In case you missed it, on Sunday 26th June, WaldenTRI hosted our annual Sprint Triathlon – WT11 and feedback from all involved suggested this year’s event was another great success.  Our summer triathlon is WaldenTRI’s show case event so on behalf of the Race Committee, a massive thank you to all those of you whose support enabled us to put on such a great race. There were 75 people assisting on the day in various different roles.

Overall, the preparation and race went extremely smoothly.  We even had the weather fairies were with us and had a glorious morning of sunshine.  There was one little challenge at 5am on the morning of the race.  However, thanks to Liam’s tool kit, we were able to overcome a broken lock on the door to the tennis court!

For the first time in 2011, WT11 featured as part of the Triathlon England Eastern Region League, thereby attracting athletes who are targeting the League standings for the race season.  Also, for the first time we increased the number of participants from our traditional maximum of 200 to 225, without putting any undue strain on the logistics of the event.  The other first is that we are using WT11 to attempt to secure the BTF Quality Mark accreditation for the race, which will set it apart from other races.

One of the traditional differentiators of our race is the uniquely friendly and supportive atmosphere created by the many helpers and marshals.  This year was no exception and of all the categories in the participants questionnaire, the marshals received the highest level of satisfaction with an amazing 97% Completely Satisfied and 3% Very Satisfied with comments like:

“The best event I've done so far (of about 6). The standout thing about the day was the friendliness and support of the Marshalls – made the event a real pleasure – thanks!”

“The Marshals were enthusiastic, well informed, helpful and proactive" – Moira Burgham, Race Referee

“Many thanks for such an enjoyable race. It seemed a really friendly atmosphere, and the marshals were really friendly and helpful.”

We have received some other great comments on the race, which is a very positive reflection on the collective efforts of the wider WaldenTRI team:

“Congratulations to Matt Hinton and all the Members of WaldenTRI who really did nail it today, it was definitely by far the best event that we have attended!  Has to be a contender for British Triathlon Event of the Year!” – Scott Powell, Tri & Enter Events Ltd (Chip Timing & Racking provider)

There were over 50 novices competing in their first race and I think we gave them a fantastic introduction to the world of triathlon, summed up nicely in the two quotes below:

“And it felt great that whatever your level (very novice for us!)  - we were treated with the same respect as for the pros!  Thanks to the Saffron Walden tri-club for a great day, we'll come again!!”

The race had attracted a large number of novices as well as seasoned triathletes and it was to the Clubs credit that the flow of the race was seamless.  The competitor feedback was that they experienced a great day of racing with none of the novices feeling intimidated; which will hopefully mean they will return again.  "An excellent event." – Moira Burgham, Race Referee

We had 25 members of WaldenTRI racing, 6 in their first ever triathlon (Donna Dale, Andrew Stoten and Lee Styles from the Senior Club) and 3 from WaldenJNR (Matt Butler, Tom Blower & Matt Downes).  Our ladies successfully defended the Best Female Club prize and our top 3 ladies were Louise Rolfe (who also won 1st prize in the ladies race for the 2nd year running), Tracy Kettridge (2nd lady overall) and Donna Dale (who won her age group in her first ever Tri).  The gents also did really well and our top 3 gents were Paul Neaves, Phil Doel and Vince Legge in 7th, 9th and 13th respectively.  Congratulations to all of you on a great race.

Finally, a big thank you to our sponsors (Newdales, Edge, Kestrel, Wilburs & Waitrose) and to the Race Committee who began working on WT11 back in January (Howard Williams, Liam Brook, Andrew Riley, Steve Vigor, Deb Ives, Matt Switzer, Charles Dale & Matt Hinton).

Attention now shifts to WD11, our new off road duathlon on 20/11/11.  The success of our events depends on you, our members volunteering to get involved.  If you would like to be involved in helping with WD11 or WT12, please drop me a note at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .