just seeing who's making the trek to One-Mile for the Champs next Saturday?

Here's hoping the recent 6-foot swell swinging round the point keeps up for the swim leg

Yep, looking forward to this event this weekend.

Let's hope my virus/flu/bug has lonnnnnnnng gone so I can have a good go on Saturday

GO HILLS!!! I mean GO BALANCE!! gosh being a member of two Clubs is hard work

AK

I'm in for the last race of the season. Not sure how I'll go given I've done nothing but eat and drink for the past three weeks.

I hear the motto for the weekend is "Race hard, party harder !"

Yep, I'll be there - in cheerleading mode

I'm there - and Mrs Muzman is cheersquad. There is a grand total of two of us from Forster this year double the numbers from last year.

We are not going to the dinner, though - making our own arrangements.

See youse all there.

M

As a club, we do our own dinner on the Saturday as well - and then swing round to the presentation afterwards. Not as many numbers for us this year either, so don't think we'll replicate our 4th regional club placing of last year

Most of us up here are arriving mid-day Friday - and as such, I may perhaps be going for a light ride in the arvo if anyone's interested? We're staying right across the road from Transition at One Mile Beach

mind you, if the surf really IS up that big, I'll be out at the point

Nite_time_runner and I will be there too!! I have bought myself a wetsuit and am ready to battle the waves and the freezing cold water

Can't wait!! Looking forward to catching up with other CRs up there, I think our club has a load of people going which is exciting.

Go Hills!!!!!

I shall be there in cheerleading mode although pom pom's are no guarantee

Still need to decide if I go up on Friday night though....

Can't go this year

Race reports please

Personally I had a great weekend. The rather decadent race start time meant that I was able to sleep in (a bit), get my long run done & still make it to the start in plenty of time.

Lovely to catch up with Muzman & Miners again. Also bumped into Helmut at the service centre on the F3 on the way home yesterday afternoon. Thanks to Mouse & NTR for their hospitality, for the warning about keeping away from the animals & for not shunning me during my display of "social suicide" at the beach yesterday morning

I couldn't be at Club Champs thanks to my non-working honeymoon ending last week.

However Helmet and Balance Tri Club were there waving the club flag.

Helmet was very happy with 1:55:57 (24:27/58:48/32:40).

From the look of other results I think it might be "game on" between Helmet and Mango

Not quite a race report...for reasons explained....(warning..bit off a long post...)

Arriving the night before we had an easy evening with mango and jen. The morning started well, with an easy cruise on the bikes from anna bay to one mile beach. The rego, logisitics and everything else was easy - no delays. TriNsw really know how to put such an event on!

I started off putting on the green machine - a green and gold wetsuit graciously lent to me by Plu. In a sea of black Orca, Zoot etc wetsuits, i was the only one wearing green!

It took about 11 seconds in the swim to know something was not right...the water snapped at my breath, i found the wetsuit slightly restrictive, and an episode of asthma was brewing...i got to about 250 metres ( maybe? ), without being able to muster one freestyle stroke, when my breathing was so shallow and ineffective, i gravely put up my hand. I was picked up by the surf crew, transferred from paddle board, to rubber dinghy, then sea-doo, and back to the shore. Game over. I was offered lots of help by the organisers, and hobbled back to transition to get my ventolin, positioned ready for the bike leg in my bike shoes, as i never leave it far away. I took 12-20 puffs, and as usual, it all came good again in about 10 minutes. I was ready to sit out for the next few hours feeling glum, when Mouse appeared looking fresh from her swim. She said just ride and run with her anyway - i asked a TO, advising i will disqualify myself anyway, and got the OK.

So, i finally got to ride with Mouse, getting overtaking by many many speed freaks on wheels, stopped to help a guy with a puncture ( i was a DNF anyway...), had drafting rules explained by a TO on a motorbike, and finally ran it home with Mouse. Two out of three legs o f club champs were lots and lots of fun. One just sucked.

So a strange race i guess for me. Lots of lessons learned in terms of my managment of asthma, ocean swimming, and humility. I felt like a bit of a fraud when riding and running getting cheers and encouragement- given i did not do the swim leg like the rest of the group. I did go to disqualify myself at the end, but an official ( realising my time was not going to take points or a trophy away ) said thanks for being honest but don't worry about it, basically.

The positive side, Mouse had a great great great race! We got to do it together, which really is the most important part of this sport to me! ( ps thanks for the Tri Suit babe!! its great! ) Also got to spend some time with Miners, Mango and Muzman ( are CR's starting with M more likely to do Tri's?) which was great. I realised it was Muzman i spoke to ( rambled to? ) for a large part of my 1st marathon, on the gold coast a few years ago, so that was really cool too! Thanks for the support from Hills club, Jen_runs, Muzman and Mrs Muzman, Miners, Mango and my gorgeous Mouse

Hi All

Official results are up for this race on TriNSW Race site ...

I was surprised to see I did exactly the same time as I did last year - given that I ran a bit quicker this year - 2:15:xx, but not to worry - being the last race of the year and no Club points to tussle for, I just was determined to have a ball, which I did!

I had a good swim right up until the time I touched the beach, then couldn't get my land-legs back and bumbled and stumbled around falling over and watching all the blokes I had passed in the swim, run past me!

Bike was good, if a bit windy on the downhill, which made my old Felt shimmy and shake like a bucking bronco, so I had to back off, thanks to my new-found nervousness since the prang.

Run was very comfortable and a real social event - waving, cheering and yapping to my fellow triathletes all the way. What fun!

And to think, that standing on the beach, doing a triathlon was the last thing I felt like at that moment.

A great day and a lot of fun, and fantastic to catch up with Mango (my rack neighbour), Jen, and Miners. Extra special to see NTR and Mouse, and yes it was a surprise to realise it was you back in '06 at GCM, NTR. Congrats to Mouse for a great race, and I didn't realise NTR was 'unofficial'. I just thought you were being a romantic, running round with Mouse!

Thanks to Jen and Mrs Muzman for the support (and grandson mini-Muzman, who wanted to join in) and to NTR and Mouse for the reviving coffee - very kind.

Focus now is on my two marathons for the year, but first MDC at the Domain, then SMH and B2B. No swimming for a few weeks! Brrrr.

Cheers, and well done to all CRs who took part.

M

Yes Ma’am

What a great way to finish the season. Swim, bike, run, eat, drink, drink, eat, drink, drink and drink.

I was quite happy with my race given that I’ve done nothing but sit on my butt for the past 4 weeks. The swim felt a little longer than 1k but it was good that we could walk out roughly 150m into the water before starting to swim. My bike leg was fairly uneventful apart from the usual peleton packs that flew past whenever there were no TO’s to keep them in check. I did notice on the final lap an ambulance on the other side of the road with a couple of cyclists that didn’t look in very good shape. Later heard that a Hills Tri club member had clipped the wheel of the bike in front of her. She went down and took another guy out in the process. I hope they are both okay.

The run was an interesting 3 lap loop of sand, grass, road and even a bit of tree dodging. Normally I would make up a number of places on the run but a bad stitch during the second lap forced me to slow down before the pain subsided half way through the final lap.

Splits and final time were: 22.51 / 58.41 / 33.51 = 1.55.25

And yes Wildthing, you could say it’s game on

It was great to catch up with Muzman, Mrs Muzman, Miners, Mouse and NTR.

Thanks to the race organisers and all the volunteers who did an outstanding job. Special thanks to Mouse and NTR for being fabulous hosts. Mouse, that travelling concoction was fully sick . The real highlight for me on the weekend was a nice ‘stroll’ along the beach on Sunday morning followed by a bacon & egg roll and coffee. Nice.

The club champs are definitely an event that people should add to their calendar.

This is nasty, but my first thought was, serves the cheat right! I hope they're OK, I would have been pretty furious if she was drafting if I was the other person she took out, but then again he was in close proximity too, so....

edited to say, I have no tolerance for drafting cheats, in case if wasn't already obvious!

According to insider knowledge , the girl isactually a Hills member and someone riding past clipped her pedal and she went down and took the guy behind her down also. The guy riding past didn't stop to see if she was ok which is pretty poor form. She has stitches and a few grazes but otherwise is fine. The other guy who went down broke his collar bone!!

I'm glad this was the case then, not that she fell, but that it wasn't because she was drafting. Thanks Mouse.

Come to think of it but, the Club Champs is always the event that seems to have the most accidents! It is a great location, but that ride, in all it's incarnations, from when it was at Nelson's Bay to Soldiers Point and now a course change again, it has always been a ride that stressed me out, perhaps it's the fact that everyone in Port Stephens goes out in their cars on a Saturday afternoon, and there is a big turn up for the race.

LBP, I've always found the road surface there a bit too 'granular' (a bit like home) and therefore not offering the best adhesion. I always feel like the bike is 'skating' across the road surface and I am never really secure - especially with a vicious wind like yesterday. Add that to a really fast descent just after the turn and you have a recipe for disaster.

Where's the hotmix when you want it?

M

Yes, the safety factor on small bike courses is always something to be aware of. There have been a couple of hairy moments over the years, and the last turn on the old Soldiers Point course in the wet was particularly harrowing.

And just for Jen, I suppose there should be a race report

Enjoyed the whole weekend very much - as is always the case. Club Champs is the race that all of us up the coast look forward to. The racing was tight amongst the Club, the partying was great, and we had a nice Club result to make it even more special.

Personally, my race was Ok. Thought I was a little off-course with the return leg of the swim, but seemed to do about the same time as last year. Bike was good as there were only 3 guys who overtook me during the race (until a pack of 7 or 8 swapping off caught me in the last 4km). My run was again my more disappointing leg - but hey, if you don't train, you can't expect to fly.

Great to finally catch up with NTR and Mouse, who was very kind in reminding me that I'd provided her with some very helpful advice regarding wind-trainers a year or so back. I'm assuming that the advice was helpful in so far as she chose to completely ignore it Probably smart thinking R

Wonderful to catch up with Muzz & Mrs Muzz and the other coolcouple Jen and Mango. Was especially nice to be racing with Mango again after he smashed me in C2S last year. Not sure how the splits went in Saturday's race though mango - how did we match up in each leg?

Great to see you again mate

It was a no-contest mate. You smashed me in the swim and bike and despite Miss FHG insisting that I was catching you on the run your split was still better than mine . Regardless of the result it was a lot of fun to be racing with you again and I promise to provide a bit more competition next time. What about the C2S ?

ah yes, but you looked better. Or at least you seemed to get more cheers from that redhead at the last run turn than I did

Yeah, she wasn't a bad sort either

I think she could only be described as fully sick!