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Grice eyes Barcelona after triumph in Milton Keynes
Yvette Grice
Eastbourne triathlete Yvette Grice braved the dreadful conditions to record an impressive victory at the inaugural Milton Keynes marathon.
Yvette, of Bodyworks XTC was the first lady home in three hours 23 seconds as the 26.2 mile run concluded inside Milton Keynes Stadium: MK.
The Eastbourne athlete was second with two miles remaining but Grice upped the pace and powered home, just missing out on breaking the three hour mark.
More than 3,000 runners took part despite some flooding at Stadium:MK where the race started and finished.
Heavy rain also caused flooding on part of the route which meant a last-minute detour had to be organised.
Yvette said, “It was terrible on route but it was a lot of fun as well. It was a great event and despite the weather the atmosphere was good.
“I would liked to have achieved a faster time but the wind and rain made that difficult. I was happy to get the win.”
It has been a good year for Yvette so far. She competed well in the heat of Perth against a high-class field to achieve a seventh place position at the World Ironman series in Wetern Austalia.
Grice comfortably eased to victory and defended her title at her home event of the Eastbourne Half marathon in awful conditions before a very respectable fourth place in a strong field for the Hastings half.
And to add to her list of honours in 2012 she was triumphant at the Challenge Henley Ironman event
Yvette has competed in triathlon since 2004 and raced at pro level since 2006 when she moved to Eastbourne to train with Glenn Cook and Bodyworks XTC.
In 2010 she took on the world’s best after accruing enough qualifying points to enter the Pro Ironman World Championships in Hawaii where she finished 28th.
This year Yvette does not expect to compete in Hawaii as travelling costs to compete at events with ranking points restricts the competitions she can enter.
She added, “It’s a shame but perhaps next year. Hawaii was a fantastic experience and a great destination to compete but funding the trip is very difficult. To get invited you have to race at events around the world and sometimes that’s not always possible.”
Her first triathlon for the season will be the Challenge Barcelona on May 27 followed by Challenge Germany in two weeks time.
Yvette is pleased with her training programme and hopes the Milton Keynes experience will stand her in good stead for Barcelona, which is a half Ironman consisting of a run, bike and swim.
While in Milton Keynes Yvette took the opportunity to pick up a new bike which she believes will help her fine-tune what she considers to be the weakest part of her triathlon.
The state of the art machine is a Blue Bike with the frame alone costing £3,000 and a cool £1,000 for each wheel.
“I need to get the bike set-up correctly and I can’t wait to get on it. It’s a lovely piece of equipment and hopefully it will help me improve in that area.”
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Weather for Eastbourne
Sunday 26 May 2013
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 6 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: South west
