The last 3 months have been packed full of great events at which Trainingbible athletes have been ripping up their own personal bests and setting themselves new goals to aspire towards.
Our role of honour is a long one with some particularly notable performances for all sorts of reasons. July saw some great 1st Ironman performances from Tony Smith (13.27) and Ronan Curran (12.23) in Switzerland and Will Newbery in Austria (9.41). We also saw Sean Frost post a fantastic 4:48 at IM UK and gain a Clearwater slot. Also at IM UK, Laura Trimble was 23rd and 5th in her age group, Richard Sudlow and Nick Spencer completed the tough course as their first at that distance. All three went on to new PB's at 70.3 with Richard and Laura posting great races at Vitruvian and Nick showing a huge improvement at the New Forest Middle.
Over in Ireland Bryan McCrystal was continuing his great form by winning the 'Beast of the East' and followed that up with a 3rd place in the National 25 TT and a highly creditable 2nd place in the challenging Kenmare Middle distance. This was only Bryan's second full season in triathlon and he is one of my ones to watch next season. He is going to be focused on 70.3 where his immense bike strength will come into its own.
Sean Frost followed his excellent IMUK 70.3 placing with a 5th at Swanage and and even better 3rd place at the Vitruvian. I feel that Sean is now starting to believe in himself as much as I do as his coach. He is now in the final few weeks of hard work before the 70.3 World Champs in Clearwater. Sean has a modest and understated approach that belies the steel that drives him in training and racing, he has the kind of attitude that will see him do very well in the sport in the future.
TrainingBible athletes were out in the World Age group Champs in Australia with Barry Holmes competeing in his first World Champs in the 40-44 category and Steve Barratt in the 20-24. Steve is now at Durham University and has come back to training after a tough 6 months out with illness. So his Silver medal in the sprints will give him a lift and help motivate him back to a good winter. He is an undoubted talent with much more under the bonnet than we have seen at the moment.
Its been a super season of results and goals ahieved by our athletes and all of the TBCUK coaches have been out supporting athletes at different events and helping them to new levels of confidence and performances. Well done to all of you!
By way of signing off this posting just like to say well done to Mark White our coach based in Leicester who finished off his season with a fine performance at Challenge Barcelona 9:08. Considering he had back surgery a few short months ago and missed a load of training its a tribute to him and his robust spirit to get himself fit enough to run 3:10 off the bike! Well done Mark :-)
