Archive for the ‘Marathon Racing’ Category

It’s pretty much spring, which means the racing season is almost upon us, brilliant! But don’t get all excited yet, there’s still plenty of time for the long ‘end of winter’ training sessions. What better way of getting the miles in than racing The Waterside Series…? ‘There is no better way!’ I hear you shouting, and maybe your right. Particularly if your goals this year involve marathon racing, or even 1000m sprint. For the people racing the 125mile Devises to Westminster the series is an essential part of their preparation, not only for the physical training but to learn Read the rest of this entry »

Hey guys sorry it’s taken so long but here are the highlights from this years marathon season, following myself and my friends around the world to various events, including both marathon world cups 1 & 2, the Nelo Summer Challenge and finally the Marathon World Championships in Banyoles Spain… Thanks to everyone for a great season of racing, I am already looking forward to next year!

Marathon World Championships 2010 – event review

It’s not often I come away from an international event with no complaints, (I love to have a grumble about things!) usually there are problems with over crowded late running busses, or maybe the venue is not good for spectators and sometimes the venue just plain awful for paddling, and you think ‘what the hell are we doing here?!’ Banyoles had none of these problems this weekend, hosting the World Championships was no issue at all for these organizers.
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In my eyes, there is a basic list of a few essential controllable elements that need to be in place for athletes to perform at their best in international marathon competitions;

1. Fly out in plenty of time for race preparation with the least amount of stress to the athletes.

Who decided it was a good idea to fly out at 10pm with only 1 day before our Junior Athletes take part in the most important race of their lives (so far)? Someone, PLEASE take all decision making responsibilities away from them in the future.

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Race Pace are supporting one of (if not the) best UK Club Marathon Races of the year, find the event on Facebook HERE. Click attending, if you think your hard enough…

Race Pace athletes clean up at the National Marathon Champs in Chester.

So the wind had died down a bit, but annoyingly changed from a cross-tail to a full on cross wind. Not pleasant racing conditions. Our Junior Boys Tom Deacan & Oli Rix didn’t have a brilliant race, there were only 5 boats in the race and well, they came 5th. Only a slight improvement on the last world cup but at least Oli’s nerves let him get in the boat this time, although when the Junior Girls are catching you up, maybe it’s time for some more training? Anyway speaking of girls Alice Haws and Vicki Croucher had a brilliant race taking 2nd place, behind Germany.

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Bloody windy. Two words that sum up todays racing, and the wind took some victims in the Junior racing. Unfortunatley Our Gold medal winning girls from WC1 didn’t have the perfect races, with Vicky Croucher making it dificult for herslf by taking an early swim, and Jenny Illedge not having a perfect race saw her take 4th just outside the medals. Not wanting to be outdone by the girls, Jonny Tye thought he’d cool off on the second to last portage wich was very unfortunate as Jonny was in full control of the front group and looking like he was going to improve on his WC1 Bronze. Albert Hicks, although looking like he was having a promising race, must have thought it rude to show up the others by staying upright, and also decided to pay a visit to the fish on the first portage, putting him in 8th at the end.

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This is the official website for the 2010 Marathon World Championships in Spain (September 22-26).

http://www.banyoles2010.cat/

The first day of the Marathon World Cup in Tyn saw GB take 3 medals of the 4 available. Jonny Tye took the bronze with a clean race impressing everyone with his skill and tactics on the flowing course and long portage.

Jenny Illedge destroyed the field paddling the competition off the water on the first lap gradually increasing her lead by 4 minutes in total, a promising start to the season for the young racer after 5th place and the Marathon Worlds last year, she is looking good for the gold at the worlds later in the season.

As for the men’s race, I got a good start along with John sawers, Jon Simmons making life difficult for himself with a slow start, but we soon saw him back in the front group. The group split on the first turn with myself and Sawers up there, and Jon just behind, after the first portage I found myself a few length ahead with the young french racer on our own, we tried to make a break for it, but in the end we both looked at each other and knew that we should wait for the pack of 5 chasing us down! The racing was nice and clean, and plenty of flow created constant opportunties to make it easy (or difficult for some) to control the group, coming into the last portage with only 1500m to the finish I made my move up the left bank while everyone else went right (going up stream), I darted across and used the eddie of the bridge pillar (if you have raced Tyn you will know what I mean!) this manouver put me length ahead of the pack giving me no trouble keeping my lead through the portage and up to the turn and back across the line to take the gold. All in all quite a tame race but, not without its drama! 2nd place went to Rene Olsen of DEN and third to Petr Jambor of CZE. All the results can be seen HERE…

Looking forward to the K2 tomorrow, me and Simmons trying the K2 for the first time… and Ben Bradshaw and Arron Jordan are excited and inspired by todays racing wanting to put down a solid performance.

Ben Brown