Alnwick Triathlon Race report by John Barker:

I’ll get to the sharp end soon but the main event of the day was the face off between TRI’s strength and conditioning coach Nick Grantham and the vintage Ken Gray with the trash talk beginning way back in December last year! Placed in the same lane with Ken starting 10secs ahead of Nick they were off in the first wave – Ken has made great strides with his swimming this winter but Nick managed to put a minute or so into Ken and was off on the bike first. Ken followed soon after and around 45minutes later he arrived back in T2 with a lead of around 25 seconds which is where Ken’s problems started – elastic laces too tight and he took an Ice Age to put his trainers on and Nick caught up and exited T2 only 5 seconds behind. A ding dong battle ensued througout the 5km off road run with each passing one another a couple of times trying to make the break – Ken managing to break free in the last 1km to cross the line just in front of Nick (but he started 10 secs ahead – result later!)

A strong turn out amongst our Age Group team promised much for the race with David Barker(The Professor) and Phil Gray off in the second last wave and Phil Coulson, John Barker, Mick Golightly and Phil Smith off in the last wave. An improved swim from The Professor gave him just under a minute lead over Phil G going onto the bike, Phil however had loaded the Felt with the sub 9 disc and proceeded to take 90 seconds back on the bike to lead out of T2 by 30 seconds. The Professor however proceeded to run Phil down by the turnaround and pull out a further 25 seconds to cross the line ahead.

New team members Michael Todd and Jonno ‘you can’t have enough carbon on your bike’ Robson both enjoyed solid races with Michael producing an improved swim and bike but suffering a bit on the run following recently getting over a bout of runners knee and Jonno putting together a solid swim/bike/run to finish in 15th place.

In the last wave Phil’s Coulson&Smith and John Barker swam within 10 seconds of each other and with Smithy starting 20 seconds ahead he was off on the bike first, Mick Golightly exiting around 45seconds adrift following a winter blighted by a nerve problem in his arm hindering his swimming. JB and Mick proceeded to move through the faster swimmers homing in on Smithy with Coulson (The Gazelle) following not far behind waiting to move in for the kill on the run. Smithy entered T2 first closely followed follwed by JB and Mike Little/Phil Aiston  of Tyne Tri. Speedy tranistions followed and everyone was out within 5 seconds of each other with Mick following 20 seconds later. Phil Coulson approached the dismount line and promptly learned a valuable lesson about making sure you change your brake blocks back to cork when running carbon rims – they grabbed the front wheel hard and he went  r’s over elbow and got some road rash and a bruised knee as a parting gift and had to drop out.

Phil Aiston got into his stride early and came past JB and Smithy who both tried to hold his pace but he continued to gain 20 metres or so. Approaching the turn around the winner Alan Copeland came flying the other way 3 mins ahead of everyone else followed by Phil Aiston, JB, Smithy, Mike Little and Mick Golightly. Everyone was running a similar pace with no one able to catch pass the person ahead with Aiston crossing 15 seconds in front of JB followed by Smithy, Mike Little and Mick Golightly.
With everyone starting with between 10 and 20 second gaps with the swim waves the result weren’t conclusive.

The final results where:
2nd – John Barker
4th – Phil Smith
6th – Mick Golightly
12th – David Barker
13th – Phil Gray
15th – Jonno Robson
53rd – Michael Todd
85th – Ken Gray/Nick Grantham

Unbeliveably the Grantham/Gray face-off finished a dead heat in 1hr 25mins 14 seconds! (although Ken will tell you his name is first on the results) Chapaue to you both – only one word could be heard afterwards……RE-MATCH!