The Y-Front race took place at the end of May thanks to a lot of work from Lesley Barr, and many of you turned up to help support/marshal on the day. Whilst it is emphasised that this is a fun event, there is a lot of testosterone involved and some of the boys go hell for leather.

The winner this year was Dave Dourley who completed the off road 8.9 mile course in 35 minutes.

This event is held to raise money for Prostate cancer, (still counting income for this year), and it is great that our club can actively get involved in this worthwhile event and enjoy the occasion as well.

The Rigg Race (6 mile road race around Balerno which involves running up hill for the first 2 miles) was also a great success, and two of our members did extremely well. Caroline Dunn was first local lady and Wendy Beardmore was second local lady - so well done to you two.

Five club members did the Etape Caledonia in May, which is an 81 mile closed road cycle race. It is an absolutely stunning route, and a good time was had by all, with talk of booking up for 2009 already.

Check out the Etape Caledonia web site and book early for this beautiful and challenging bike ride.

For those of you who possess/can borrow/steal a wet suit, open water swimming sessions are provisionally booked at Threipmuir Reservoir from 7pm. So far this will take place on the 13th and 20th June, but more dates will be added on a rolling forward basis.

With regard to the Tuesday evening bike sessions which are timetabled for 7:15 from Balerno High School car park. This training slot hasn't been hugely successful, so by way of reminder please go along and meet up with anyone who is there.

It is a self lead group, so the more that turn up the more sociable and challenging it will be.

The last Saturday swimming session is 21st June, and as soon as the start date for autumn is confirmed this will be e-mailed to members. An alternative to Saturday mornings is to meet at Drumbrae pool on a Monday evening. A few members make this a regular meet at around 8pm, and are always very positive about the pool and its facilities. (Self lead session at Drumbrae).

Frank braved the East Lothian countryside bombarded with snow and hail showers by strong 25 mph northerly winds on Sat 22nd March.

750m pool swim, 5/lane (13'24"), T1 took 1'30" as 2 layers, thick socks and a balaclava required, 20 km bike course over unforgiving long hills with strong headwind (40'23", T2 1'06", 5 km run of 2 laps around a housing estate (23'26").

It was an abysmal day to say the least but well marshalled and organised. Much unpleasantness in the pool as the redcap in my lane wouldn't pull over when toe-tapped but the bruises will fade.

Unfortunately we have had to miss a few Saturday morning swims due to pool closures, as the school continue with their refurbishment work. Thank you for your patience, and we hope that we are back to our regular term time schedule now. The pool is closed for the Easter holidays, and reopens on Saturday 12th April.

For all those club members who haven't dared dip their toes in the water on a Saturday morning at 7.30am, do come along it is a really good session. Our coach Sarah works us hard, but everyone's varying ability is taken into consideration. If swimming isn't your strong point Sarah will help you achieve your potential (£3 per session for members).

On the subject of Sarah Pryde (Pentland Triathletes coach), she is now working towards her Level 2 Triathlon Coach qualification, and will be leading some linked cycle and running training sessions before the end of April. We will keep you posted as to dates for these sessions.

Throughout the winter months we have been enjoying turbo sessions at Harlaw Farm at 7.30pm on a Tuesday evening (cost £1). With the lighter evenings approaching, this will now transfer to an outdoor training session starting at 7.15pm from Balerno High School car park from 8th April.

If you are in possession of one of the clubs turbo trainers and/or heart rate monitor, we are taking stock of our assets, and would appreciate it if these were returned to Catherine Barr at Harlaw Farm as soon as possible.

In future, to ensure every club member has the opportunity to take advantage of our kit we are going to limit the loan of equipment to a 4 week time period at a time.

Don't forget that on Monday evenings, speed work training (of the running variety) takes place. Meet at Balerno High School car park at 7.15pm and vary your training with some speed work. We are back at the school by 8.10 for those of us who swim at 8.15pm.

It is a really good idea to add in some quality fartlek/speed work to your running training.

These sessions will stop over Easter, and restart on the 7th April.

The club is organising a fun event on Saturday 26th April, a 'Do a Du'. See our Events page for details.

We've added some Swim Club Guidelines to help us all get the most out of the Saturday swim sessions.

Happy New Year everyone. I hope the Christmas/New Year break 'ticked all the boxes' you wanted it to.

It is good to have the routine of our training schedule back again after the holiday, and to look forward to achieving the goals we set ourselves in 2008. We've updated the Training Timetable page with the latest information.

Anyway, here's the online version of the new quarterly club newsletter.

Some events that are currently being advertised for this year that may be of interest to those of us wishing to focus on some competition are as follows:

Other events that may be of interest that some club members are attending:

We are organising two events for us all to take part in, and are designed to be inclusive to non club members. We want you to encourage your friends and family to come along who may be interested in trying out our sport and joining in, or just try and understand what makes us get out of bed and put swimming togs on and/or lycra on, on cold wet mornings.

These events are for fun, and are not competitive, so no one need be scared of having a go (any offers to help marshal much appreciated).