IT was a silver medal in a world-class field for Thornbury Running Club’s Roger Denton when, as part of the Great Britain team, he travelled to Switzerland to take part in the Powerman World Championship Duathlon this month.
The ITU Zofingen Powerman Long Distance event considers itself to be the most important duathlon worldwide and tests the athlete with a fast 10k run section before the three-lap, 150k bike section and then a 30k run. 
Gauging the pace for the first run is hard. Knowing how much there is to be done can tempt the competitor to take it a bit easy and save energy, but worrying too much time will be lost can cause fresh legs to go too fast. This may have been the downfall of one of the 19 in the M50-54 category who recorded the second-fastest time for the first run, then failed to complete the event. 
Denton finished this element in a good seventh place and had a fast transition onto the bike where he recorded the third-quickest time of the day. 
After another good transition, he then came truly into his own, beating the entire field over the longer 18-mile run to complete the event in seven hours 33.13 minutes; second place overall and first British competitor.
Although the Powerman can be considered tough, it is surely surpassed by the Helvellyn triathlon, where competitors swim in Ullswater before the bike section takes them up Kirkstone Pass and the run is ‘just’ up and down Helvellyn itself – the third-highest Lake District summit. 
No surprise Rob Hopkins was the man to take this challenge. His time of four hours 24.13 minutes put him in 71st place.
Closer to home, three club members took to the tracks of Woodchester Park for the eight-mile race hosted by Stroud and District AC. 
Rob Watkins was first V45 to finish in seventh place overall in 54.28mins. Nick Langridge followed in first place in the M60 class, 30th place in one hour 5.08 minutes, with Ros Rowland 46th in one hour 9.24 mins.
Liz Dix entered the Tri Ferris Cotswold Triathlon the same day, bettering her previous time over a slightly longer distance to finish in one hour 36.05 mins.
l Jim Godden, in the MV50 age group, ran well to finish the Bristol half-marathon on Sunday in one hour 25.27 minutes, with Matt Johnstone (one hour 27.17 mins), Garry Slater (one hour 27.27 mins) and  Andrew Darton (one hour 28.37 mins) all within the 90-minute time.