Posts Tagged ‘triathlon’

What better way to end the triathlon season than with a tip in the Atlantic Ocean?

There was no accommodation available in Westport itself so we ended up staying outside of the town in rural County Mayo. The internet download speed was 500 mb/s. This is what happens when a country invests in infrastructure.

The weather wasn’t particularly kind and it rained heavily overnight but eased off to on-and-off showers. But thankfully I had my support team with me so I had a robe to wear until just before the race.

The swim

The swim was in the harbour and a chilly 12 degrees C in the water. I was nervous about drowning and freezing to death and had a rocky first third of the course as we wam the first side of a triangle. Then we turned and swam across the bay with the second third going face on into the waves. The final side was easier but seemed to take forever so I was pleased to get out of the water.

A big thank you to the water safety crew for looking after us. The water temperature was unpleasant but I have definitely had worse and the group warm-up before the race really helped.

The cycle

it is a fantastic bike course. It is an out-and-back along the Wild Atlantic Way. Relatively flat and I never felt like I was going into a headwind, but did feel like I had a tailwind on the way back. The view was beautiful across the bay with Croagh Patrick on the other side.

The run

The run goes up the greenway out of Westport. That means it is uphill but only gently so you can still run a comfortable pace both ways. There was an aid station at the turn around point and despite the poor weather, I was so warm by this point I went for the old cup of water over the head before making the return journey.

The result

My overall time was:

1:26:53

And my splits were:

That was good enough for second place overall! With the important caveat that there were only 19 of us in the try-a-try distance. They did have prizes for the top three men and women, though, so I came home with a prize!

It’s a lovely event if you don’t mind a sea swim and want some fantastic views packed into a sprint distance.

Lough Ree is a lake in the middle of Ireland. It is where I did the Two Provinces Triathlon in July. But where that took place in Lanesboro at the north of Lough Ree, this took place at the opposite end, as Coosan Point just north of Athlone. Which is great because there is a motorway all the way to Athlone.

I think the water temperature was higher than the air temperature. Nice to get it in before the autumnal days bring the water temperature back down.

Lake swims are usually the easy option compared to sea swims but the weather is not always kind on the far side of the Irish sea. There was a real chop on the water. Not as bad as Lough Cutra, but comparable to a calm day on the sea. This was my second weekend in a row racing, after Lough Key last weekend, so I was hoping for some confidence and an ability to go for it in the swim.

Alas, no. The chop really took me out of my front crawl and it made it feel like hard work. Hard work reminds me that if I stop swimming I will drown, which leads to a bit of panic. It did not stop me, though, and towards the end i did get into some front crawl. We then turned back directly into the waves, though, and that was that.

As we got out of the water, the rain started to come down. Most of the cycle was in the rain which made it difficult to see through my sunglasses. But otherwise a nice ride: a few lumps but no real hills. Three loops of the same course, so once you had completed one lap you knew what to expect. The rain eased off as I came into T2.

The run was an out-and-back along the same road that the cycle course initially went out on. I felt good on the run: I was maintaining a strong pace without feeling it too much. That said, it is always hard work and I was delighted to see the finish line. Which came with a well-stocked array of water, milk, biscuits, buns and crisps, as well as a voucher for a complementary burger from the burger van.

My overall time was:

1:16:16

And my spits were:

Transition was fully neutralised so my leisurely T1 cost me nothing. The bike course was 17-18 kilometres which is why I was so snappy there. My watch had the run a little short, too, but maybe that was just the trees.

We were well loved after the whole way and there were loads of marshals on the course. Thank you to everyone at Athlone Tri Club, and to
Derek Fox and Toine Siebelink for the photos!

In addition to the support, I really liked that they had our names on the bibs, and that all of the stickers were bright yellow. It is the club’s colour and makes the stickers look much more interesting than the plain white ones.

Lough Key is a beautiful forest park located in Roscommon. I am looking to avoid sea swims so it was worth the drive over for what is the first of a few end-of-summer/autumn races I have lined up.

Being in a forest park they have a visitor’s centre with proper indoor toilets, which was a luxury. I wasn’t feeling great on the drive over, though, and had to stop a few times meaning I got there a bit late and was in a rush to set up transition, misplacing my neck protector along the way.

Luckily, it was a short swim (200m) that I took easy for the first half and then a bit faster on the way back. Despite the cool conditions, the water was warm enough.

The cycle route was fantastic. It was extended to 23 km to allow us to do one complete loop of the lough. Some of it was behind trees but other parts climbed up onto the hills and gave us a beautiful view right across the lough. Tough side winds, and a final head wind, made for some hard work but well worth it for the views.

The run was similar, going alongside the lough before turning in land a little to come back. Things were going well until 2 km in when I felt a sudden pain under my arm. It didn’t stop me from running and I finished in good time, delighted to have completed another event.

My total time was:

1:33:31

And my spits were:

After the race, I headed over to the first aid station so they could take a look at my arm. The paramedics suggested it might have been a bee sting. Nothing serious but I ended up in the ambulance for 30-40 minutes while they checked my vitals and what not. Thank you to Andrew and Mags for taking good care of me.

I finished the day with some food from Paddy Paella. Thank you to everyone at Lough Key Triathlon and all of the volunteers who made the event happen.

Triathlon is back! I took in Kilkenny Triathlon a few weeks ago and realised how much I had missed it. I decided to keep momentum rolling and sign up for Tro Provinces Triathlon, which takes place in Lanesborough. During the race you cross the border between Longford and Rosscommon, hence the name of the race.

Unfortunately, it was heat wave weekend. Temperatures were predicted to peak at 28 with typical British Isles humidity. I’m not a big fan of hot weather and I would have cancelled, except that I had just started to get my confidence back in open water and was determined to capitalise on it.

It is about a two-hour drive over, the second half of which is on small roads. I was in wave eight, which started two hours after transition closed, at around 12:30 meaning we got the impact on the day’s sun. I tried to leave my wetsuit off until the last minute to stay cool.

The swim

I was very nervous again before the race and getting into the water. The water in Lough Ree was a beautiful temperature, though. Maybe around 20 degrees. Warm enough to be pleasant to get into and cool enough to swim without overheating.

It was a triangluar course around a single buoy. I decided to take it easy and do heads-up breaststroke to the buoy. Once I rounded it I felt my confidence building and went into front crawl that I did all the way back to the swim exit. Job done and really happy with that.

The cycle

The cycle route was on closed roads and once you get through the first two turns it was a pure out-and-back affair. There was a tail wind on the way out so we were all flying. Slower on the return as we were going into a slight headwind but the aero bars really helped here.

I decided to go with arm sleeves to protect myself from sunburn. In addition, I took a second bottle on the bike with water that I could pour over my torso and arms every few kilometres to cool me down.

The run

Finally, onto the run. This too was a mostly out-and-back affair with little shade. Thankfully, the race organisers had put a real effort into keeping us cool. There were two water stations, so four chances to pass them on the out-and-back, and they put a series of sprinklers on the course so that you could run through them as well.

I took a soft flask of water to pour over myself again. However, having been sitting in transition the whole time, it was like bath water and I had to dump and refill it at the first water station.

The result

I managed to leave my timing chip in my car after I had registered, so I don’t have an official time. But according to my watch, my time was:

1:23:09

And my splits were:

I wasn’t interested in the time; I just wanted to have fun. Not miles off the 40-minute barrier for the bike, though. And a sub-26 5k in that heat was lovely. I worked pretty hard for it looking at my heart rate!

The race was well organised and they gave out free ice creams at the end. Thank you to all of the volunteers who made it happen.

I completed Kilkenny Triathlon two years ago when the swim was cancelled due to water quality. That meant the last open water race I had finished was IRONMAN Copenhagen three years ago and my confidence was not in good shape coming into this race. I registered for the try a tri as it is the same course as the sprint but with a shorter swim.

I got down there and registered fine. Despite the cloud cover it was baking hot, especially once we had our wetsuits on. We walked down to the swim and I felt nervous, especially when getting into the water. But I did it, and despite plenty of in-water nerves, too, I finished the swim.

The bike was pretty standard. Some back ache towards the end but I generally just had fun. I don’t think I used my aero bars much.

The run course was different to previous years. Last time it followed a similar route to the parkrun course with two laps around the castle grounds. This course took us onto the side of the river behind the castle and then back along the river in a lovely one-lap circuit.

My overall time was:

1:23:46

In 2023 it took on a duathlon format with an additional run at the start I cannot compare the two. Slightly slower on the cycle an slightly faster on the run, though it was probably a little flatter. My T1 looks horrendous but the mat was at the bottom of the hill by the river and included a long run up to transition.

I’m not fuss about the times in any case, I just wanted to finish a triathlon with an open water swim again and I did that so job done. I’m proud of myself. Also, it was fun!

Skerries is a popular triathlon that takes place up the coast. We organised a relay team for the club consisting of Chris L swimming, Hugh cycling and myself running. I’ve never done a traditional relay before so I was excited to give it a go.

The biggest pain was that registration closed at 7:15 in the morning. I’m sure lots of races start this early and I’ve just forgotten, but I did not appreciate the 5 am alarm to meet Chris at 6:00. Still, all was well and we got down to the race in plenty of time. At which point there was not a lot to do because we had very little to set up in transition.

The swim starts off down the beach and goes out in the bay and then along the coast to Red Island where transition was located. Despite not having raced a sea swim before, Chris was one of the first out of the water from wave two, which is where all the relay swimmers were placed. He was so fast he almost took us by surprise. The way it works in relay is you have a transition pen where you hand over the timing chip ankle bracelet.

Hugh theen set off on the bike. There was a strong headwind going out meaning that the athletes on the time trial bikes had a big advantage. Despite this, we think Hugh was around 11th fastest overall on his road bike. I was nervously waiting in the pen at this point. And I was nervous. We were in the lead and I did not want to blow it, but I also knew how much it was going to hurt. I got a proper warm-up in and then did some pacing while we waited.

My turn on the run. It was a wierd experience. Usually, I have come out of the swim near the back and spend the entire run overtaking people. But today I was out with some of the faster athletes and while I still managed plenty of overtakes, there were also some people that came flying past me.

At this point, I did not know what gap we had on the team in second place. I thought I knew what their runner looked like but wasn’t sure if maybe I had missed him. Maybe they were only five minutes behind and he was an 18-minute 5k guy. The run course is a beautiful out and back along the beach and as I came to around the 3.5/4k point, I saw the second place team’s runner heading out on the run. At this point, I knew we had it in the bag! Cue a classic finish line celebration.

Some may try to diminish our victory by saying that there were only five relay teams in total and that everyone else was just there for the craic. But having never won anything in triathlon before, I’m chuffed to bits. You can only beat who turns up on the day. It was a well organised race at every point so a big thank you to Fingal Triathlon Club for organising.

TriLaois is a sprint distance triathlon that takes place in Portlaoise. 750m pool swim, 23km cycle and 5km run. It’s been 20 months since I last did a triathlon and I was super-excited for it.

Still had some stomach issues on the morning but once I was racking my bike in transition it was nothing but excitement. We had nine athletes from the club racing and there are not many greater joys in life than racing with your teammates.

Transition closed at 8:10 and our wave was not scheduled until 10:30. This meant we had the chance to watch some of our teammates in wave one, but then left quite a gap between wave one finishing the swim and us getting in the pool. The bag drop was not secure but it did mean we could keep our hoodies on until the last minute.

The swim

We had a lane to ourselves in wave five. Six people in a lane sounded like a lot but Sarah, Roxane and Grace swam as a pack reducing the number of groups moving around. Melchior was quickest out of the water. I had two bursts of speed where I briefly tried to stay on the girls’ feet but otherwise took it easy.

The cycle

Transition was on an astroturf field which meant our feet got covered in those little rubber balls. I went for socks but otherwise there was no messing around and I was out in two and a half minutes.

The cycle route was an out-and-back and pretty flat. There was tailwind going out and it was slightly downhill which meant coming back was much harder. Even though there was nothing to take me out of my big ring, 3% into a headwind is enough to slow you down. I managed to catch my team mates on the outward leg. I was just under 30 kph average speed.

Annoyingly, neither my heart rate monitor nor my power meter had synced with my bike computer so I had to work on feel. The power meter did sync with my watch, though, and thinks I averagd 189 watts.

The run

Transition two was smooth enough as I switched to my running shoes and set off on the run. I tried not to hurt myself too hard. That’s tough as soon as you see someone ahead of you, though, and it was a constant battle of trying to slow myself down. Thankfully, there was an aid station half way to get some water over my head.

I wrote my tri suit which does not have any pockets so I had to do the run without my phone. As a result, by the half way point, I was two and a half kilometres away from my phone. As someone who doesn’t usually go to the bathroom without my phone, I think that might be a new personal best.

The results

My total time was:

1:30:10

And my splits were:

All good stuff. 2:16 per 100 is good enough swim pace for me, the cycle was faster than expected as I thought about 45 minutes for 20km and the speedy run was a nice bonus, too. Most of all, I had fun, which was the aim of the day.

We took a team of nine of us and everyone did brilliant, especially considering most people were doing their first triathlon.

Well done to Finn Meenagh and Christine O’Brien for being the first DUCCers across the line, and Christopher Lohse for winning his age group. Alas, the competition of the M35-39 age group made for a tough race.

Post race celebrations

After the race, we headed to The Pantry Cafe & Walled Garden for some refreshments and banter.

On Friday, we staged our first Mini Triathlon. It consisted of a 400-metre swim in the pool, a 10 km cycle in the spin studio and a 2 km run around campus. It was a lot to organise but well worth it. Eight athletes took part and apart from having to invalidate the bike results due to a misconfiguration, everything went smoothly. We can’t wait to run some more events like this next year.

Back in May, Jonas Deichmann set out to try and complete 120 long-format triathlons in a row. Last week, he finished it. This surpasses Sean Conway’s previous record of 105. Congratulations, Jonas!

Lots of exciting thing happened at Challenge Roth this year.

In the men’s race, Magnus Ditlev set a new men’s course record of 7:23:24. And in British interests, Tom Bishop moving up to long format, came second with 7:37:54. He was actually overtaken by Rudy Von Berg on the run but battled back to regain second place.

In the women’s race, Anna Haug set a new women’s course record of 8:02:38. It was only two years ago that Katt Matthews set the first women’s sub-8 at Sub7 / Sub8 under artificial conditions and now Haug is less than three minutes from doing it in a race. Also, she’s 41!

Further down the field, Jonas Deichmann completed his 60th full distance triathlon in a row to mark the halfway point in Challenge 120. He’s been taking up to 15 hours to complete them, meaning less than a full night’s sleep, and yet incredibly is still banging them out every day as he chases Sean Conway’s record.