Sunday 21 December 2008

Martha going strong in South Africa

Martha Taylor gets 4th woman and 22nd overall in a time of 1 hour 10 in the Uge Events Trail Running Series - Race # 5 at Konka Kamp in South Africa. This was a 10.5km fell race - great run!


Sunday 16 November 2008

Whinfell to send the A-Team to Wimbleball

Entries for the UK Ironman 70.3 triathlon are now open. Whinfell Harriers will be sending a full team to compete over the 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run course in the heart of hilly Exmoor. The race will be held on 14th June 2009 at Wimbleball lake.

So far we have the following confirmed entrants:

- Maurice (Al Poole)
- Champ (Ryan Evans)
- Jimbo (James Poole)
- Hinksy (Tom Hinks)
- Billie Jean (Jean Smullen)
- Crazy-Horse (Brett Welch)

Sunday 9 November 2008

Crazy-Horse gallops at the Ballbuster

Brett Welch, (Crazy-Horse) galloped his way to a 4hrs 28 at the Ballbuster Duathlon at Box Hill in Surrey on 8th November. This is the biggest endurance race he's done so far in terms of time and distance, and is great base training for next year's Ironman 70.3. Well done mate!

Ballbuster is one of Britain's hardest duathlons taking in an 8 mile loop five times which includes the very steep Box Hill, in the format RUN (8 miles)-BIKE (24 miles)-RUN (8 miles).

There is a re-run of this race on 21st March 2009 for anyone interested. Czech out this link.

Saturday 11 October 2008

King of the Mountains Ride

Please click here to see the map of the King of the Mountains ride that we will be holding. The date is still to be confirmed.

This will be a 165km ride with 4,466m of ascent. Brutal!

Monday 22 September 2008

RACE REPORT: Lorton Sprint Triathlon

The Lorton Sprint Triathlon took place on Saturday 20th September 2008 over the following course:
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Swim (Crummock Water) - Short course: 300m; Long course: 900m
Bike (Lorton Valley and Loweswater) - Road course: 22km; Mountain bike course: 17km
Run (Lorton Valley) - 5km
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RESULTS

1st - Ryan Evans ----- 1:34:39
2nd - Paul Walwyn
3rd - John Raho ----- 1:39:00
4th - Andy Raho ----- 1:40:00
5th - Rosie Hart
6th - Jim Poole ------- 1:43:48
7th - Suzy Robertson
8th - Tom Hinks ------ 1:51:00
9th - Brett Welch ----- 1:51:28
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Congratulations to Ryan Evans for the win in his first race. A solid swim saw him out of the water in 2nd place which he held for the whole bike course until catching Paul Walwyn on the run.

Paul's 2nd place is also notable as this was his very first triathlon, and despite a lot of pre-race goading from his girlfriend, Rosie, some fast transitions and a strong mountain-bike ride placed him well-up the field.

The Raho Brothers took the 3rd and 4th places, led home by John (your 'Man with a Van'), who had a strong race finishing 2nd in the Buttermere Triathlon in May. This was Andy's first triathlon.

Rosie Hart's triathlon debut was also impressive. A super-tight wetsuit didn't stop her swimming well before putting in a fast bike split on her new wheels. This was backed up with a typically fast run. It'll be frightening to see what she can do in the Spring 2009 triathlon which will have an option on the run to do a fell run.

Jim's mechanical problems put paid to a fast bike split but a reasonable swim and run put him into 6th. Suzy Robertson did a great race and looked confortable running herself into 7th. Hinksy and Brett duelled throughout the race, constantly passing each other. They were very evenly matched on the flat and equally sick of the hills. Both Hinksy and Brett have big triathlon plans for 2009 of the Ironman and Half-Ironman distances respectively so it will be good to see how their winter training goes.

Thanks to everyone who came along and raced, I hope you enjoyed the course. Also special thanks to Cols, Whinfell Harriers's Directeur Sportif and to Harry for their kayak swim support and help with the race logistics.

Course map here.
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The next club race will be the Buttermere Triathlon, to be held on 9th May 2009. This will be a middle distance race with the swim in Buttermere, the bike taking in two high passes: Honistor Hause; and Newlands Hause, and for the run, a choice of a long flat valley run or shorter fell run course. Full details to be published in due course.

Monday 11 August 2008

Recent triathlon results

Olympic distance triathlon results:

J.Poole ---------2:18h - London triathlon
S.Parkinson ---2:38h - London triathlon
A.Poole---------2:55h - South Coast Triathlon
B.Welch -------3:07h - Cambridge triathlon

Well done all!

Friday 8 August 2008

August Olympic distance triathlons

Four guys are doing Olympic distance triathlons over the next couple of weeks:

Sunday 10th August:
Cambridge - Brett Welch
London - Stu Parkinson and Jim Poole

Sunday 17th August:
South Coast (Brighton) - Al Poole

Good luck all!

Saturday 2 August 2008

Eridge 10 mile XCountry Race

We will be sending a team to the Eridge Park 10 mile XCountry race on 14th September 2008. For details or to enter click here.

Tuesday 22 July 2008

Ironman Switzerland 2009 entries

Two confirmed entries for IM Switzerland 2009:

Tom Hinks (Hinksy)
James Poole (Jimbo)

The race will take place on 12th July 2009 and it's going to be a big year of training I'm sure. Bring it on.

Monday 14 July 2008

Quelle Challenge Roth

By Jim Poole:

Quelle Challenge Roth (pronounced Rote) is Europe's biggest Ironman distance triathlon and following my first one last year at Ironman Austria, I was very keen to experience the amazing support from 150,000 strong crowd. Despite the shit weather over the whole weekend and throughout the race I was very pleased to take 29 mins off my 2007 Ironman time and finish in 11hrs 7 mins. I have posted a full race report on my training blog here

Tuesday 17 June 2008

UK Half-Ironman Triathlon 2008

James 'Jimbo' Poole and Alasdair 'Maurice' Poole smashed the competition in the UK Half Ironman triathlon in a very hilly Exmoor.

JP finished in 5hrs 55:10 a small PB and another step in the lead up to Challenge Roth in July, Europe's biggest Ironman distance race and Ironman no.2.

AP had a very strong swim and tough ride on the bike course (which has 52 hills in 56 miles!), marginally finishing outside the time cut-off at T2. Unfortunately this meant that he will have to wait until 2009 to smack the run course.

Brett Welch was team manager for the weekend doing a sterling job in shouting abuse us. He's threatening to race at next year's race. I can only see this ending in tears, but Brett will definitely finish.

Sunday 11 May 2008

Buttermere Triathlon 2008

Following the success of the Coniston Triathlon organised by the club under the Hall Dunnerdale banner, the Buttermere Triathlon was the inaugural Whinfell Harriers event and was held on 10th May 2008.

The course was a 1km swim being two widths of a pretty cold Crummock Water, followed by a 27km bike up and over the Whinlatter and Newlands passes finished with a 13km run course: 2 laps of Buttermere itself.

Race finishers, in no particular order:

John Raho
Jim Poole
Maurice Poole
Laurel Bennett
Emily Davies
Brett Welch

Other notable performances:

Raquel Lenane - brill swim sans wetsuit in 'fresh' water
Nick Barsley - strong swim and v.good bike

Thursday 24 April 2008

The establishment of Whinfell Harriers

Whinfell Harriers is the reincarnation of Hall Dunnerdale Harriers (HDH) which was started in 2003 and based in the Duddon Valley, Lake District UK. The team base has now moved to the Lorton Valley in the north-west Lake District and continues theme of HDH which is multi-sport racing and events.

We have held two multi-day mountain marathon events in different parts of the Lake District, three triathlons and several fell running races of our own, as well as sending teams to races all over the UK and internationally.

In the last three years, triathlons have been the focus of the club and team members have participated in Olympic, Half Ironman and Ironman distance races.