REP Arundel Triathlon 2022 - gallery live - and take the survey

 

warm water at 5:45am, looks inviting ? It was at 29DegC !

The Raw Energy Pursuits (REP) Arundel Lido Triathlon race gallery is live here: 

http://sspimg.com/REP-Arundel-Tri-2022-Gallery

Fully searchable and all completely free to download...because that's how things should be.

Meanwhile if you look closely - you can see they have planted a memorial tree for me exactly next to the race arch where I've sat for about 18 years. Reports of my death must have been taken seriously in Arundel, for which I am honoured and just a little bit panicked.

But enough about Arundel, you really wanted to take our survey here: https://sspimg.com/back-to-races-2022-survey

Why ? so far it shows that 20% of you who have had Covid are not feeling 100% better yet, and about a third of you are not as bothered about taking part in running races as you were before lockdown. I mean - that's a lot of not bovvered. At least they were enough to do the survey - as you should be too !

The straight-forwards question answers are interesting enough - but it gets even more revealing when we start to cross-reference questions and answers: are people who have had covid more or less bothered ?, has illness or lockdown affected peoples forwards planning more? and is it the cost of living really affecting people's forwards planning or was it having covid ? and what's that one magic thing that race directors could do to help get entries that doesn't match what they say is stopping them from entering races ?

This is the sort of smile you have to put up with at events!

So this and more will be revealed when we have some more survey responses - which is where you come in to do your helpfulthing pleasethankyou.... https://sspimg.com/back-to-races-2022-survey

Some of you may think this stuff doesn't affect you - but in reality it really really does. Cardiff Half - had only 52% of actual entries show up the other week, Colchester Half (which we didn't cover for the first time ever - sad face emoji) only had about half the usual number of runners yesterday compared to 2019 and 2018 and I am looking at a fairly busy race entry website and can see that one of it's main event providers in the south east that has a handful of major half marathons in it's portfolio has now got all their events and races closed to entry. The Hackney Half - one of the largest halfs in the calendar in 2019 with 17627 barely moved it's late 2021 total of 12493 runners to 13078 for May 2022. That's a 25% drop in entries. 

Weather it is event organisers like Chris Evans and his big running weekend thingy cancelling early, we can all agree - something is up, and we would like to know why. Not just a guess, or a survey of our own reasons, not just "it's the covid" - we need to survey all of you. Because it matters ! Should races cut all their costs to the bone to get things going again ? (because parkrun is free to run and they're not back to full strength) , or actually should they reshape their experiences to cater for half as many people instead ? who should they target with their marketing and what sort of messages should they be making to reassure potential entrants ? we won't know until we have a really good depth of survey results - so every entry counts ! Thank you ! https://sspimg.com/back-to-races-2022-survey (I mean - they're planting memorial trees for me now, this is getting serious !)

And enough of the survey reasons - here's some photos from Sundays REP Arundel Lido Triathlon.

First off and its 6am

Excellent glassware

Look at the sponsored prizes you could have won !

Family cheering you on for that good feeling

Show no emotion from Goddard. Emotion is weakness.

big thigh victory for Brighton

Excellent final chase in

Yellow speed machine

Allcomers Retro - with offroad tyres just in case

Defending yourself from the suns radiation as the spiders attack

Took this shot from under the water looking up.

scooting along

aaaaand stretch

bonky head warning for the remaining 2 lengths

I can see me !

So relaxed, almost asleep

The warm up pool was a bit steamy

Off to the Tower for any rules infringements

Camping for the knights of Tri near the castle

sunrise at 5:35 am, and you know it's almost worth it

we're off for the jubilee weekend, but have a load of local athletics to taxi our upcoming athletes to and fro from, and then we build into the busy June and July of events ahead.

Check our calendar of events here - and please enter them - their survival literally depends on you getting there and taking part, as other event organisers can attest to : - https://sussexsportphotography.blogspot.com/p/calendar-of-events.html

but also make sure you get a trail half marathon done this summer, and we're duty bound to suggest the Hampshire Hoppit  - http://bit.ly/hampshirehoppit  - enter it now !

And don't forget the survey - thank you - https://sspimg.com/back-to-races-2022-survey

Until next time, and hopefully some survey insights,

Anthony