Koppenburg on the tt? Loooovely! 
Sounds good though!
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Cobbles will be fun 
I’ve done a couple around there on IM Maastricht on the TT bike, probably still better than Bolton or Wales 
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4th and I think final race in the Qatar Tri series this morning.
It was early doors at a place called Quetifan Island. Clear blue skies but a Strong north wind brought the temp right down, 15C but felt colder.
Got pretty chilly waiting for the start. I was non-wetsuit again, as were a few other hardened North Europeans, plus one local dude in a pair of budgie smugglers. Everyone else was neoprened up.
Manage to find some feet to follow, had a good swim, and then the long run up the beach unencumbered by a wetsuit and the lack of neoprene to peel off meant I was one of the first out on the bike 
Unfortunately that didn’t last long, a shameful lack of bike power meant that young studs were soon flying past. The race was draft legal, and as a rider went past I tried to stay with them, but the course was twisty and technical and I ended up getting dropped on the corners. Longest draft was maybe 2km, better than nothing but not really what I hoped for. Need to get back on Zwift, haven’t uploaded power yet but I think it was only about 230W AP.
Mrs FT’s Trek Emonda (s) with my museum carbon wheels turned out great, the seapost didn’t fall out despite only being clamped on by a whisker, and the shifting was tolerable respite running 11 speed ultegra on a 10 speed cassette.
This is T2 looking hotter than it has any right to:
Run, still not quite recovered from the January RED madness, that definitely was not good training. Felt a bit slow and shuffly, but managed 4m08 pace although it felt slower.
The good news, least slowest fossil again, that’s 4 out of 4 in the series.
Here’s the ladies getting their Sheikly medals (no envelopes today):
It has been a hugely enjoyable series of races, starting to make some friends through it, and definitely helped keep me relatively sane in what is a bit of a weird chapter 
But hey, it’s March already, you UK guys will get your turn soon 
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Fantastic effort Fruity 
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Well done fruity, get back on it with Bologna and you’ll be a cycling god again 
Draft legal races are alright if you avoid the numpties that have no idea.
Oh yeah, less of the fossil please, I’m getting quite existential 
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Don’t think I can post it here because it’s a vid, but someone got some nice drone footage of the beach transition
not sure if this works - link to vid on Strava
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Nice work !
Fast fossil !!
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Isn’t that the shark spotter drone?
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Nice one, well done owd lad 
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Well done Fruity 
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Middlesbrough half marathon for me tomorrow, it’ll be my first race since Berlin nearly 6 months ago. Fairly flat course with a few dead turns, but pretty mindnumbing in places near the football ground and around a trading estate.
Mostly about trying to get a decent run in and seeing how I feel afterwards, still not completely convinced about the hamstring TBH but probably overthinking it a bit.
Loose plan is to set off around 4:30/K pace and see when it starts to hurt, should get under 1:40 if I don’t go stupid at the start but we’ll see.
Season starts here (hopefully!)
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Good luck
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Greta sends her approval for choosing a race that presumably doesn’t involve getting on a plane 
How did it go?
aaah its on strava - 1h33 
with metronomic pacing too
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Haha, could have got a few more Greta points if I’d ran or cycled here
That went better than expected but conditions were good and the course is pretty fast as well. It was a bit cold for me but dry and hardly any wind, even by the river which is usually pretty bad.
After a slightly fast first 3K I settled into what felt like a reasonable rhythm, K splits were around 4:25 and I was about a minute ahead of schedule at 10k. There’s a couple of little climbs there to hurt the legs
Settled back down but around 14k I was starting to feel it and although I wasn’t watching the splits it felt like I was just about holding my pace and could see on the out and back bits that I wasn’t far off the 1:30 pacer who had started a bit in front of me.
4k to go and I was having to hang on but knew it would soon be over. With 2.1k to go I was sure I’d get around 1:34 and maybe quicker but there was a little kicker that really hurt!
I could see the finish and checked my watch and thought I might even sneak a 1:32 but somebody moved the finish line back about 40 metres
Genuinely didn’t expect 1:33:07 but the conditions helped, could have been quicker if I’d used the Alphafly’s, decided to go with the Adrenaline’s for the stability. As fruity says the pacing was pretty consistent which was pleasing.
Starting to feel it already but hopefully something to push on from, not sure how Malta half will go as it’s right at the end of the holiday and I’ll have a lot of walking in the legs. But still only a couple of minutes quicker than I ran off the bike last year so I’m not getting too carried away
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Great racing and write up.
Just the odd sandbag !
Well done … up the oldies!
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Good work Jeff 
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Last XC race of the season for me yesterday, my 4th race out of the 5 race series. Almost definitely shouldn’t have run the 3rd race after pulling my calf a week before, doing it more damage, and since then done almost no running for 7 weeks.
Tested myself with a hard effort at parkrun and everything felt good, other than a lack a of fitness. Kind of had my arm twisted to help the B team make history of getting promoted to be in the top division.
Pretty happy with how that went given I wasn’t going full gas and fitness was well down. Generally was OK on the flat and slight hills. I’m awful down hill, and wasn’t in the mood to push it or risk anything. Found myself in no mans land towards the finish, and was taking it quite easy, however it soon became apparent there was at least one person behind closing rapidly so I kept upping the pace until the final 50m was a full on sprint. Just managed to hold him off, a much younger lad (u23) who can run a 2:06 800m I later saw on PowerOf10.
Bit of a roller coaster of a season, rather poor first result, really happy with 2 & 3 (despite the dodgy calf which re-went less than 1km in) and then just happy to be able to run in the 5th one.
Bring on November…
Well… might do the National which will now be some time in September.
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Hyrox Madrid Doubles
Me and the lad I did my first one with went out with an aim of sub hour. I was secretly hope for sub 58 from looking at times from the previous year.
Race went well, we were targeting 4:00min km splits. 250m split each for the ski, length each for the sled with me finishing all these. BBJs I started and finished including an extra long stint to finish. Row 500m each, I was holding 1:38/40s. Smashed through the rest fairly happily, bar the WBs which I thought I’d do 50, I was hurting a bit from flying through the lunges and did about 25 before changing. Finished with a 59:24. Course was long, they’d definitely changed it from the previous year! Usually first 1km is short or even and was the case last year in Madrid. This time it was longer than the rest. Also the roxzone was huge! Again previous year around 4 mins for the top finishers this was nearer 5! We were well faster everywhere than Birmingham in October…apart from the sled pull, which my partner said he had a mare with, 30 seconds slower. We finished 10/470 and 6th AG. 30 seconds off 3rd and a podium and WC spot. Always room for improvement!
I’m now full focus for Hyrox World Champs in June solo and having to do Pro weights! I’m not expecting a top finish as the weights are alot for me! But the target is sub 1:10 and sub 4 kms. I now have a coach for the next 3 months! For those unware, all the division weights are Pro at the WC. So no choice on this!
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9 kg wall balls ! Grim AF
Great report and well done.
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Hyrox World Champs is about as far from TCR training as you can get… but you will be the most ripped TCR competitor 
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