RG Active dominate the Roydon Aquathlon

Our Roydon open water swim facility was the venue for the 1st Inter-Club Aquathlon on Saturday 22nd August, and with athletes from RG Active, Bishops Stortford Tri Club and the Met Police Tri Club it was hoped we would have a great event. The race was held over distances of an 800m (approximately!!) swim followed by a 1.2mile run around the lake. The weather was perfect with the lake being completely still and the temperature was starting to rise, so no excuses for poor racing.

LADIES FIRST……. The first wave off was all of the women at 8:30am with 8 in total. The group of ladies quickly split into a leading group of 3 followed eagerly by the chasing group. With it being difficult to determine exactly who was leading we waited until they got a bit closer in to discover that the pace was being set by a lady quite new to Open Water swimming, and so to our suprise the first lady out of the water was Maralyn Nash, who was possibly more suprised than we were. However Maralyn had no time to rest as she was quickly chased out of the water by Roisin Phelan and Esther Hamill. These 3 girls were all in transition at the same time and it was Roisin who exited out onto the run 1st. The question was now could she hold off the other girls on the run…………

OVER TO THE MEN……… We split the men into an over 40′s and under 40′s group, with the senior men off first. There was a little more pre-race banter between the men, which could be explained as nerves as they were sizing each other up. The over 40′s went first followed 10mins later by the young pups snapping at their heels. As before it was tough to see who would exit the water leading their waves but we soon had Peter Winfield for the senior men and Billy Parker-Brown for the under 40′s. They both had a reasonable margin until the next men came out to follow them and so it was a case of holding on to their leads respectively.

As more of the men began to exit the water we were expecting the first of the ladies home to finish their race, and right on cue we saw Roisin manage to hold off the pursuing Esther by just over a minute, with both of the girls putting in fantastic runs. Not to be outdone, Maralyn came sprinting across the line, only seconds behind Esther, checking her watch to analyse her splits straight away. The times of the first 3 ladies were, 1. Roisin Phelan – 31:09, 2. Esther Hamill – 32:12 and 3. Maralyn Nash – 32:31.

At this point nearly all of the men were out of the water and on the run course. It was becoming quite clear in the under 40′s race that Billy was the man to beat and with a blistering run he finished in a super fast time of 20:09 and so the race was really on for 2nd and 3rd. After exiting the water in close proximity to each other there were 5 guys in contention and a very fast run section saw Stephen Booth come home 2nd followed by Olly Clark in 3rd. It certainly was close though as there was only 40secs between 3rd and 6th place. The times of the first 3 under 40 men were, 1. Billy Parker-Brown – 20:09, 2. Stephen Booth – 24:21 and 3. Olly Clark – 26:17.

In the race for the senior men we had a runaway winner in Peter Winfield, who showed all of his peers a clean pair of heels. Bishops Stortford dominated this category with their athletes taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Steve Harley came in comfortably in 2nd but Alan Findlay held onto 3rd by only 6secs. The times of the first 3 over 40′s men were, 1. Peter Winfield – 23:22, 2. Steve Harley – 26:32 and 3. Alan Findlay – 28:20.

A great event saw the RG Active team take home the team prize, with their fastest 3 athletes pipping Bishops Stortford.

RG Active would like to thank all of their athletes for taking part and making the event a success. We will look forward to organising the races again in 2010 so that we can keep hold of the trophy!!!!!!