Welcome to ITCH - the Ipswich triathlon club hand-out - for August 2008. Just...

This month's ITCH is not only a tad tardy but slimmer than usual (hooray I hear you say) with people clearly busy competing, taking holidays and watching the Olympics.  But we did hold our second open event of the year, at Framlingham, following the usual last minute call around for sufficent volunteers.  Indeed, our only proper race report this month comes from Ellie Wright who writes below about how she used Framlingham to build on her experiences elsewhere.

Our next event is the duathlon on 21st September. Please, if you put your name down as a volunteer for the duathlon - and even if you didn't - make sure you've still got it in your diary.  I know that Derrick Smith will be very glad to hear from anybody else who can possibly help on race day itself: contact Derrick direct on derrick.smith@bt.com or Ipswich (01473) 717375.

Another date which should be in your diary is our club AGM, which will be held on Thursday club night, 13th November. As well as seeing the presentation of the club championships, this is the opportunity to get yourself elected into one of the committee posts.  Nominations have to be received in advance so please start thinking and talking about it now - as well as the agreement of the nominee, all nominations need a proposer and at least one seconder. Nominations should be sent to Simon Palmer on simon.palmer@talk21.com .

Meanwhile, we've another busy weekend coming up with:

• at least six members lining up for Ironman UK - Greg Allen, Mark & Lucy Bowditch, Simon Lockwood and Kate & Charlie Stannett;
• at least one member lining up for Ironman 70.3 Monaco - Nick Collinson;
• a veritable club outing to the Vitruvian middle distance up on Rutland Water.  There isn't an easy "search" facility but I've seen names like Antony Birt, Steve de Boltz, Dave Copland, Iain Downie, Brian McGeeney, Mike Stollery, John Wankowski and Julia Yelloly as well as the ever-present Graham White. (It wouldn't be the Vit without Graham really, would it!)  This is close enough to take a trip out to go watch - you can always follow it up by visiting the butterfly farm or something!

Good luck to everybody competing and, if you're not competing yourself or going to Rutland to watch the Vitruvian, note that you can usually track the progress of competitors for the IM events on www.ironmanlive.com - and good luck off the road to Nicola Miller (working on augmenting the junior section) and also to Ant "Swiss Tony" Birt (something about September 11th being his "last night of freedom"...)

Charlie Stannett - itch@ipswich-tri.org

Will Meadows won the U21 category at Waveney Triathlon earlier this year.

Will Meadows moves on again as he has been awarded a scholarship to Kelly College an elite sports college in Devon, although he will keep his membership with Ipswich Tri, his home club.

Known best for its swimming excellence, Kelly College has produced 14 Olympians and has had a current or former Swim Squad member at every Olympic Games since 1980 including some of the nation’s favourites such as Sharron Davies and Mark Foster.  In 2008 Kelly College was represented at the Beijing Olympics in Triathlon and Pentathlon and has two strong contenders competing in the Paralympics swim team in Sept.   Will is really pleased with this chance to study and train at the same time, “I feel proud to have gained a scholarship to go to Kelly College and I feel honoured to have been to chosen to represent such a prestigious college at triathlon. The training I am going to receive is what I need to help push me to the next level as I feel these are the hardest years of my life.  I have to convert potential into results, and so the physiological and psychological training offered is exactly what I need to push me on. TRI UK has helped with my racing expenses; they are fantastic and give me all the equipment I need including a Van Nicholas bike which is really great.  I know how lucky I am to get this sponsorship and really value Chris and Ali Boon’s support and belief in me as a triathlete.”

Voted Suffolk Coastal Young Sports Personality of the Year in 2007, following a solid performance at County, Regional and National level, Will was then awarded a bursary from the University of Essex which included coaching from World Class Coach Dave Parry.  Will said, “Dave is a great coach he supports my training and has a ‘no excuses’ policy which really helps me to focus. The bursary has helped me with training plans and advice on which races to enter.  They have supported me through some difficult times and I have a lot to thank the University HPU Team for.” 

2008 has been a difficult season for Will with exams and injuries which have kept him out of some key races, but Will was advised not to push himself while he is young and to take it easy for a while to let his body grow a bit (grow a bit!!!!).  The Kelly College web site is http://www.kellyswimming.com/homepage.html and you can keep up with Will’s news on www.willmeadows.com.

Cate Meadows

Race director's report - Framlingham

Simon shows off his "race director" garb...

Ipswich Junior Triathlon - Framlingham College Sunday 24th August 2008

Report from Simon Palmer Race Director

Once again the setting of Framlingham College provided a great setting for our Junior Triathlon. Despite the poor weather, typical of much of the summer, the youngsters enjoyed the event. (I am never sure that ‘enjoyed’ is the correct word when associated with a triathlon).  Many parents and competitors expressed their thanks to the club and all the volunteers for their cheerful help and enthusiasm.

Two good points

• Quote from one of the volunteers  ‘Looking at all the mothers from Essex all I can say is the weather in Essex must have been a lot better than it was in Suffolk this year’ (apologies for those from Essex who are female, but it cheered me up!)

• Seeing all the eight year olds lined up by the poolside – nervous, keen, eager.

Two bad points

• Having to delay the start for 10 minutes because someone had forgotten to bring some pretty vital equipment with them.

• Parents who had filled in entry forms incorrectly so that their offspring were in the wrong wave.

Many, many thanks to the members of Ipswich Triathlon Club who gave up their time on a Bank Holiday Sunday morning to stand in the rain so others could enjoy a sport that many of us have taken so much from: Jason Baillie, Jason Battle, Ron Bareham, Gabriel Barsoum, Nik Bestow, Will Catchpole, Danny Clifford, Oliver Calver, Dave Copland, Matt Dye, Elisa Garvie, Joe Goddard, Brian McGeeney, John Moody, Clive Quantrill, Wendy Quantrill, Mike Stollery, Mary Skelcher, Laura Revell, Bridget Revell, Susannah Rosenberg, Isabel Smith, Mervyn Wake, Graham White, Kirstie Wright, Terry Wright.

Double thanks to those who set up the course in the warm sunshine on Saturday and also turned up again on Sunday: Jason Baillie, Jason Battle, Adrian Green, Julia Green, Sam Green, Brian McGeeney, Jonny Palmer.

If I have missed anyone out, I do apologise.

Special thanks to

• Adrian Green - assistant race director - and Julia Green for putting up with everything associated with putting on a race.

• My wife Sue and son Michael for spoiling their weekend through shopping for food, making sandwiches for volunteers, cooking, serving and clearing up from the refreshments and putting up with me.

• Matt Dye and Graham White for organising the swim start so efficiently.

This was my eighth Junior Triathlon and the last one as race organiser. I started when my sons were young and both competing in triathlons - Jonny was 10 and Mike was eight. Both have gone their own ways in sport - Jonny runs at county level; Mike is an all-rounder in Cricket, Tennis and Football but is still the only member of our family to have won a triathlon (Mid Suffolk 2000). Over the years it has been a very rewarding experience and sometimes on race day I cannot believe it all comes together so smoothly. I would like to thank all the people who have assisted me over the years.

If anyone else would like to get involved and step up to the mark I will give them all the help they require.

Simon Palmer

The date for this is being fixed as 18th-25th April 2009.  See Susannah Rosenberg's item in April's ITCH for further details, and contact Susannah as soon as possible if you want to book a slot.

If you want to be on a ring round list for notification of changes at short notice then let Steve dB have your number. Steve is on 07795 564322.

But look behind Jason and you see people like Dave Copland and John Wankowski bubbling under with just three events so far - and they are both doing the Vitruvian.

Similarly in the ladies, Kate Stannett's high tariff events have let her nudge past Amanda Mallett but Julia Yelloly and Wendy Quantrill both have an event in hand. I don't know about Wendy, but I've seen Julia's name down for the Vitruvian.
 

Graham White writes: Graham White won the J category at Cambridge Tri with splits of 36.47, (1.5km swim), 71.41 bike, (36th fastest of the day and fastest in his age group), 42.03 for 10km run (30th fastest of the day and fastest in age group) to give a total time of 2 hours, 30 mins and 31 seconds to finish 65th overall, 57th male and 1st over 50, beating second place by over 5 mins.
Joe Goddard was 20th overall and did 25.02 swim, 74.18 bike and 39.03 run, total time 2.18.23.
 

For full results see http://www.cambridgetriathlonclub.co.uk/.

For the purpose of the ITCH league it is only performances in Sunday's age-grouper (non-drafting) standard distance races which I'm using but we did have local interest on the Saturday sprint & relay events:

• Will Meadows was unable to start because of a "niggling rib pain that keeps reoccurring, nothing serious but he is advised to take it easy and let his body grow a bit (yes really that's the advice) rather than keep pushing on while so young". There is more news about Will - see earlier.
• Ipswich XRT relay team came fourth in their wave. My secret informant tells me swimmer "Dale slipped over exiting water and I saw David (Miller) skid right over on a turn".
• Dirty Badgers relay team featured our Hugo Catchpole who had a good run but their cyclists was seven minutes slower than last year. (Worth pointing out that the cycle route was shortened last year because of road surface damage!)
• Danny Clifford competed in the individual male sprint (Swim: 750m / Bike: 21km / Run: 5.2km). I missed Danny but I was told by his colleagues on the British Triathlon stand that he had been seen smiling afterwards - Danny did 1:14:44 to come 27th overall out of about 1400 people in the "Sprint Male All Heats Combined". Sounds like a good reason to be smiling.

If we look at the standard ("Olympic") distance events on the Sunday you'll see we had a brilliant turn out from the club. For the purposes of the league scoring I have had to make some arbitrary tweaks:

• I have ignored totally the "elite" waves which were draft-legal
• I have also ignored the AWAD & VI wave and the "Mixed Olympic Group" because neither wave's results identified people's gender - but nobody from the club competed in these waves
• Apart from those omissions, I have merged all the results into one set as though everybody were racing in one wave. However...
• ...I have adjusted the bike times.  This is because the morning races - the Westminster course - had a 38km bike leg, whereas the afternoon races - the Tower Bridge route - had a 38.7km bike leg. So, for the purposes of the league, I have extrapolated everybody to a notional 40km - I multiplied all morning bike times by (40/38), and all afternoon bike times by (40/38.7) - before merging everything and working out the scores.

Which gives us: