Race Ten - 3 February 2019 - Standard Distance

Race sponsors Village Sports and Bananacoast Community Credit Union (bcu).

Another great day of racing in near perfect conditions with 69 competitors on the long course and 17 on the short course. Despite cooler water temperatures over the last few days, Chris ‘the scalpel’ Hodge’s garmin read 22 degrees at 6am, so it became a non-wetsuit swim. As usual, this news never fails to impresses some of our club members and today Jen Williams expressed her thanks on several occasions during and after the race.
The first Sunday of the month attracted the Car-boot Markets along with the Harbour-side Markets, adding extra congestion to the bike leg along Marina Drive. Thanks to everyone who abided by the no overtaking rule along this section of road. Historically, the bike leg is our greatest risk of injury. The committee can’t emphasise strongly enough how important it is to abide by the road rules: while applying caution at areas of congestion, at roundabouts and at intersections.
Lachlan Marle was the first short course male across the line with a time of 37:41 and Emma Sutton was the first female at 42:15. Congratulations go to Lachlan and Emma, bcu has donated a free entry pass to the Enticer event of the bcu Tri Festival in March.
Females in the long course saw the return of Mel Silvester taking line honours with a time of 1:07:58, closely followed by Shannon O’Hara and Rachel Cleary
Males in the long course may have glimpsed Isaiah Koopmans smash out a sub 60min time of 59:55, almost six minutes in front of his closest rivals Patrick Brennan and Bailey Offord.
Liam Wellington won the random draw prize from Coffs Harbour Jet Ski Hire. Thanks for the donation Peter John Wood‘OO ROO’. Liam, make sure your dad lets you sit up front.
Thanks to everyone who has volunteered to help out during the bcu Tri Festival. We still need 30 volunteers for Saturday 2/3/19. Village Sports are our major sponsor, so please contact Shaun Lawer via committee@coffstri.com if you’re available to help.
The John Daffy Memorial long course, on 24/2/19, is our next club race. It will be a closed transition, another chance to fine tune your bcu Raceday 
Long course distance is 1000/30/7.5. It will also include the standard short course format 300/10/2.5 and a BBQ breakfast of champions will follow the event.
Good luck to all of our members heading out to Hell of the West at Goondiwindi next weekend. Trial Bay Tri Festival will host Round 4 of the North Coast series on the same weekend. The following weekend, 16/2/19 the Tweed Enduro will host Round 5 of the series.
Lock in the 10-12/5/19 for the Byron Bay end of season trip. It includes the final round of the north coast series, with various distances to suit all members. We are fortunate that the cost of the weekend is heavily subsidised by our Club: please see Sarvi Thompson after the next race to register your attendance. Sarvi Thompson
Finally, thanks again to all of our duty volunteers and the tireless work of the Committee for all their hard work in making our club and races as great as they are.
Griffo