Turbo Highlights & big countdowns
The countdowns are on. Halloween relays, AGM & committee roles to be filled and of course Kona. But we’re going to start with spectacular success from the World in Torremolinos.
Sprint, Standard and Para World Championships
Torremolinos could hardly of got off to a better start on Thursday, with Turbo, Christian Seymour winning the gold in the 60-64 age group and Turbo friend, Chloe Dooley, not only winning the 25-29 AG, but was the fastest female overall. Friday saw Lauren pick up a gutsy bronze, with possibly her best run of the year, despite illness from racing in Portugal the week before, to turn the page on what has been a turbulent year.
The standard on Saturday saw Jess turn in a stonking effort to finish 4th in the 20-24 (with a mechanical on the bike costing her the chance to contend for the medals). Her consolation is a tie for the Club Champs. Christian shrugged off any fatigue to back up his gold with a bronze whilst Will produced another strong race to finish in the top 3rd of a competitive field, whilst Pier Sidoti finished 13th in the 35-39 Aquabike. Only Christian was in Mixed Relay action handing Australia over with a 1st leg lead, but sadly his teammates weren’t of a similar quality.
Rob was in 70.3 action in Cascais and produced another strong performance in all 3 legs to record a 4:44, in the top 10% of the field.
Lots of running action. Alex & Em ran Amsterdam in just under 5, whilst although Thomas’ 3:14 in the Yorkshire Marathon may look impressive to many, was a long way off his target and what we know he’s capable of – what I do know, is he’ll come back strong to try again.
We had a super contingent brave the wind for the Cabbage Patch, Ian Black leading the team home; the full role of honour - Ian 01:00:30, Mike 01:04:33, Ben 01:05:34, Charles 01:05:43, Gareth 01:05:53, Duncan 01:06:41, Nicole 01:07:43, Sam 01:07:48, Maria 01:09:29, Atish 01:12:07, Sarah 01:18:48, Ani 01:24:59, Naomi 01:29:45, Anish 01:33:24. A reminder, we’re now a UKA affiliated club, so if registered with through the club, you can represent Thames Turbo in official races & receive the discounted entry.
This weekend has Sam Marks taking on the Original Mountain Marathon & Maria, the River Thames Half, but it probably hasn’t escaped your attention that Ian, James & myself are out in Kona. James and Ian start on Saturday at 18:20 (UK), whilst Ed Buckley is off 10 minutes later.
Excitement on the island has been building through the week & we’re about to find out how we deal with the heat (and in James’ case, his newly acquired battle scars) https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18024115097400542/
Social events
It also less than a week to the Halloween relay returning on Weds 30th at track, followed by drinks in the Alexander Pope; Lauren has promised to join; would be great to help her celebrate her Paralympic success. The fancy dress relay is very simple; teams of 3 to be drawn from the cauldron on the night, each runner running 3 legs of 666 yards. Given I’ll only be returning on the Wednesday morning, I’m likely to be dead to the world (less make up required then, I guess). It was a fabulous night last year; it would be great to surpass the numbers this.
Club AGM
Also another reminder of the club AGM on Monday 18th November, 19:30 at the Anglers. I’m re-attaching Rob’s note on the details of the committee roles. It is imperative that these are filled to ensure smooth running of the club. And it’s not just the formalities of the accounts & election of officers, but also a chance to review the year’s highlights and have a darned good social.