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:
| Discipline | Time |
|---|---|
| Bike | 3:23:33 |
| Transition | 5:38 |
| Run | 2:05:27 |
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:
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Tags: triathlon
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2023 at 11:00 am and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.