Clan Kavanagh v The Rest of The World - Now With News From The Front!

A much increased field for this year's Tri Winter Hill:-

From the left:- Allan, Dave and self (RoTW), then Mary, John and Margaret (CK).

On this beautifully sunny day, Dave went into the lead followed by the CK, with Allan and me following. John dropped back temporarily due to a rucksac malfunction, but soon moved back into second place.

We had decided that without a support team, the logical swim direction would be east to west so that we would then run barefoot back along the bank to re-shoe ourselves before returning to transition for the bikes. John obviously didn't fancy going barefoot and swam back, completing his full swim in a remarkable 14 minutes and 6 seconds - I'd been told to expect something special from his swim, and he didn't disappoint.

From here I completely lost contact with the sharp end, so I'll hand over to Mary:-

"I was very briefly in the lead, leaving the car park first on the bike.  Dave soon overtook me.  After the descent into Rivington I caught up Dave again and then John went flying past both of us.  That spurred Dave on I think and he overtook John on the climb up Chorley Old Road. Dave kept his lead from there.  A good contest!"

Dave had the fastest ride in 46 minutes with John just behind in 47, closely followed by Mary in 50 minutes. Dave also had the fastest run with 57 minutes, with Mary and John both showing 61minutes.

Final positions:-

Dave          2:39
John           2:41
Mary          2:44
Margaret    3:00
Allan          3:26
Ed             3.55

Although Dave had some good moving times, he admitted that his overall time suffered due to sloppy transitions. Mary must have given the top two some concern, running them both very close. Was there any change of positions after starting the run back from the swim?

Team Result:- 1st Clan Kavanagh 9 points   2nd Rest of The World 12 points.

With regard to the barefoot run back to the shoes, there has been a suggestion that this added something to the uniqueness of the event, perhaps a good job no-one skinnied!