After a very successful (meaning cold, windy, muddy and pittling down with rain!) Swampdodger in January Sallie and Mark, with Vicky and Shona as timekeepers decided that they’d tempt fate again and organise another off road duathlon at Atkinsons Warren. Heres SwampMistress Sallie’s race report.
Despite Tony England’s prayers and rain dancing, it was a disappointingly dry morning, when a motley crew of twenty-nine individuals gathered at Atkinson’s Warren, in Scunthorpe, for SwampDodger – The Sequel.
Gav Mann was back to defend his SwampKing title, Andrew Lawson arrived with reinforcements, in the form of his son and daughter, and Gary Horner was making his debut, for the ‘Richard Ogden, Gary Horner, Craig Rhodes’ race within a race.
Gav Mann, once again, opened up an impressive lead, after the first run, but by the end of the first bike lap, Mark Clements had taken the lead, and the first four were very close together.
Mark held his lead to come into T2 in first place, with Andrew Lawson only ten seconds behind him, and Gav Mann only a minute or so behind them. After much speculation from those watching at HQ, Mark managed to hang on to first place to become the new SwampKing in a time of 51.31.
Ruth Lawson, in an impressive debut, was first lady home in a time of 1.06.21, and Gary Horner was all smiles, after arriving home ahead of Craig and Richard.
Even though the general consensus was that the course was tougher going this time, with many people resorting to carrying their bikes across parts of the swamp, Kerry Padley improved on her previous time by an amazing twelve minutes, and Jason Johnson, by ten minutes.
A massive thanks to everyone who made this such an excellent morning, by marking out the course, timekeeping, baking cakes, collecting in the signs at the end, and generally participating in the spirit of the thing.
The full results are attached.
See you next time.