We had the long and the short of it on the weekend with the MEC crew racing the sprint event in Victoria and 70.3 in Western Sydney.
2XU Race 1
At race 1 of the 2XU series it was the first time for both ladies racing a sprint distance event having only raced longer distances previously. Shri make quick work of the 500/20k/5 and moved her way through the field to finish 3rd in her age group. Plenty of racing coming up for this young lady over the summer and a great start to the season.
The Croc made the trip from out east to race in Melbourne Sunday. With much work done on getting her swimming up to speed it was a good sign to see her just outside the top 10 out of the water and rode and ran her way into 8th place. Training remotely is not always easy but Leanne has shown she is willing to put in the work for the improvements she is now getting.
A special mention to Les Toth for a strong race and showing he is no longer a rider by continuing to balance out the swim and run improvements.
Western Sydney 70.3
Talia Goddard lead the charge in Sydney from the gun with her strong swim and went on to produce are personal best ride. T showed the grit needed to grind out the run and to hold onto 5th place and with a 13min PB time over the distance. A fantastic performance and while we still have plenty of work to do we have seen T develop well across the ride/run in less than 12 months of training together.
John Winterburn has recently joined the squad after being mad enough to enter in the 2018 version of Ultraman Australia. John attended the MEC training camp over Melbourne cup weekend which was the first of his training with Michael. With limited time to develop fitness John was in the hands of what he had already built fitness wise and instead it would be strategy that would benefit him most. John stuck to his plan almost to a 'T' and as a result came away with a pb swim, bike and run giving him an over all half iron distance personal best 39min quicker than his last best. We look forward to getting John ready for May next year and plenty of improvements along the way.
Kerri Thomas made the trek down to the 'cooler' part of Australia for this race. This was the race that Kerri was working towards for 2017 since starting with MEC mid year and her form at Noosa a few weeks ago suggested her current PB of 5hr 38min she set in 2011 would soon be replaced. A good swim, strong bike and great run had Kerri coming home like a freight train and stopped the clock at 5hr 12min knocking off 26min from her previous best. Well done Kerri and bring on 2018.
Finally we have David Lloyd. David loves a race and not even coming off his coaches insisted break, work travel and a non wetsuit swim could stop him from being on the start line in Sydney. A little apprehensive of the non wetsuit swim at first, he got through fine and went on to have a strong ride and steer the run home. Not even the hot run could slow the Englishman down and was only 3min off his best mark crossing the finish line.
We also send a big speedy recovery to one of our athletes/super mums, Kathy Delos Santos. Kathy was due to toe the start line in Sydney for her first ever 70.3. 6 weeks ago unfortunately she came off her bike and broke her arm and was not able to start. She is already back turning the legs over on the trainer at home and we look forward to seeing her complete her first half next year.