Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Even with a leisurely start time, my alarm went off at 06:00. I debated whether to get up. After a hard time at Lough Cutra and a hard time at Metalman, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to take on Kilkenny. But I also need to get back into the water.

In the end, the swim was cancelled due to water quality anyway. Replaced by a 2.4k run along the same run course we could take on twice after the bike. The first run was easy enough. A lot of people sprinted off and soon realised that had over-paced themselves. Even after T1 the running wasn’t over as the mount line was up a steep grassy hill.

The bike was great. Lots of clear junctions or guards stopping traffic for us. The first half of the course was into a headwind and few other people were using aerobars so even riding at less than 200 Watts I was passing long lines of athletes who were struggling into the wind. Maybe only three stronger cyclists came past me, although I was in the third of three waves.

The second run was also comfortable enough. It is not a flat course but I was just about able to pace myself up the hill. We finished on the top lawn in front of Kilkenny Castle.

My overall time was:

1:20:27

I just scraped into the top half coming 100th out of 212 athletes. Of course, I’m in the M30-39 category, so that only translates to 21 of 34. My splits were:

Pace wise, I was 165th in run 1 and 77th in run 2, so some nice negative splits going on there.

What could be better than doing a middle distance triathlon an then resting? Following it up with a marathon the next day! It is very much unclear why I thought this would be a good idea at the time.

I missed a spot on my collar while applying suncream on Saturday, and even the area I did cover were not looking too fresh. otherwise, I felt an acceptable level of stiff. You might ask how I stayed hydrated the evening before given I had just done a triathlon. This is how:

There were around 26 of us from the running club down at the event so we met before the race for a few team photos.

The first 10k of the race is hilly. I was aiming for a “let’s just get around but it would be nice to go somewhere between 4:00 and 4:30” mood. Given how tired I was from the day before, it soon became clear that 4:30 was going to be difficult but possibly achievable, even with talking the initial hills.

After this, the course moves onto the greenway and levels out. The morning clouds were gradually giving way, though, and the sun kept coming out and slowly baking us all. The organisers had put additional water stations on so I was able to douse myself every 4k or so.

I was tired the whole way around. It felt good getting to the half way point but I began to feel quite anxious after this. I’m not sure if it was the no-mans-land of being past half way and yet no way near finishing, or just being so far away with it being and out-and-back, or just the rest of life getting on top of me. Really disappointing, though, as running is my thing. I kept moving with some running and some walking.

Having raced the day before, it was impossible to come into the race with perfect hydration, so I ran with my backpack and flasks. This mean I had 250 ml of Red Bull sitting in one of them that I saved for the 30k point. The combination of closing in on home and caffeine kick gave me the boost to get through the final hour.

Best of all, there was a crowd from the club cheering us home. My official time was:

4:23:19

We finished the day with a celebration at the pub, followed by a meal and craic. It was lovely to get to know everyone better and thank you for making me feel welcome.

Metalman is a middle distance triathlon on Ireland’s south coast. It takes place in the town of Tramore just down the road from Waterford.

The was on the Saturday so we headed down on the Friday to check into our hotel, get registered, and get a quick fish and chips by the sea. Tramore beach itself is quite exposed with some arcades and a fair ground with a Bridlington feel going on.

The swim

Rough seas meant the swim was cancelled so it was straight into a 90k bike ride. I was very relieved. I’ve struggled to acclimatise to sea swimming over here and that was before all of the jellyfish started appearing. Still, we went in reverse alphabetical order so I was one of the first people on the start line with a hundred super bikes behind me.

The cycle

The route was described as challenging but when you are from Yorkshire, it would very much be labelled as “Yorkshire flat”. That said, the first half of the loop to Dungarvan included a bit of a headwind. Nice straight roads made for plenty of aero time for those that had been practising it.

After the half-way feed stop it turns back along the coast road. This offers some glimpses of the seas before moving inland for a while and then comes back to the cliff tops for some more undulating terrain. I stand by my previous comment about the profile but there was one climb from a beach to a cliff that did briefly hit 15%.

The run

Once back into transition it was onto the run. This was hilly. There were some flat bits but some quite steep hills, too. One of the hilliest triathlon run courses I have done. Thankfully, it finishes with a long downhill. I walked a lot of the uphills but mostly ran the rest of the way.

I thought the race instructions promised Red Bull at the half way point but alas, there was only water. There was plenty at the finish line, though, which I was very glad to see.

Results

My overall time was:

5:34:40

That was good enough for 165 out of 192 athletes. My splits were:

In an improvement over Lough Cutra four weeks ago, this one was not a DNF. My bike spit was faster by 25 minutes. Lough Cutra was about five kilometres longer but I was definitely in a bit better shape this time, though I had skipped a swim. My run time was less than a minute behind despite all of the hills and none of the cola.

While in some ways it is a defeat because I don’t think I would have made it around the swim course if the swim had been on. But accepting that life is hard right now, the rest of the numbers are promising. I would like to say thank you to the race organisers for being so kind and welcoming.

I did make it into one of the official race photos. You can see me sitting on the wall in the bottom right:

The concept of Around The Park, Around The Clock is simple. Every hour, for 12 hours, we run 3 laps of Woodhouse Moor. It is roughly a 5k course making for a total of 60k over the 36 laps. In between, we sit around getting stiff.

It is organised by Toby who, this year, decided to schedule it on his birthday. That meant not only did we run a lot of laps of the park but we also sang happy birthday over and over again until he hid on the floor in his hoodie.

The weather was kind this year, as it was in 2022. My form was okay. I was pretty tired but plodded through. It’s not an event you need to rush. Nor would you want to: chatting is the best bit.

18 of us made it through all of the laps this year. But it’s not really about that. it is more about the social aspect: people can drop in and out, run some laps, walk some laps, or just sit around and enjoy the sunshine and the picnic.

I even made it to the pub this year where Toby was trying to buy people drinks despite it being his birthday.

Thank you for a lovely team, team. And a big thank you to Toby for organising the event. Finally, thank you to Laura, Toby and Lizzie for the photos.

To date, I’ve completed 54 triathlons across all distances and never had a DNF. That changed this weekend. I headed over to Lough Cutra Castle to take on The Gauntlet middle distance race. It is part of the Castle Triathlon Series alongside Castle Howard which I raced last year.

Preparation

Training had been going okay. I’ve been doing around seven hours per week. I have mostly focused on ultra running this year but I was consistently getting a swim in each week. My weakness was probably the bike as I had not taken it outside much this year.

I did try to get a long ride in a few weeks ago but I got a slow puncture and had to limp home. I had the local bike shop replace the tyre and they put some sealant in it. I gave it a few days and it was holding its pressure: happy days, I was ready to race.

Finally, I arrived at the venue on the morning of the race and found the tyre completely flat with sealant leaking all over my boot. I pumped it up and hoped for the best. Everything else went okay.

The swim

The swim course is a single lap around an island and back down the lake. The water was lovely and warm. Somewhere around 17-18 degrees. The wind had really picked up, though, and it made it very choppy. I’ve never seen anything like it on a lake; it was like having a sea swim.

The first half of the course was into the wind and fighting against the waves was very disorienting every time I tried to front crawl. I kept switching to breaststroke to calm myself down and then trying again but it wasn’t getting better so I did almost all breaststroke to the turn buoy and back, hoping that on the way back it would be going with the wind and therefore easier.

It was not easier. But I was also getting increasingly tired from the breaststroke and increasing cold from not going anywhere. I kept looking at how far away the side of the lake was. I’m used to having a little panic attack in the swim, dealing with and getting on with it. But the panic just kept coming and coming.

After 45 minutes in the water, I waved the white flag. The canoeist came over and supported me until the rib arrived to haul me out of the water. They checked my temperature and dropped me off at the swim start point.

The bike

I spoke to the officials in transition and they said they were happy for me to continue if I was feeling okay. Albeit with an official DNF, of course. I took a few minutes to get myself together and did a slow transition before heading out on the bike.

Th bike course is one single 94k loop. The route heads up to south shore of Galway Bay and takes in a lot of The Burren. The landscape was stark and barren. It reminded me a lot of the the north of England. The coastline was picturesque, too, and there was wide view from the top of Corkscrew Hill.

It is a flat course with less than 800 metres of evaluation gain and only two real climbs over the 94k. I was constantly stopping to check my tyre was holding pressure and thankfully it did for the whole race. But it took me a good 30 km to trust it.

Then I hit the first climb and my front derailleur stopped working. The gear shifter was stiff and nothing happened when I pressed it. I got off and walked my bike to the top of one section. When I got off it, it worked fine. But then I would get back on and it would stop working again. Great, I thought, just when I was starting to trust the bike.

I descended the first climb and at this point, my Garmin decided to suggest I was off course and needed to make a U-turn. I couldn’t remember seeing a sign so I tracked back a kilometre until I saw another competitor going the opposite way. I was on the right road after all. That added an extra kilometre onto my route.

Later on, my front derailleur started working again. That was nice.

The big takeaway from the cycle was how evident it was that I had not spent enough time in the saddle. I was able to put the power out but my bottom was so sore by the end that I had to stop every 10k for the last 30 kilometres to give it a rest.

The run

Finally, onto something I felt comfortable. No drowning, no mechanicals, just regular running. Just 3 x 7k loops.

I felt pretty crap by this point but 21k did not seem insurmountable. I did some walking on the first lap and realised I was probably under-fuelling so tried to have a gel and some coke on each lap. This made me feel better, although my pace was pretty consistent. I wanted to chill out but also get under seven hours even though it was meaningless given I didn’t complete the swim.

The feed station had coke the entire time. Often they run out by the time I’m getting towards the end of my run. They did run out of cups, though, so we had to try and drink from the bottle without touching the bottle which ended exactly how you might imagine it to end.

Things were quiet on the second lap and even more quiet in third. Except for the occasional child on a bike coming past me as by this time, their off-road triathlon had started.

I was very pleased to arrive at the finish line. I declined the medal as I hadn’t really finished the thing. Castle Race Series do a good job of high-quality food for Gauntlet competitors and I was given a beef stroganoff (vegetable was also available, of course).

The result

My official result is, of course:

DNF

But for what it is worth, my watch recorded a time of 6:55:50 which breaks down into the following splits:

The run time was frustratingly slow. I’m not a gifted athlete. So, when I started getting my run times down, like the 1:48 I ran at Outlaw X it felt great. This was slow. Not quite Weymouth slow but I am still training seven hours a week and this is all I get?

I want to say a big thank you to all of the volunteers who cheered me on at feed stations and junctions, and gave up their time to make the race possible. And to the water safety crew for looking after me.

The aftermath

What went wrong?

My training hasn’t been stellar. I haven’t done any open water swimming this year and my training has been loosely structured. But I stress that I am still training around seven hours a week, which is a lot by any normal person’s standards and enough to complete a middle triathlon triathlon.

The lack of structure was also unhelpful. It is one thing to be putting in the hours. But I wasn’t getting the long rides in. This just made things uncomfortable; it didn’t stop my race. But the lack of open water swimming really did kill my race. This is time consuming and difficult in early season and I just haven’t had the temporal or mental capacity to do difficult and time consuming things.

More to the point, I think I am just in a bad place psychologically right now. The various crises going on in my personal life and being utterly overloaded by trying to do a PhD, work three jobs, be a dad and still train have taken its tole. I’ve felt anxious, depressed, sad, hopeless and overwhelmed. All of these challenges mean my resilience is running lower than usual. And if feeling that way wasn’t enough, here is the proof that things are hard right now. Perseverance is one of my signature strengths but it just isn’t fully there at the moment.

After the race, I felt like I didn’t want to do triathlon anymore. Or maybe just some sprints. It still hurts right now which is no place to make a decision. But I am also on the clock as I already had another middle distance booked for four weeks time.

Let’s look at what went right. I got 45 minutes into the swim. I kept myself safe. I cycled for 95 km for the first time since August. I ran a half marathon and did all of this on the same day: even though this is my fifth middle distance it is still no easy thing to do.

I find it hard to give myself and a break and say these things to myself so I am going to say them here: Chris, I love you and I’m so proud of you. For fighting for so long, for accepting it was time to quit, for getting back out there, and for all of the things you are doing to try and improve yourself.

Thanks for reading this far. I can’t wait to see you all soon.

A backyard ultra is looped race where you have an hour to complete a 6.7 km loop. At the start of the next hour, you have to be back in the starting corral ready for the next loop or you are out of the race. The winner is the last person standing; everyone else is a DNF.

I packed plenty of spare clothes for all weather and a big bag of snacks including some homemade chicken wraps and a pizza cooked freshly in the morning and packaged up into convenient pieces. The weather was much kinder than at the official recce and everyone set up their camp outside in sunshine.

It has “mountain” in the name for the reason: there were around 230 metres of evaluation gain in each lap. Each loop started with a 22-minute slog up the hill that almost everyone walked. There was then a short section along the top before the bog field and a technical off-road descent through the forest. Finally, it joins a gravel track going back down to base camp. This is the hard way around and the opposite way to how we were promised: perhaps a bit of Irish humour creeping in.

100 people entered the race and 87 people started. By lap three, we were four runners down. The adage is “run your own race” but this was difficult given there was such a big crowd walking the first few kilometres. Being a road runner, I was slower on the bog field so slower walkers would then want to overtake me, and then on the downhill where I would open out my stride (and my gravitational advantage) I would go back past them.

I took my backpack on the first loop to get some hydration but soon decided to ditch the extra weight and eat and hydrate at the end of each lap. This was no easy task, though. Laps would take 52-56 minutes which doesn’t give you much time to do more than one thing. If I needed to sort my shoes out, change some gear, or have a wee, as well as my hourly feed and drink, things got very tight.

I was pretty grumpy the whole day. I was grumpy on lap one because we were going the “wrong” way and the technical bits were hard. Then I sank into “why am I doing this to myself”. After lap six I switched from sports drink to caffeinated drinks, aiming to do between 10 and 12 laps. 10 seemed like a round number. But then 11 would be a night lap and 12 would be one better than God’s Own Backyard Ultra.

After lap nine I grabbed my backpack with a base layer in it and swapped my cap for a buff and a head torch. 49 of us set out on lap 10 as the sun went down. I was feeling relieved by this point that I had reached at least ten. By lap 11 the sun had fully set and I was half excited for a night loop but also suffering. I felt myself wheezing up the hill and the bog field was even harder to navigate because it was impossible to tell what was hard mud and what was soft mud. I got back with four minutes to spare but had already decided I couldn’t face a fourth loop. 33 runners outlasted me.

In total I managed 73.7 km (my watch measured 69) with 2,512 metres of evaluation gain. This is double my next hilliest race, Man Vs Coast. I was moving for 9:48:57 of the 11 hours. Congratulations to Kevin Leahy who ultimately won the race with a course record 29 laps, and to fellow Brit Myles Barnes for the assist.

The Dublin Mountain Backyard Ultra takes place next month. The organisers put together an official recce event in which we went around the course a few times. It is so hilly. It’s pretty much three kilometres up and three kilometres back down with some technical terrain. Evelation gain is around 250 metres; significantly more than God’s Own Backyard Ultra so I might need to lower my expectations. Gorgeous views, though.

I don’t like duathlons. It’s just running and cycling. Triathlons are hard, and therefore worthwhile because it involves swimming and I am a poor swimmer. Also, it’s an Olympic sport. Running is good because I like running and again, it’s an Olympic sport. Duathlons are just this weird in-between thing. Nobody ever asks if you’ve ever done a duathlon.

I signed up anyway to race with the club but in the end, I was the only one there. So, I was feeling pretty fed up at the start. Work, university, and being a dad have all been getting on top of me recently and I’m just not feeling like myself. Hopefully, race season will fix that.

Run 1

The first run was 5k: two loops of the field by transition. I was in wave three and set off right at the back but despite my relatively easy pace, I soon began progressing through the field. I wanted to run at a comfortable pace so I could at least attempt to enjoy it.

It was good to see at least some mix of abilities. Ireland is typically focused on highly competitive athletes so having people in the race who were running a 30+ minute 5k made it feel more inclusive and a bit more like home.

Bike

The cycle course was 3 x 7k laps of Phoenix Park. Best of all: closed roads! The course was well marshalled, had a good road surface and few enough athletes on the course that it wasn’t overcrowded. Reasonably flat, too: you could pedal the whole way around with one easy climb at the end. Athletes with a higher FTP than mine will have used the big chainring the whole way around.

The best thing was probably the views. Phoenix Park is huge. Even though you are in the heart of Dublin, you would never know it if it wasn’t for the occasional glimpse of the Dublin skyline. The rest of the time you are cycling through trees, hills and grass.

Run 2

The final run was a single lap of the field. I set off at the same easy pace. Maybe a little faster as there was someone breathing down my neck. After the 2k point, I couldn’t help myself speeding up a little for the sprint finish.

Results

There were 260 finishers of which I was the 200th with an overall time of:

1:26:56

My splits were:

They had a photographer at the end but they missed me at the start, end, and on the bike, unfortuntely.

Last Saturday, I completed my 300th parkrun.

Unfortunately, there was no time to celebrate. I was hoping to do it on 1 April and had even cleared a space in my diary to finally stop for coffee after. But then I had the flu so missed that run. By the time the next week rolled around, it was in the middle of the DUHAC 24-hour relay, so I had to keep running. But good to make it through the unofficial milestone.

Trinity Harriers holds an annual fundraiser and this year’s challenge was a 24-hour run. Ten teams of four athletes had 24 hours to run as far as they could. I was on Team Cool Runnings along with Joanne, Oren and Eoin.

I wanted to run a minimum of 60k as that felt achievable: with 24 hours, you can essentially run a marathon and a half as if it were two separate days. But in the back of my mind, it would be great to hit 100k. Ever since I had to drop out of Endure24 at 86k I wanted to try again. However, Race to the Castle was cancelled two years in a row and Eurovision got in the way of God’s Own Backyard Ultra so I’ve been left wondering whether my hip would stand up to the distance.

Race day report

I decided my best strategy was to run for two hours at midnight. I could then get six hours of sleep before parkrun, and wake up with fresh legs and a whole day ahead of me. Things did not go to plan. I had stomach issues on the run and the cramps continued throughout the night making it difficult to sleep. I managed to hold down some toast in the morning and then set off for parkrun which would provide a second two-hour block of running, taking me to 42k. Obviously, I ran the extra 200 metres.

After this, I came home and prepared a hot lunch: chicken, bacon and lettuce sandwich which I had absolutely no interest in eating. I took a few bites and my hunger slowly started to kick in. After battling through it I decided to proceed based on 10k loops, allowing me to take a break every hour or so. I managed three of these loops without much issue, albeit getting slower every time.

By this point, I was at 72k and setting out on my fourth 10k loop. This was proceeding like the previous loops until the 3.4k point when I started running up the hill to Cabinteely. I felt dizzy. I stopped and debated whether it would be safer to walk back. This didn’t solve the lightheadedness, though, so I decided to sit down on the grass, eat some emergency Haribo and call a taxi to take me back home.

Having safely made it back to the apartment, I cooked a pizza which I managed half of and then decided I would see how far I could walk with the remainder of the day. I was always planning to switch to loops around the building at some point in case of digestive issues. But trying to get through 25k worth of loops was not on the original plan.

I completed the first 11k just as the sun was setting. It was still warm enough to be in a t-shirt. I did some running but still wasn’t feeling great and didn’t have much energy left anyway. At the 14k point, I went back for another break, stuffing whatever food I could manage and switching all of my energy drinks for Red Bull. Now all I needed to survive was a final 14k of mostly walking in circles in the dark. After another 10k, I took a final toilet stop and headed out once more but now with that “I actually might finish this thing” feeling.

There was no grand energy boost for the final laps. Just a slow and relieved plod. When I finally finished I sat down on the wall and checked all of my stats to make sure it had really happened. I kept imagining later discovering “oh no, I only ran 99.8k and I have to do it all again!”

Results

In the end, it was a comfortable victory for Team Cool Runnings. We covered 228.01 km between us, giving us a 83.89 km victory over Team Scrambled Legs in second. The closest runner to me was my teammate Joanne who finished with 62.28 km including a marathon in a single run, and my teammate Oren covered the fourth farthest distance split over 25 separate runs completing a minimum of one mile every hour. Incredible effort, team!

I was moving for just under 11 hours, spread across a 23-and-a-half-hour period. My watch measured me at 100,260 steps (1002% of my goal, apparently) and I burnt 9,753 calories.

Well done also to Team Legs and the City and Team Stridge and Prejudice who trounced everyone else in the fundraising competition. Collectively, we raised over €3,800 with helps support the club as well as raising money for Special Olympics Ireland. The quality of team names was also excellent.

Reflections

I haven’t trained much with DUHAC since I moved house so it was nice to be part of a club event. A big thank you to Moya and Peter for all of their organisation around the event.

I’m super happy to get 100k in the bag! I started to have some hip pain at GOBYU so I wondered if I was always going to be an issue. I did a weight lifting course earlier this year to try and build some strength but then between university, paid employment, fatherhood and charity commitments I have just been overwhelmed and haven’t stuck to it.

I think what made the difference this time was focusing on technique and core strength. If I stopped focusing on my core, I would start bending from the waist and that put pressure on my legs. As long as I stayed focused on lifting from my core, my technique remained good (both running and walking), the discomfort went away and I moved easier.

Would this work at a 100k race? I’m not sure. Maybe at something like Endure24 where I can start, stop, return to base, etc. I’m not sure it has given me the confidence to take on a 100k point-to-point race despite having previously had a ticket to Race to the Castle. But who knows what the future will bring. I have a backyard ultra next month so we will see how that goes.

I’m also very pleased to have recovered from the flu in time. Of the three races I had booked so far this year, I’ve missed two due to illness and I was worried my lungs wouldn’t be back to full health. I’m grateful every opportunity I get to take on one of these challenges.