Endurancelife 7x7x7

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The Seventh Day

Barry Matthews (endurancelife) / 12.07.2005

The final day's event was a multi-sport triathlon, a mixture of 3 of the sports already completed during the previous 6 days. 4 miles of sit-on-top kayaking, 6 miles running and 16 miles mountain biking.

The athletes awoke to a beautiful sunny morning and prepared themselves with sun cream, hats and the necessary water for their final day's activity.

The kayaking leg started and finished on the slip way at the end of the Quay in Kingsbridge and by the 9am start time and the final safety briefing of the week, a crowd of well wishers had gathered to cheer on the competitors. The race began and a lead kayaker led the group up the estuary to the turning point and the return leg back to the quay.

As the first paddlers came into view we could see that Graham Walton, Joe Green and Jonas Nilsson were matching each other stroke for stroke. Joe had a 2 point gap over Graham in the overall leader board and so if he could ensure that Graham did not finish 2 points ahead of him in today's event, then the title would be his, it was to be a very close finish.

As the transitioned to the run Graham had built up a 30 second lead, by the end of the 6 miles and the steep climb to the transition zone at Kingsbridge Rugby Club the lead had stretched to 1 minute, but Joe was looking very strong at this stage and it was still anybody's race as they transitioned to their mountain bikes.

After the first lap of the 2 lap course, Joe managed to catch Graham and the two riders were neck and neck, however this was the wake up call that Graham needed and he pushed again and managed to put more distance between him and his rival.

As the first cyclist came into view of the finish line, the crowd could see it was Graham and he wheelied his way down the finishing straight in a time of 2hrs 59 minutes. He had managed to build up a 5 minute lead on Joe who finished second in 3:04:15. Third was Schalk Herselman who had run and biked superbly and trailed Joe by only 3 minutes.See All Event Posts