THORNBURY Running Club triathlete Paul Clark set himself an ambitious schedule at the start of July, with a race in Edinburgh and a three-stage event in Wales on consecutive weekends.

The Edinburgh Ironman 70.3 triathlon was contested over a 950m swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run. Anyone familiar with the terrain in Edinburgh would expect a hilly course and Paul commented it was the hardest race he had taken part in.

He still fared much better than most, finishing 188th out of 1,572 competitors and 22nd from 255 in the VM45 age category.

His finishing time was 5:23:23 hours.

Last weekend, Paul ventured to West Wales in beautiful Tenby for the ‘Long Course Weekend’. This swim, bike and run event splits up the Ironman distance disciplines, with 550 people competing over three days.

He completed the 2.4 mile swim in 1:11:19 hours (213th), the 112 mile hilly bike section in 6:37:31 hours (87th) and, on tired legs on Sunday, saved the best for last, a marathon run of 3:36:00 hours (50th place).

His overall time was 11:24:50 hours for 64th place.

The Long Course weekend is held on the same route as ‘Ironman Wales’ in September and Thornbury brother and sister, Dylan and Taryn Roberts, are deep in training for Ironman Wales.

They kicked off the cobwebs by racing the Clevedon Triathlon.

It started with a 400m lap of the refurbished Clevedon Marine Lake before a 20k bike and 5k run to the finish.

They raced the course together, Dylan finishing in 1:15:23 hours in 24th place.

Taryn was engaged in a fierce battle at the head of the ladies’ field and, at the end, the top three competitors were only separated by seven seconds with Taryn taking the top prize in 1:15:31 hours.

Kevin Wood took on the Tockington Duathlon on Sunday and finished 19th overall out of 48 competitors in 48:40 mins.

Maite Roche was runner-up in the women’s field and 23rd overall in 49:31 mins and Angelica Fackrell was 36th in 57:32 mins.

The ever popular ‘Summer Chilly Duathlon Series’ around the Castle Combe race track was back on Wednesday evening.

The two mile run, followed by ten mile bike ride and another two-mile run to finish is a fast and furious event.

Ros Rowland and Ray Sunnicks were racing as a relay team with Ros doing the two runs and Ray the bike section.

They came second overall team in a time of 54:59 mins, which placed them 52nd overall.

Arthur Renshaw was 115th overall and eighth in the Super Vet 60-plus age category in 1:06:07 hours.