FOUR DRC TRI team members competed at the Ironman 70.3 Middle distance triathlon at the Shugborough House estate in Staffordshire last weekend in a field of over 2,100 competitors.

This gruelling event saw the athletes tackle the 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run in the extreme heat with temperatures way into the nineties.

This was the first time at this distance for the boys and Tony Freer was first back for the team in an overall time of 5hrs 38 mins.

Having only learnt to swim this year, he completed the leg in 44:46mins.

He proceeded to move up the field on the bike and run splits to 16th in his age category.

Tara Truman performed well in all three disciplines and finished seventh in the age category out of 65, her best performance to date at this distance.

Her bike split of 2hrs 47 mins put her second in her age group and 20th fastest lady overall.

Chris Sweet started with a strong swim and bike split only to struggle on the run under the scorching midday sun, but still finished with a sub 6hr 30 min time.

Damian Lai who ‘just wanted to finish the distance and enjoy it’ proved that anything is possible by finishing the event well under the cut off time, having only purchased his first road bike a few weeks ago and he too only learned to swim this year.

Results: Tony Freer 5hrs 38 mins 16th in Age Category 50-55 (Swim 44:46, Bike 2:47, Run 1:55), Tara Truman 5hrs 46mins 7th in Age Category 45-49 (Swim 44:46, Bike 2:47, Run 1:55) Chris Sweet 6hrs 26 mins 154th Age Category 40-49 (Swim 37:21, Bike 3.03, run 2:40) Damian Lai 7hrs 16mins 225th (Swim 58:26, Bike 3:38, Run 2:31)

Last weekend also saw Joe Browning dicing with waters of Bristol Harbourside in the Bristol Standard distance triathlon, once out of the less than appetising waters of the Cumberland basin the cycle and the run make up for it being very flat, although very windy. Joe had a good event, he managed a course best if not a PB.

He finished in a time of 02:44:32 and was 118th out of 392 athletes.

There was as strong DRC TRI showing last week at the Castle Combe 10 mile Time Trial.

Tony Freer averaged 25mph to give him a PB time of 23:44mins, an impressive benchmark. Fred Yearsley (25:45) and Tara Truman (26:22) were both 2nd in their age categories. Zoe Fowler (4th) and Jerry Fowler (16th) both finished in 29:17 with only a split second between them. Damian Lai completed this first TT with a time of 29:48 (21st)