The PACTRAC Mini-Series on Wednesday incorporated the 2nd
Novice event, as well as a normal race. Two waves started with 52
competitors racing in all.
Paul Lunn competing in his first Mini-Series race just held off Paul Vernon,
whilst beating the magical 50-minute barrier. Paul Lunn was also just 5 seconds
away from equaling Simon Hoppe's bike split record of 22:28.
Kim Bell was the first lady
home in 13th place overall. Kim broke her own swim record set the
previous week, by just 2 seconds. She now holds the top 3 ladies swim
splits, having beaten Georgie Freeman's 2010 time, last year.
That means that all of the Ladies records have been beaten this year. In
Mini-Series 3 Christina Cork broke the ladies record in emphatic style
with a time of 54:35 and took the bike split down to 23:50, whilst in
the same race, Tracy McCartney took the ladies run split down to 23:10.
Matt Allsop and Kim were equal first out of the water in 4.17 with a
15 second gap to Thomas Brogden, who had the two Tremellen boys in hot
pursuit. It was a further minute before Dick Rollings led the next pack
out. 12 swimmers emerged in under 6-minutes, including Paul Lunn in 9th
place.
Paul then had the fastest bike split of the day and was only 5-
seconds off the record bike split in 22.33 minutes. Matt Allsop held
onto 2nd place, but was 50-seconds behind Paul going into the run. Paul
Vernon, going for a hat-trick of victories this year, came out of the
water with Steve Giles, and managed to pull ahead of Steve on the bike
by just 17-seconds, with Dave Allsop just behind in 5th place.
A great tussle took place between Steve Coward, Rob Hammond and Jon
Crowley for the next 3 places. 26 seconds split them after the swim,
with Rob setting off on the bike first. Jon then led them home on the
bike with, by now, just 6 seconds separating them. Steve won the final
battle on the run, coming home just 6 seconds ahead of Rob, with Jon
only a further 6 seconds behind.
Dave Allsop caught his namesake, Matt, on the run, with the pair
coming home in equal 4th place.
Paul Vernon set off in hot pursuit of Paul Lunn on the run, but had a
deficit of 1:31 minutes to make up. He pulled back 1:16 before running
out of road; Paul Lunn winning by just 15 seconds in his first ever
Mini-Series race. Paul Vernon has already won 2 Mini-Series this year.
It is rare to do your absolute best in your first ever Mini-Series
because of course knowledge and pace judging, so we wait with
anticipation to see just how much more Paul L can knock off. The
overall record is still held by Matt Gunby in 46:34.
Results are on http://www.pactrac.co.uk