Happy Birthday Tuff Fitty – 30 years

1991; the year of Tuff Fitty’s formation. Our sport of Triathlon has really come of age over the intervening years, gaining recognition at the Olympics in 2000 and the Toyko medal successes this year. Back in the day Tuffs would race around in speedos and crop top (some of us have still got those in the cupboard!) and a big event would see tens of competitors rather than the 100’s of today. Anthony Towers, Treasurer, is our longest, continuing serving member having joined in 1994

Tuff Fitty held its first AGM in November 1991 and promptly registered with the then British Triathlon Association. The first club race was held at Whiteways Lodge – the Tuff Fitty Tuff Ten in August 1992. 1993 saw further progress with the first Club Championship being held at Knepp castle (Olympic distance in July). August of that year saw Tuff Fitty stage its first ‘open event’ running the LA Current Run, a 1k sea swim followed by a 10k run.

The growth of Tuff Fitty received a set back as two other Tri clubs were formed locally in 1995, and numbers reduced. A new committee was formed; Anthony Towers as treasurer and in 1997 Clive Harvey was co-opted onto the committee, The club stabilised and once again growth returned. Tuff Fitty’s club championship developed comprising a nominated series of events where members best three results counted towards the championship. This was achievable as races rarely became oversubscribed. Who remembers having to print off paper entry forms, write a cheque, and send off with a stamped address envelope to receive the entry details and race number. To keep members informed, a regular paper newsletter was produced containing race reports and news, hand delivered by Clive before the first Tuff website came into being. (Every one of these has been retained in the Tuff archive)

How times change, Anthony points out the must have Tri equipment then was the digital Timex Ironman watch! all rather different to the bespoke Garmin’s wetsuit and trisuits of today.

The latest setback was Covid which provided many challenges to overcome. Positives have come out of this including the Club group Zwift rides that have proved so popular they have become a permanent fixture. We also have also appointed a safeguarding officer to ensure the club remains open and inclusive for all, all the while new members continue to be recruited.

Triathlon/Multisport is undoubtedly a great participation sport, but the success of Tuff Fitty has been in the camaraderie and banter with friendships formed and sustained for as long as our club has been in existence. Therefore when it was announced that Tuff Fitty had something to celebrate with a birthday party, by far and away the largest number of attendees came just for the food and social. There was sadness that three of our leading Tuffs could not make the event due to illness, Joe Pascoe, Matt Whittaker and Helen Bull and together with those suffering from Covid, they all remain in our thoughts. A big thank you to all members past and present for creating a club where everyone can train, race & have fun together. We are all very grateful to our dedicated team of coaches who work tirelessly on our behalf and to everyone on the committee for the work undertaken in ensuring our club remains operational and strong financially.

To combine a bit of competitive spirit and to work up an appetite, a 400m swim and 5k run Aquathlon was staged with the traditional piece of bling for all entrants. There were some very competitive split times with 5 returning swim splits below 7 minutes, Adrian, Mark, Juliette, Henry, and Alex. The swim splits were taken as everyone heaved themselves up the steep sided Lido, so the run times will include transition. There were some terrific run splits with Henry Teague Smith the fastest at 19:17 (inc transition) to sprint home first overall. Mark Walford’s 19:41 run saw him home in 2nd with Alex Webb returning in 3rd. For the ladies it was very tight between Juliette Reader & Shelley Dodman. Juliette claimed the faster swim split with Shelley taking the run honours to come home 1st lady, just 1 second ahead of Juliette. Emma Hinton was third lady overall. To match swimmers against runners we had three relay teams with Jimbo Brock and Jon Rumens first pairing home. The full list of results are at the end of this article.

Meanwhile Tuff masterchefs were busy at the Barbi and the party got into full swing, with plenty more arriving who had missed the initial photo shoot. Everyone on the committee got involved as the tasks were divided up, meat/food/salads/cake/race. Strictly alphabetical, thanks go to Shelley Babbage, Iris Bennett, James Brock, Wendy Frost, Clive Harvey, Sue Neilson & Anthony Towers. A special thanks go to Jimbo Brock who had contacted many organisations for the raffle and the result was a great range of prizes. Thanks go to Arundel Lido, Protein Ball Co, Bikefitta, Cats Eye, HIgh5, Southern Multisports and the top prize of a Sports Pursuit voucher. The proceeds from the raffle are being reconciled as this article is produced but we are pleased that we will be able to make a worthwhile donation to our chosen charity Cancer United.

Happy Birthday Tuff Fitty and thanks to everyone for their support; we can look forward to the future with optimism.

Thank you to Jon Roper for being our official photographer and he was clicking away throughout the evening. Please click on the photo below to access the flickr photo album

		Swim	Run	Total
1	Henry Teague-Smith	06:40	19.17	25.57
2	Mark Walford	06:31	19.41	26.12
3	Alex Webb	06:55	20.42	27.37
4	Dom Amey	07:05	22.21	29.26
5	Mike Barrett	07:33	22.06	29.39
6	Adrian Oliver	06:22	23.30	29.52
7	Spencer Scott	07:00	23.27	30.27
8	Lee Bishop	07:35	23.20	30.55
9	Shelley Dodman	07:48	23.11	30.59
10	Juliette Reader	06:39	24.21	31.00
11	Phil Scales	09:41	22.01	31.42
12	Emma Hinton	07:00	24.59	31.59
13	Steve Feest	08:05	24.01	32.06
14	Phil Turner	07:30	24.47	32.17
15	Graham Liddell	07:32	25.51	33.23
16	James Brock                  )	07:05
17	Jon Rumens                  )		26.41	33.46
18	Clare Worgan	07:38	27.00	34.38
19	Kate Cooper	08:32	26.16	34.48
20	Debra Cauchy-Duval	08:12	27.34	35.46
21	Jo Baldwin                     )	09:42
22	Sophie Garbo               )		26.17	35.59
23	Janet Shepherd	08:28	28.32	37.00
24	Leah Simms	09:58	28.32	38.30
25	Susan Douglas	07:25	33.52	41.17
26	Jenny Oliver                 )	09:09
27	Vicky Cooper                )		32.41	41.50
28	Claire Moyle	09:40	33.59	43.39
29	Elaine Rousseau	09:50	37.55	47.45
30	Chris Evans	07:55	42.08	50.03
31	Nancy Liddell	07:36