BUCS Sprint – 30/04/17
The middle of the Easter Holidays was an unusual time in the eyes of most triathletes for a BUCS event, however, sadly 4am coach rides to BUCS competitions are now anything but unusual. 36 of our finest made their way down to St Mary’s School in Calne with a few extra welcome spectators. At 9am, the first of the ladies’ waves set off. Immediately, armed with two megaphones and a whole lot of pride, the Notts cheer squad could be heard above the mediocrity of the other students’ chants. As a result, the first over the line would be Lauren Crisp (1:32:14.6), the only Notts competitor in the first wave, who now holds a golden ticket, and gets to visit the DBmax factory whenever she wants! Soon after, there was a sense of shock throughout the Nottingham crowd, as Laura Owler (1:37:13.3) returned from her bike leg to get off and run! The crowd’s bewilderment hung in the air for what seemed like forever, mostly since the transition was a rather lengthy one. As the day went on, Notts kept getting better, with Rosa Lavelle-Hill (1:22:33.2) ending up in 37th place overall! Kate Dugher (1:25:20.5) 53rd place, and Kathryn Hewitt (1:27:53.9) 73rd place made up the top three. Now it was time for the men; my time to shine. A decent swim and onto the bike to pass a “horny” (and noisy) Ross Laycock (1:18:09.4), which in turn, encouraged me to quickly increase the gap between us. However, a sterling run performance saw him finish not too far behind me. Another notable performance was Stewart Somerville (1:19:16.7) who completed his first triathlon, cycling the full distance this time, with a sprint finish Usain Bolt would have been proud of. On the other hand, a disheartened Adam Thorpe (1:13:16.1) again found it difficult to find his way around the course, reportedly making wrong turns both on the bike and the run, similar to his recent GoTri Duathlon performance. His new bike clearly doesn’t have built in GPS. Next, love was in the air, as Sam Broomhead, (1:09:48.7) 50th overall, and Will Bloomer, (1:09:07.1) 41st overall, came out from the swim, and gazing lovingly at one another, nearly touched hands as they took their bikes from transition. Great performances from both. However, only one Nott’s competitor was stronger than these two lovebirds and that man was Oskar De Schynkel, (1:09:01.6) 40th overall, just beating Mr Bloomer to take the Notts top spot. With so many personal bests and a few first timers to both triathlon and BUCS competitions, there was so much to celebrate from the event, except that I lost by only 9 seconds to Pete (1:17:25.6)!!!
Triumphantly,
Matt Phillips (1:17:34.5)
