Susie wins PACTRAC Club Championships to make it four titles for the season

The title is decided over a series of summer events and Freeman entered the last of them in pole position, but with 4 others still having a chance to wrestle the trophy from her. The best 6 times from 10 events counted in the final points tally.

But a 6th place finish was enough for Freeman. Her closest pursuers Rob Hammond and Sophie Robotham were unable to compete in the final race, but had secured enough early-season points in aquathlon and duathlon events to finish on the club podium.

Freeman also won the ladies and ladies over 40 titles to add to the ladies mini-series crown she won in July. Hammond held on to the vets and supervets trophies while the ladies supervet trophy was shared this year by Carol Smallman and Sam Jackson.

The last triathlon race at Oundle saw Chris Pithey leading Simon Guerin out of the water by 8 seconds. It was another minute before debutant Oscar Rajski came out of the pool and a further 30 seconds for Susie, as the 1,500 metre swim split the pack.

Guerin had the fastest 27-mile bike split as he managed to pull 2 minutes out of Pithey in the windy conditions. Richard Moys was by now 7 minutes behind in 3rd, just ahead of the advancing Chris Elder who moved ahead of Tony Daniels into 4th.

Moys had the fastest run split to consolidate 3rd place, whilst Pithey gained 90 seconds over Guerin on the 4.75 mile run to finish just 26 seconds adrift as the latter held on for his third win of the season. Christian Richards finished 5th.

Results: (Swim 1,500m, Bike 27 miles. Run 4.75 miles). 1 Simon Guerin (22:54, 73:05, 36:42 = 2:12:41), 2 Chris Pithey (22:46, 75:10, 35:11= 2:13:07), 3 Richard Moys (25:49, 79:20, 34:22 = 2:19:31), 4 Chris Elder (27:03, 78:18, 37:04= 2:22:25), 5 Christian Richards (26:53, 87:00, 35:23= 2:29:16) 6 Susie Freeman (25:24, 93:25, 36:37= 2:35:26).

PACTRAC’s Andy Martin took on the challenge of Ironman Italy in Emilia Romagna describing it as ‘an incredible race with fantastic support on a beautiful course’.

Nearly 2,500 competitors took part, starting with a 2.4 mile swim in the calm, warm sea. The temperature got ‘really warm’ on the fast and mostly flat 2-lap 112 mile bike course and ‘the headwind was brutal’ as Andy came in, in his predicted time. He described the 26.2 mile run as ‘a struggle’ with a stitch from 16 miles on, as he completed in 12 hours 19 minutes for his second finish at the event.

PACTRAC stalwart Dave Allsop and first-time triathlete Mark Mason competed in the Rutland Water Night Triathlon, a new event at Whitwell, Rutland Water.

The event, which started at 7:30pm on Saturday night, created a unique triathlon experience with a 500 metre night swim. The bike section took place on closed roads in the confines of Rutland Water and the triathlon finished with a fully illuminated 3.1 mile run. Allsop was involved in a sprint for the line and finished 4th in his age group, agonisingly close to a top-3 placing, whilst Mason finished 13th in in his age group.