Simon strikes iron and James breaks 2 minutes

Pride of place goes to James for a brilliant midweek 800m, first place and inside two minutes. Happily, if you have just shy of 120 seconds to spare, there's video footage on YouTube, courtesy of Zac. If you don't fancy hearing Zac's commentary, you can always pop your favourite two-minute song in your earphones. At the same meet, Lauren ran an excellent PB in the 800 and Myles got a PB in the High Jump.

Elsewhere, Matt Collins won the inaugural Caterham Half. Matt's 80 minutes was good enough for a two-minute margin of victory. Matt didn't confirm whether he received a Caterham car as prize for first place, but let's go ahead and assume he didn't. A great result, nonetheless.

Simon H provides details of a bruising experience at Challenge Roth, an Ironman-distance triathlon in Germany: "It started for me at 7:10 in the Main-Donau Canal with a steady swim of 72 mins. A swift transition to the bike was almost as swiftly followed by me crashing my bike sustaining a badly sprained wrist and the obligatory road rash.

"But after dusting myself down and assessing no permanent damage to body or bike I got back on and finished the remaining 175k of the 180k bike leg in 6:13:06. On entering T2 my wrist had swollen to the point I required a bit more assistance than normal to change clothes and have my shoelaces tied. Fortunately, a lovely German lady seemed very keen to help.

"I set off for the marathon knowing a sub-4 effort would get me under 11:30 hours. Unfortunately, due to the heat (32 degrees C), humidity and a thorough drenching in a thunderstorm in the last 110k this proved beyond me as I slowed too much in the second half for a 4:22:06 run and a finishing time of 11:59:00. Even so it was a pretty amazing day!" Congratulations to Si on an amazing feat of endurance and well done for typing all that with a knackered wrist.

In other tri news, Marco had his now-customary dazzling swim at the Hillingdon Tri, but Howard was the quickest rat up the drainpipe, overhauling Marco on the final bike leg to finish first Heathsider of five.

Returning to the world of running and a few 5Ks, we had blistering runs from Adam (15:46) and Ryan (17:26) at the Self Transcendence 5K, while Mike Abrahams presumably enjoyed the Last Friday 5K, not being saddled with a hefty handicap.

Chris Hartley was on his travels in Northumberland and submitted the following, via coal-smudged postcard: "The Coastal Run, between Beadnell and Alnmouth, is considered to be amongst the most scenic races in the UK. The route is approximately 14 miles, run along sandy bays, rocks, footpaths, cinder tracks, and a bit of road.

"In what was most probably the warmest day of summer, 850 runners took part. It's a very popular race, and for good reason - the coastline is very picturesque indeed. Definitely recommended if you're planning to be up that way in July."

Results

Watford Open Graded Meeting

800 SX 9
7 Lauren Gee 2:21.93

800 SX 20
1 James Wooldridge 1:59.85

HJ U23X
11 Myles Calderazzo 1.30

Caterham Half Marathon1 Matt Collins 80:48

Elmbridge Road Runners 10K
115 Rachel Newstead 40:13

Self Transcendence 5K
5 Adam Kirk-Smith 15:46
24 Ryan McCrickerd 17:26

Coastal Run (14 miles, Northumberland)
24 Chris Hartley 1:29:26

Roth Challenge (Ironman distance triathlon)
Simon Hazel 11 hours, 59 mins (72-min swim, 6h13m bike, 4h22m run)

Hillingdon Triathlon (600m swim, 6K run, 25K bike)
10 Howard Gold 1:21:51 (13:23, 25:32, 42:56)
24 Marco Luna 1:26:19 (10:36, 27:47, 47:56)
27 Dominic Jackson 1:27:23 (13:20, 27:59, 46:04)
54 Stuart Amblin 1:36:30 (15:48, 29:35, 51:07)
71 Nick De Sausmarez 1:42:57 (18:33, 31:30, 52:54)

View this week's parkrun results