KiT does the 113

The 113 is the highlight of the middle distance calendar in the Cotswolds and this year there was extra pride as Kingswood Tri club decided to use it as its second club event of the year.

With so many of the KIT Angels competing elsewhere and in other events, it took a comment from one of their number to sum the event up…as a sausage fest. Nice one Alex! Although there could hardly be complaints as the full complement of the Kingswood tribe posed for the group photo before the race. At the end of the day, there was enough time for them to fool around.

In the showdown that we’ve come to expect from most of our club events, we had the Battle of the Chairmans! In one corner, former Chairman Mao, Lee Francis, with the cheeky young pretender Chairman Kim, being played by Eric the Eel.

Chairman Eric was certainly up for the battle as he managed to even bring his rollers along for an early morning warm-up. Little did he know that the mist descending over the lake, like a scene from the movie Camelot, would cause havoc in his warm-up routine. Well despite the event start being postponed by a full hour and a half, he took off like he was truly looking for the Lady of the Lake.

Not everyone took the 90 minute delay in their stride, it must’ve been an even bigger challenge than it already was. But spare a thought for Mike Parsons, giving up his valuable time to marshall the course, and caught a lift with Eric, at 3:30am…that was a looooong wait for a ride home. In other news, the rest of the KiT support crew had some extra sleep to enjoy. Anyway, back to the race.

Eric came out of the lake in front completing a great swim of 1900m in sub28 minutes. The other guys soon followed. Results and splits shown below.

It’s a nice flat course on the bike but if it’s 56 miles, it’s 56 miles! It wasn’t blazing heat out there, but the traffic was starting to build. And then the sun came out to make the half marathon run just that little bit harder. Credit must go to some particularly painful faces on that run, though not from Danny Houghton, who was the epitome of cool out there in his Ray-Bans. Legend!

So well done to Lee for storming to victory with an exceptional 1hr42 half marathon at the end of the event to finish in at 4h38mins, 33^rd in his category. Full results below. The full list of attendees are Lee, Eric, Steven Baker, Rich Darby, Rhys Davies, Jason Galpin, Matt Dale, Neil Parker (ahem, Stu Brazington), Danny and Darren Buist, in honestly no specific order.

Credit also to Darren for being kind enough to bring up the rear, and especially for keeping the smile going throughout the pain.

There is another middle distance event at the same venue in August, they’ll definitely be a club contingent going along so keep an eye out for that one.

Just one bit of final credit to give Jessica Elliot, who attended her second 113 despite not being born on the previous occasion. But she was responsible for father Tom’s fastest bike split whilst being on call last time out.

Next up: KiT does the Cardiff Triathlon on 24th June