After a long winter of dedicated training Whitchurch Triathlon club members are back racing again.

The season kicked off with a one-two for the club at the Harlech Sprint Triathlon. The race consisted of a 400m pool swim, 21km bike and 6km multi-terrain run, across sand dunes and the beach, finishing with a 200-step climb to cross the line in the cliff top castle. Paul Brown came first in his age group, in 1:11:01 with Nick Holmes second in his age group in 1:21:43.

From one castle to another and Lee Bateson, Steven Bateson and Jane Davies were in Ludlow at the ‘Storm the Castle Duathlon’. Recognised as one of the UK’s toughest duathlon events this 10km run, 33km cycle, and 5km run included multiple ascents up to the castle and a challenging cycle route over the hills of South Shropshire. For Lee and Steven this was their first ever duathlon event. Steven won the family bragging rights, finishing the race in 3:01:07 (10th in age) with the venerable Jane Davies 3:23:12 (fifth in age) narrowly ahead of Lee in 3:24:56 (94th in age). A great effort at a very tough event.

A lot of club members were out in force at the Chester Half Marathon. Steve Bateson came home in 1:47:51, followed by Jane Antrobus (1:54:58), Lee Bateson (2:05:10), Jayne Bateson (2:05:20), Sandy Bebbington (2:05:22) with Carol Sturrock (2:05:25) and Helen Vernon (2:20:22) both completing their first ever half marathons in fantastic times.

Meanwhile at the Oulton Park Duathlon Spring Duathlon, Paul Brown was in action again, racing the standard distance event; a 8.6km run, 38.8km cycle and 4.3km run around the undulating race track to finish 17th overall (second in age) in 1:53:21.