Caldbeck Huddle - 6 -9th October

Cat and Fiddle Challenge - October 1st

September 24th Anglesey Marathon
Rog does a personal best knocking 8 minutes off his previous time and finishing in 4hours, 25minutes and 24 seconds!

North West Triathlon Sepember 17th

Jo 'queen of transition' - fastest in her age group for the Novice Tri.

Jude and Glynis showing off after doing a Sprint Tri - Jude came in 17th and Glynis (fastest over 50) came in 46th out of 140 women.

September 10th - BikeWales Event

Kay, Den, Glyn and Liz completed the 50 mile ride out of Rhyl towards Bala and back - Rhyl was at it's best and we were even better!

3rd September - Manchester 100m
Liz and Glyn did their best to beat their previous time of 6hrs 2mins - only to be beaten back by the wind to finish 25 minutes latter!

August 13th - 17th Castles and Coast Ride

The Cheshire Triathlon Girls - all achieved their personal best in this year's Novice Triathlon!

Jude (848) was our star achieving 2nd place with a time of 58:04 in her first ever tri. No trouble finding her competative spirit there!
She took two women out in the pool, passed another 6 and frightened the life out of the rest at the bike stands.









Jo giving us a HIGH FIVE here, knocked 6 minutes off her time from last year and did a stonking bike ride, the 16th fastest rider compared to her overall position of 28th. That new bike and bra did her proud - her time was 1:10:17


Yvonne number 771 suprised herself with a time of 1:20:20 coming in 55th.













Lynn, number 824 did a 1:24:22 and came in at 67th but by far had the most fun - what kind of friends buy you a place in a triathlon for your 40th birthday?


Loren, number 781 achieved her goal of finishing the event in 1:36:01 and came in 70th with half a sheep on her saddle.






Our other friend, Janet did a 1:23:20 and came in 60th.



And then there was the 'Supports Club' - here we have Irene - behind the scenes cycle training partner for Jude.


Then we have Lynn's team - Anne and Susan lining up the champagne for aterwards.
Anne is tempted - you can see it in her eyes, it just that she is shy and like she sun glasses. Could be another birthday present sorted!



And then there was Roger and Keith - resting up after all those weeks of support and encouragement for Loren and Yvonne - they were two very proud supporters.

That just leaves space to mention the two non-starters - bad-back Liz and relocating-shoulder me. We got the T-shirts anyway!

Once again the women were inspirational (Irene was quite impressed by the elite male talent that were around in the moring races). The event was very well organised and being part of the Supporters Club a pleasurable way to spend a sunny Sunday in June.



Competition Time:How many calories does it take for 6 women to complete a 200 metre swim, 20 kilometre bike ride followed by a 2.5 kilometre run?

Liz and Jude got first and second in the Manchester and Ladies District Cycle Association 10m handicap Time Trial on the 20th May, yeah and they were the fastest team, making it a double win.
http://www.mdlca.f9.co.uk/html/results_2006.html

Jude's actual time was 28:03 making her 5th overall and Liz's actual time was 30:42 making her 8th overall. Fantastic achievement - a personal best with both women knocking off a couple of minutes from their last TT.

(I managed to take 3 pictures and ride for 40 minutes - the first ride out since my injury)

Team BikeRight! are out in force next weekend on Sunday the 4th June at the Cheshire Triathlon. The team is made up of Janet Slade, Loren Grant, Liz Clarke, Lynn Keenaghan, Jo Somerset and Jude Stansfield. Starting in that order, Janet is off first at 12.47 pm. Each woman will complete 200m swim followed by 20k cycle and then 2.5 kms run as part of the Novice Triathlon. Go Girls Go.

Chorlton Men's Cookery Club have texted home today, 29th May to say they have are in Spain having walked the Ordesa Canyon.

A website says 'for a rugged adventure, you can follow a steeply ascending trail from the floor of Ordesa Canyon to gain the lofty Faja de las Flores, a natural, horizontal "groove" etched in canyon wall. Proceed along a trail set into this faja ("strip of land") 3,000 feet above the floor of the canyon. This is truly a five-star hike and without doubt one of the most thrilling trail experiences available to hikers in Europe!'. Could this be the place? Looks like a Via Ferrata to me!

Heather and I both did the Swim a Mile event between the 14th - 28th May. Heather broke a personal best by swimming 72 x 25 m lengths in one go! Well done that woman.

I used it as hydrotherapy sessions logging 65 lengths over 5 swimming sessions and managing 4 lengths of crawl to just to finish off! The benefiting charity was The Wright Foundation Researching into the link between physical activity and healthy lungs and heart, particulary with young people.

Meanwhile - May 21 st, Liz and Jo entered the Run-For-Life 5k event at Arley Hall, Cheshire. There text message said 'Dun it - 32 mins, wet + triumphant. Forgot camera. Triathlon next!'

Well there ain't no stopping them now - they're in the groove, they're on the move!

Here you are - No. 4632 and 5276 out for a bit of fun with 25,000 other runners on Sunday 21st May. Martine started in the next wave. The 10 minute warm-up exercise in Portland Street got us going - it was plain to see that Rog has not been to an aerobic class before!

Anyway we were all pleased with our time Rog got under 50 mins, I got under an hour and Martine did it in just over 50 mins. It was a fabulous event, very well organised and great to see Manchester streets full of runners.

Thanks to our supporters, Mike and Heather. Next year Mike.

50:24 for the Great Manchester Run for Martine - (my watch said 50:22 but who is going to argue over 2 secs - me!). Great day for running but not for spectating! Mike missed my finish due to me being too quick and him being in Ellis Brighams .... who said it was the women who went shopping!

Halfords have heart rate monitors for £19.99 - loads of functions - used the watch on the day and it was great - kept me to 5 min kilometres.

Glynis had a great run and is showing signs of promising form - well done!

Anyone fancy a ride out?? A Dales circuit from Halton (nr Lancaster) to Dent, Dentdale, Ribblehead, Ingleton back to Halton. Sunday 30 April - lots of parking at Halton - starting out about 9:30am. It's a hilly route, aiming to do 12/13mph average, light road bikes. a couple stops to refuel, 60 miles approx ... Martine and Mike.

270 miles in 4 days.

Whitehaven was like the wild west - on the eve of a long bank hol everyone had come down from the surrounding hills to drink the town dry ... thankfully our b&b had secondary glazing. Can't recommend the Waverley Hotel - well past it's best - what were they trying to disguise with the 3 different air freshners?? ... Doris cooked up a passable full English and we left the bikes with a chap called Brian (£5 a day in his lock up) - welcome after the lawlessness of the night before ...

The ride out of Whitehaven took in the obligatory Sustrans council estate .... but we did see a barn owl out on it's morning hunt - a great sight amongst pebble dashed social housing. A prize for owl spotting in the photo!



Destination Alston - we had ridden to the summit of Hartside before so we knew what lay ahead. Portinscale fed us well at lunch - the first of our "cake survey of the north" - a brief stop in busy Keswick showed us why we were not shopping on a bank hol.. A slight hitch after the old railway track from Keswick when Mike got a "snake bite" - not more wildlife - just a puncture.

The climb to Alston told us we were 1900ft from our sea level start and boy was i looking forward to the swish hotel (Alston House) Mike arranged .... thankfully they were able to sort us out even though we had booked for the next night!!!! 10/10 and a great place - great food, and nice room - we ate our tea and lay down for the night!

Day 2 - Onwards to Rookhope via Allenheads - even the sheep had gillets here! We left the C to C after 100m and headed north towards Kielder and our night stop - the Black Cock at Falstone. We soon realised that we were no longer following valleys but crossing them big style ...


Hexham provided more cakes at the back of an alternative therapy shop - we resisted the ear candles and massage .. just. Finally rolled up to the pub at gone 5:00pm after another 6hrs in the saddle. The 21st party going on downstairs never touched us!

Day 3 - We were now loosely following the Reivers route and realised why everyone goes West to East - wind. Navigation was easy - uphill and into the headwind! On to Scotland and a lunch stop at the Royston Varsey of the Scottish Boarders, Newcastleton. We knew we were within a sniff of Carlisle when we met a bunch of Boarder City Wheelers (Mike's brother's club).


The day ended at Low Hesket - Alison and David (Mike's brother and wife) provided first class hospitality - and no english breakfast!! In the morning young Thomas (18 months) took to his bike seat to ride out of the first few miles with us and we were off back to the sea via more cakes in Cockermouth.

Whitehaven took it's time coming. Calbeck Common was cruel with the driving rain and headwind. The cry of "last hill before Whitehaven" when up half a dozen times before we even saw the sea. If they can not make wind farms work in the west of Cumbria, alternative technology has no future! By now it was a challenge to get out of the saddle - thighs and back hurting or sit on a sore arse? Finally - the road down to the sea - an ice cream van was spotted and two large 99's werewas ours!!


Lessons Learnt
Cake makes the wheels go round - credit to the cake makers of the North - banana, carrot, ginger cake; scones; mars bar cake; fruit crumble - we ate it all and more besides.

M&M


www.alstonhouse.co.uk
www.c2c-guide.co.uk
www.reivers-guide.co.uk

C to C to C (well almost) - On the job training!

After a "winter rest" skiing and house cleaning ...., we are planning to spend Easter doing the "coast to coast to coast" - taking the Sea to Sea route from Whitehaven across (neither "white" nor a "haven" I suspect) and returning via the Reivers Route through Northumberland. We had a training run over the Trough of Bowland yesterday with a mixed bag of weather - sun, hail, snow and rain and just about managed to drag our bones home via the pub for Timothy Taylor's .... Thankfully it was just down hill from there!

Our route is fairly "loose" with no plans to do any muddy off road sections plus we will skip the urban metropolis of Newcastle and turn north at the outskirts. With only 4 days to go, it is feeling an ambitious undertaking! However being Easter, we may take a few choclate eggs for sustenance. Thoughtful planning sees us staying at some cosy B&Bs which serve food (no staggering off in search of a meal after a hard day in the saddle ..) with a night with Mike's brother in Carlisle, could save the day.

Glynis was invited but injury leaves her only to blog! We will be available for route planning advice should anyone else care to attempt the crossings in due course!

Martine

Events Calendar 2006

M&M tours to Reiver Boarders Cycle route 14th - 17th April (Martine and Mike)
www.reivers-guide.co.uk/routeindetail.htm

Chorlton Fun Run 1st May (Sue and Glynis)
www.stclement-chorlton.org.uk/funrun

Swimforlife - swim a mile 14th - 28th May (Heather and Jo, maybe Glynis) www.swimforlife.org.uk

D&R Randonnee Pyrenees 26th May - 7th June
(Chorlton Men's Cookery Club go French)

J&L Pennine Cycle Tour
www.cycle-routes.org/penninecycleway

Manchester Run 21 May (Rog, Glynis and Martine)
www.greatrun.org

Cheshire Triathlon 4th June (Liz, Jo and Lynne)
www.fun2tri.org.uk

Manchester to Blackpool 16th July (Liz and Bike Right! staff team)
www.bike-events.com

Manchester 100 cycle 3rd Sept (Glynis, Liz, Dave and Jude? Irene?)
www.bike-events.com

NW Triathlon 17th Sept (Glynis and Dave)
www.fun2tri.org.uk

A team that dreams........through rain and cold synergy found 6 people, a newspaper advert, a camping barn and fields and woods, a torrent of talent, a level of unrest with city life and unspent entrepreneurial energy. It served its purpose and then took its rest at the end of the day!


















The food of entrepreneurs!