Fenland athlete sets course personal best at Ironman 70.3 Oman

Three Counties Running Club member Andi Woolley set a new course personal best during his second visit to Ironman 70.3 Muscat in Oman.

Unfortunately, as the race was two weeks later than normal, it was a very hot race from the beginning.

Woolley aimed to beat last year's of 5:05:05 which wasn’t going to be easy.

The swim was a 1.9km straightforward rectangle course into the warm waters of the Gulf of Oman, and due to the low tide, involved a sprint across the sand to reach the water’s edge.

In the swim alone, Woolley managed an Ironman PB of 32:15.

Next was the 90km bike section which involved a short technical section before heading out to the marina and then inland to take on over 950m of elevation in a series of long and short hill sections.

During a climb, Woolley encountered a bunch of over-enthusiastic athletes who managed to take his front wheel out, causing him to abruptly stop and making him stop to put his dropped chain back on.

Undeterred, he got back on the case and managed to take more than five minutes off his previous visit, hitting over 78km/h on some downhills. Bike time of 2:31:26 averaging 35.82 km/h

The last section Woolley had to accomplish was the 21.4km run, temperatures started to hit 28° and the sun was beating down for the three-lap course around the park.

Elevation of 140m meant the short sharp inclines burnt the quads and the cramps were waiting to slow him down.

The only way to overcome this was taking salt tablets and decreasing his pace finishing with a run time of 1:55:22

Amazingly, after a 12-month gap and five hours of racing, Woolley finished just one second faster in total time of 5:05:04 getting himself a new course PB.

He was 130th out of 635 participants, 11th out of 63 in his age category and 119th out of 496 in the male category.

Club member Colin Apps also celebrated the fantastic achievement of volunteering at Parkruns on 300 separate occasions.

Parkrun

King's Lynn: Sarah Melton-Whitelam 25:14 (second in age), Steve Whitelam 30:40, AJ Harris 36:37.

Wisbech: Rickie Trundle 19:20, Craig Freestone 21:01 , Sarah Johnson 23:40, Jonathan Quail 23:40, Dawn Goodley 26:20 (third in age), Jayne Spurrier 26:30 (first in age), Colin Apps 27:13, Tracey Else 27:17, Donna Johnson 27:40, Melvin Green 29:22, Laura Vincent 30:21, Sarah Lamb 31:58, Sarah-Jane Macdonald 32:51, Steve Clarke 33:13, Joely Apps 33:32, Sally Fawkes 33:35, Keith White 34:16, Jennie Ambrose 35:48.