3 members of Wight Tri, Natalie Ellen, Dean Pike and Russ Mellor travelled the short distance over the Solent to take part in the Portsmouth Sprint and Standard Distance Triathlons.

The event consisted of 750m or 1500m sea swims and 24km or 42km lapped bike route around Portsmouth, followed by 1 or 2 laps of a 5k run route along the coastal path. Even though the weather gods were being kind to the competitors who were greeted with warm sunshine, the sea gods were not as kind. Even with a fairly calm sea, there was a very strong current which made it a very difficult swim with competitors also clocking nearly 2km for the Standard distance swim.

New member Natalie Ellen had a super race in the Sprint Distance event, 750m swim, 24km cycle and 5km run.

Natalie had a great swim and lead out the whole female field into T1 with a super time of 18:19 for the difficult 750m swim. However, she lost a couple of places to the faster cyclists with a 45:39 bike split to enter T2 in 3rd position overall but was still leading the senior age group. A swift 22:17 run, which was also 2nd fastest overall, gave Natalie an overall finish time of 1:28:14. She finished in 3rd female position overall, but was still able to stand on the top spot of the podium, winning the Senior Female category.

Dean Pike and Russ Mellor took on the Standard Distance triathlon, but with the sea conditions getting worse, they did not enjoy the swim as this is their weakest discipline. Dean was first out in 54:10, 27th in his age category, and 55th overall, followed by Russ, who was really struggling with the conditions in 1:21:29.

However, both showed considerable strength to put their swim times behind them and post the 5th fastest times in their age groups. Dean, competing in the Senior Male (19-40) category completed the 42km route in 1:09:06, with Russ posting 1:18:40 in the Super Veteran (50-59) category .

The 6th fastest run overall of 41:09 saw Dean move up several places to finish 13th position in the Senior Male category and 18th position overall with a finishing time of 2:46:33. Russ had a solid run of 51:17 to complete the event in 3:36:08 and 15th Super Vet