guess!

I’ve never heard of anyone being held back at daycare, especially as it isn’t even a thing in the UK education system, but Venla is graduating.

The story of this year’s Tour de France was Mark Cavendish. Why? For two reasons. On is Cavendish’s amazing comeback. After years of trying to recover from Epstein–Barr and everyone writing him off, he returned to form to win four stages at The Tour.

This is particularly notable because it equalled the long-standing record of Eddy Merckx for the most Tour de France stage victories. This is a huge achievement for anyone but Cavendish wasn’t even supposed to be at the tour: he was only added to the Deceuninck–Quick-Step when Sam Bennett pulled out.

The second reason that this year’s tour was all about Cavendish was that Tadej Pogačar crushed everyone in the general classification. He finished with a gap of 5:20. In the past 20 years, the only other rider to win by more than five minutes was Vincenzo Nibali in 2014.