Last Wednesday saw the penultimate round of this year's Mini-Series Triathlon's at Oundle. The night's are starting to draw in.
This year's Trophy had already boiled down to Paul Vernon with just Nathan Tweedie having a realistic chance of catching him.
Paul won this race by just 14 seconds from Nathan. He started the run a minute down, but once again had the fastest run of the night,and although Nathan had the 2nd fastest run, he couldn't quite hold off the fast approaching Paul. This was Paul's 3rd win of the series, one more than Nathan and Neil Tandy who each have 2.
With your best 5 Mini-Series races to count, Paul added one more point to his total tonight (his win gave him 10 points to replace a 2nd placed 9 points) and is now on 48 points. Nathan has 38 points from only 4 races, so if Nathan wins next week he will come equal first with Paul for the Trophy. Otherwise, it is Paul's outright.
Christina Cork was the first lady home and was just 14 seconds outside of her own ladies record; but did knock the ladies bike split down from 23.50 to 23.35 tonight.
Nathan was first out of the water in 4.11 closely followed by Matt Allsop. Tom and Georgie Freeman together with Thomas Cane were just 20 seconds behind, before a further gap of 26 seconds to Henry Morton and Tony Daniels. It was a further 40 seconds before Jon Cox then led the main group out, over a minute and a half behind the leaders.
It was a fast night for cycling, with a dozen riders coming into T2 in under 30-minutes. Nathan was still out in front with a 33 second advantage over Tony (who didn't start the run due to an injury). Tony Brown was next in, before Paul Vernon led the hordes in.
Paul was soon into 2nd place and the chase was on. Nathan was finally caught when back into Oundle with just over 1/2 mile to go. Paul Spain emerged from the bunch to take 3rd spot by just 21 seconds from Steve Giles.
15 swimmers beat 6-minutes, 9 cyclists beat 24-minutes with 12 cyclists coming into T2 in under 30-minutes. 14 runners beat 24-minutes. 23 athletes beat the 60-minute barrier including 9 in under 53-minutes. 8 PBs were recorded on the night including all of the top 5 competitor's. The ladies bike split record was again beaten by Christina. The Series is getting more competitive with a lot of strength in depth.