By Greg Keers on
01/10/2008
 I am a bit of a Tour de France fan and so wanted to have cycled all the famous cols to experience it for myself. Not wanting to take years over it I looked into doing all the Alpine cols in as few days as possible. What I found out was that there route called La Route des Grandes Alpes which is promoted by the french tourist board: http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.com/je-voyage/par-la-route/la-route-des-grandes-alpes.html
It is recommended as an 8 day route and misses a couple of TdF classics like the Col de Joux Plane where Lance Armstrong was in all sorts of trouble ...
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By caelim on
18/09/2008 18:28
Start/Finish in the village of Pauillac near Bordeaux.
Le Marathon du Medoc is not your average marathon. It’s a test of stamina both on road and through various vineyards. It’s a test of your sartorial elegance and chance to compete against some of the best disguises France has to offer. It’s an endurance event offering you the opportunity to taste 22 different wines, mixed with a little food. And it needs to be done inside 6h30m.
It’s not a race for breaking any PBs.
Team South Africa…James Deane, Karen Triegaardt and, myself along with a few adopted (honorary?) Africans..Christine Chambers and the Phillis’s, Tim and Shannon, left the UK feeling pretty smug. The weather for London that weekend was going to be filthy, and as everyone knows, the sun always shines in France and the wine flows.
Wrong. We landed in the rain.
For the unaware, the ...
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By James Deane on
25/07/2008 11:03
When I've answered 'Roth', more often than not the very next question is ‘What is that?’ Roth is a small town about 40km south of Nuremberg, in Germany, and the destination of Europe's first every Ironman event. Why the triathlon held there annually is not splashed all over the current Ironman sites relates to the fact that it’s no longer run under the Ironman brand. One of the first 2 Germans to race at IM Hawaii was Detlef K ...
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By sehmis on
07/07/2008 21:35
15 Jun saw the much awaited UK 70.3 at Wimbleball. A fine cadre of FOT athletes (plus Sandy) tore themselves from the confines of the M25 and wended their merry ways down to Devon/Somerset to enjoy one of the hilliest middle distance races on the calendar (and also to witness, first hand, the outcome of another edition of the battle of the Creswards). The 6am mass standing start in the lake under fast rolling fog was a mixture of Arthurian legend and a Richard Attenborough crowd scene. Emerging first amongst FOT was Andy Bennett, then Ellen Pooley, followed rapidly by Stew Ward, Natalie Creswick Vicky Hawker, and then slightly less rapidly thereafter by PJ Thibault and others. The bike leg was a series of hills disguised as undulations, punctuated by bottlenecks, rain storms and a lot of hedgerows. It certainly suited those amongst us who have been giving the turbo trainer a good shoeing recently; And Natalie Creswick demonstrated, to those who needed such proof, that she
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By Joolz on
18/06/2008 21:54
I entered Windsor like most of you back in Dec, thinking that this season would be different and I would train more and improve on my Windsor PB.
A winter of skiing and then a May and June with plenty more excuses left me frankly unprepared for Sunday. Then, to top it all I went swimming on Thurs night and felt like I was getting a sore throat and cold. A meal afterwards with Tarne and Vix and a bottle of red wine did not seem to cure it either. I went home from work early on Thurs and took Friday off and spent far too much time debating whether I was well enough to race. Alan’s email from the week before “if you ain’t got the fitness now, you’re not gonna have it in the race” was top of mind too! But having missed the marathon I was damned if I was missing this too!
So why did I go to all the effort of Saturday registration, a 4am bowl of porridge and 6.24am swim in frankly what felt like an ...
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By euanlees on
03 June 2008 11:06
The National Aquathlon Champs at Milton Keynes is an event I also raced last year, sneaking gold in M30-34 despite a reduced training programme, but finishing some way behind overall winner Andy Tarry (TFN 2XU, M35-39 age group). This year I was confident of a stronger race, though having moved up to Tarry's age group I knew another gold would be difficult. The 750m swim start saw all 70 male athletes strung out in one long row, leading to more than the usual amount of congestion and fighting once the gun went. Things only settled at about half-way, and I got out of the water in a satisfactory 10 minutes, generally unscathed and roughly 16th place overall.
Wetsuit off, shoes on and out on a two-lap 5.5km run. Not much to say - no time for pacing or finesse, just go as hard as you can ...
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By caelim on
14/04/2008 14:22
 Any trip that starts with a five hour delay at Heathrow, can only get better. And so this trip to Cape Town did. The five hour delay passed in what seemed a matter minutes as 4 of the clubs more social members (ie not really athletes, not an ironman amongst them at that point) settled into the BA lounge to make short work of the lounges’ Heineken and Chablis supply. Training takes many forms, and the demolition job done in the lounge surely helped with our sleep when we eventually boarded BA046 at 9pm. I certainly don’t remember much of the flight.
The 4 in question, Stu Archer, Jo Perriam, Barbara Vincent and myself were joined in Cape Town by James Deane, Siobhan Brownlow, Barney Randall (although since he was never seen…no proof really ex ...
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By Simon Kenyon on
11/03/2008 21:34
Like many towns in the North, Worksop seems to suffer from Dress Code Syndrome, which extends even to the seemingly endless string of “2 meals for a tenner” mega-pubs on the local by-pass...
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By emmapartridge on
28/02/2008 15:14
 We recommend the 3 Keers' training camp out of Antibes, with Greg as chef d'equipe, Tess as FOT support car and Egberta Keers as team mascot. Watch out boys, although there was little talk about crank lengths and gear ratios it didn't affect our performance out there on the hills. Watch out chairman... Your current Col de la Madone king of the mountain title is under threat - and she looks better in lycra! With Tess and bump even making it to the top, it looks like the boys may have to find a bigger mountain to climb.
Top training tips: lose the caffeine gels and energy drinks - oysters and eau de vie are all you need.
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By Vince on
18/01/2008 12:15
 New York Marathon. November 4th 2007
‘Another round, dude?’ My good friend Barry asks.
I look at Caroline and she shrugs, ‘We’re on holiday, right?’
‘Yeah, vodka tonic dude.’ I blare at him above the banging hip hop.
We are standing in the crowded trendy bar of the Hudson Hotel in midtown New York. We’ve just flown 9 hours to get here and the beers preceding the vodka tonic have gone down wa ...
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