THE BACKGROUND BIT
So as mentioned in previous posts, the intention was to do TriAthlone (an Olympic Distance Triathlon) this year as my A race and I had convinced Carwyn that is was the perfect place to do his first ever triathlon, as it had a sprint distance, closed roads circuits and a river swim etc. TriAthlone got cancelled, I found another event, but it had no sprint distance and it was a sea swim.... so I found another sprint event for Carwyn in Skerries which happened two weeks ago, a whole Calendar month after Carwyn had learned to swim. All went well and Carwyn and Chiara become 1st time triathletes - yay.
The Other Event
So Harbourman was the other event - an Olympic distance in triathlon in Wicklow, Ireland - an event essentially picked because that was the same weekend TriAthlone was meant to be (though it's website had pretty impressive drone footage of previous years events which may have swayed me also). This was the main event, that all my training the past year had been leading up to. Skerries triathlon was timed rather nicely to be a week before my 2 week taper - everything was going to plan....
Unexpected Developments (though really I should know better by now...)
The day after coming back from Skerries, I went to do the PTC 10k Run TT as part of my plan to complete the whole series before my training plan was finished. It went great until it didn't - was on course to smash my 10k personal best until about 8km in (probably due to tight right achilles I had felt at start of run, but warmed up out of), my left hamstring followed shortly by my left calf pulled tight on me and i had to pull out of the race, to prevent any long term injury.
It was frustrating to pull out of such a strong effort so late, but I took positives from the pace I had and having the mindset to stop. A bit of stretching and foam rolling and I felt alright, until an easy taper run the week after, which went fine in and of itself, but left me with an enflamed achilles which simply would not ease up. A session with Vicki sorted me out somewhat and left me with some better knowledge of how to deal with it, but I decided not to run until the event.
This was pretty frustrating as I had been having niggles since Llanelli (infected blister from Llanelli stopped me running till 5k TT > 5k TT presented new problem of achilles for first time so took it easy running until Skerries > Skerries was okay but wound me up like a coil for 10k TT and here I was...) essentially accumulating a 6 week disruption to my run training. All this had me pretty unmotivated about the prospect of Harbourman as an 'A' race, but I was still fired up about getting a good swim and bike, and was mentally prepared to pull out of run if I had to . It wasn't too much of a downer though, the concept of an A race had blurred a bit - The PTC TT series was becoming a good source of motivation for me, and swimming was also starting to come good which had me starting to really look forward to my 13km Aberdovey Swim in September.
Meanwhile, Carwyn also decided to throw his hat into the ring and signed up for Harbourman too. Having making remarkable progress in doing his first 800m TT 2 days after first swim lesson and then his first open water Sprint Distance triathlon a calendar month later , he decided he was ready for an Olympic distance triathlon. At this trajectory he would set for Ironman in September and world domination by Christmas. Fair play to him altogether!
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| Carwyn Davies, Triathlete, (Female 30-34) Reflecting on A Summer of Success |
Having made a weekend of Skerries 3 weeks earlier, this was to be more of a flying visit, just Carwyn and I, getting the ferry over Saturday afternoon, staying at my parents house Saturday and Sunday night, with day trip to Wicklow on the sunday for the triathlon, ferry home Sunday morning. It was only once we had gotten to Inistioge and had the standard hottub unwind when we really thought about the timings of the next day.
9am start meant...
8am transition open meant....
7am registration open, and with the Wicklow being approximately 90 minute drive away, and us not really knowing Wicklow and being paranoid about parking etc, we decided on getting up at 4am to leave at 4:30! Tomorrow was going to be a long day!
RACE DAY
So 4ams do exist on a Sunday morning!! Just as well everything was already in the car from the late evening because we probably would've forgotten it all as we zombied our way into the car, and set the car to auto-drive (I'm sure my 99 corolla has that....) and went on our merry way. Driving at stupid o clock on a sunday in a country with 1/8th the population density of the UK has it's perks though - probably saw 3 cars the whole journey as well as catching a glorious sunrise.
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| Empty Roads & Glorious Sunrises - 4am Sundays not so bad |
We arrived in Wicklow at 6am, an hour before registration and got perfect parking, beside the river about 20 metres from registration and about 5 minutes walk from transition. Possibly over-preparedness but this left things very relaxed for the rest of the day, with a nap before registration, then breakfast and organising all our car triathlon chaos on a riverside lawn and bimbling over to transition. That usual 'I'm sure I've forgotten something" feeling after setting up super quickly in transition, and we were now in waiting mode for this thing to just bloody happen already.
The transition was a strange dead cul de sac of a car park that had only one entrance / exit at the far side, and was mostly cut off from the seaside promenade by fencing but for one opening that was for now blocked by the race organisers. Despite the car park being pretty massive (comfortably a 500 competitior transtion area as well as cafe and shop stands) it started to feel a bit claustrophobic as it filled up with competitors as the race briefing approached.
The weather was looking to be almost perfect for a raceday, a bit of a breeze and slightly overcast - excitement was starting to build now.
The race briefing was almost quite fear mongering! Lots of mentions of steep descents and sharps bends on the return leg on the bike. Myself and Carwyn looked at each other - steep descents?! We had reccied this course online and in street view as well as driving parralel to the course and on the course on the approach to Wicklow town - by Pembrokeshire terms it was flat as a pancake! However, I am not the most confident on the TT bike on technical roads and it was enough to put some doubt in the back of my mind. One novel thing from the race briefing was a 'man with a flag' demonstration of how you travel through transition both on T1 and T2 - actually quite helpful, but what is also quite helpful is just showing a clear transition map in the race pack [hint, hint]!
Race briefing now over, the exit to the waterside promenade was now open for the long walk to the swim start. And boy was it long... 350m? 400m? It passes a point in (may I say delicate) barefeet and a wetsuit on concrete and tarmac (not without chippings) where it may as well have been 5km! Carwyn had been fairly quite in prep up to this point and only now started expressing doubts in his capabilities to do a 1500m open water swim... I didn't know what to say - it really was all a mystery - but I think I said something reassuring like "you'll be grand" while otherwise inwardly fretting about steep descents and sharp bends on the bike course. Jesus, what had we let ourselves in for?
THE SWIM (click to see activity)
The swim start area was interesting. A matted chute for a rolling start onto the beach and into the water. Except the beach was stoney. And it banked down to the water quite steeply. And the matting stopped quite short of the water so there would have to be some foot on stone action. Again not good news for my delicate little feet! We just about got into the water for some acclimitisation (I don't think many people did) before wishing each other luck and finding our respective places in the swim chute. It being a national series race like in Skerries, I parked myself again quite conservatively , about 10 rows of people (maybe 30 people?) from the front.
The starter buzzer went off. We made our way in pairs to the timing matt where we were blipped and told to go in 5 second intervals. I tip-toed so lightly over the stoney descent to the water the guy behind me caught up before we got to the water's edge. Jesus. I dived in and got swimming.
The swim course was a great one for the spectators. it started by heading out to the mouth of the harbour with a pier full of onlookers looming over on the left, then a left hand turn at the end of the pier to do a anticlockwise rectalinear loop before swimming back up the outside of the pier and around it and back in to the stoney beach.
As soon as I was in I started passing people, which was great after the cumbersome beach start. The whole length of the pier was an overtaking manouevre and all the while I was feeling quite relaxed - another confidence boost on my technique change in recent weeks - but also had me wondering how many triathletes overstimate thier swim abilites and put themselves too far at the front? A left turn at the pier and the overtaking continued. It was pretty choppy out there past the harbour so I was mainly sighting off the next person ahead who I would pass, then sight the next one etc. Had I left that many people on the start pen to catch? This was great! Another left at the next buoy to swim towards the mainland, the overtaking lessoned and the sighting got more difficult. The next buoy always seemed to be to the right no matter how I adjusted for it. Left at the next buoy to swim parrallel the land back towards the harbour, and I had definitely found my place in the race, with a pace match hovering around me this whole stretch, with few other swimmers in sight - starting to work now. Left at the next buoy to swim alongside the outside of the pier. The show off in me tried to put some extra effort in as there were now spectators sitting overhead. This may have been a mistake, was starting to really feel it now. Rounding the pier for the home straight, I lengthened the stroke and just worked on form rather intensity, more or less holding my pace buddy on the way back to the beach.
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| Swim Exit, before I realised my bike was several miles away |
I exited the water and had the stoney banked beach to contend with but luckily no longer had feeling in my feet for this and started the long way back to transition. At first I was thankful for the long journey as it seemed to take an age to get my wetsuit off my arms and down to my waist. But it just went on and on. And on. I drifted off, time and space merged & blurred, I pondered the drifting clouds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the relative nature of time itself... I mean, what does time really mean anyway ... what does any of it mean?.... I snapped out of it and checked my watch to see what day it was - wow, halfway along this transitonal odyssey from swim to bike and my watch read 21:30.... what time had I done on the swim?! I looked out to the right and saw the whole swim course still fully populated. I estimated I was doing alright! Whoop dee doo!! I pranced into transition like only a delicate footed man who has briefly forgotten he has delicate feet can.
Transition was about as as quick as I could make it. Wetsuit off. Helmet on. Bike off and out. This event was going well, me cautiously thunk.
THE BIKE (click to see activity in new window)
Despite doing a bit more practise pre race day, I struggled again with getting feet in shoes and shoes closed in the first couple of hundred metres. I think my balance was out the window after a strong swim and an ethereal journey back to my bike.
The bike course would essentially be a 20km out, 20km back initially negotiating the roundabouts that orbited outer Wicklow town before going along what would have had at sometime been the main Dublin road (now superceded by a new motorway which ran right beside it) out to a half way point before turning back and, aside from a 5km detour along the way, doing mostly the same way back.
In a roundabout kind of way, the exit out of the urban area of wicklow was interesting. There was a few drags, a few drops but no sign of the steepness warned about in the race briefing. The standout observation however was the outstanding level of marshalling at the junctions. This was not a closed road event, but you would have hardly known it - every traffic lights and roundabout was manned by Garda who gave absolute priority to competitors. It was amazing.
I struggled to get into a flow on the bike - it seemed my legs had a lot of lactic acid buildup from the long run to the bike. I was still passing people though, more so than the odd one or two serious looking folk that passed me on the way out. Most interestingly I spotted someone I recognised as the winner of the Skerries triathlon as he passed me 5km into the bike. This was quite pleasing, as he had put at least a minute on me on the sprint swim there, and I had clearly comfortably beat him on the Olympic swim here. Another little boost.
The course was wonderful and only improved as we left Wicklow town area. The roads gently rolled and swept, and for every light drag there was the pay off of a long gradual drop with nothing technical to demand a loss of momentum on the bike. And again, every junction manned by marshalls - no car would enter this road not knowing there was an event going on! 10k in and had roughly found my place in this race. People ahead were still catchable but not immediatley so. I spent the next 10k ever so slowed gaining on this guy ahead of me. Eventually , close to the half way turnaround point I had to make the move to pass him. So similar was our pace, it took me ages to pass him, far more than the actual 20 seconds allowed to get out of his draft zone. Once passed I tried to push on and quickly saw the marshalls signalling for the turnaround roundabout ahead. I gave them the thumbs up as I powered on.... then made a realisation when I saw the whites in their eyes - THEY were the turnaround point! Shite!! I completely overshot the turn by about 100m as I slowed to turn back on myself... the guy who I had spent about 10km catching was 100m ahead again. Dammit! On the plus side, from counting the guys returning down the road I had estimated myselft to be in the top 20 at that point - nice! One other person passed me on shortly after the turnaround mix up, but he would be the last person to pass me on the bike today.
Again I slowly caught the other guy as we made our way back - I nearly overtook him but then the surface got really bad and I hung back. I then chose to stay hung back by about 20 - 30 metres for the rest of the cycle and just enjoy the course. We were pretty much the same for pace anyway and my legs never really had got to firing on all cyclinders so it was time to hold something back for the run.
I looked out for Carwyn on the bike but I didn't see him at all. His black trisuit was hard to spot, but I assumed he crossed my path while I was doing that slightly different stretch on the return leg. Again like in Skerries, I had no sight of him on the bike to reassure me he had managed the swim alright.
The approach back into Wicklow was fun. it seemed to be more drops than drags and lots of lovely sweeping bends down to superbly marshalled roundabouts and junctions. I really don't know where all this steep roads and tight bends talk had come from - I guess the definitions are different in Pembrokeshire!
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| Bike done, coming back into T2 |
Taking shoes off was far more straight forward than putting then on and T2 was pretty quick except for the fact that my race runners are just a bit difficult to get on. Out of transition then out onto the waterfront promenade for the run - let's get it done!
THE RUN (click to see activity in new window)
The run course was a pretty interesting prospect. The initial 6km would be 3km out, 3km back alongside the start / end of the bike course. Then it would pass by transition to the harbour on the other side to do a 2km loop twice before finishing back at transition. Rather than a big loop or even multiple laps of one loop, this course was nicely broken down and psychologically quite palatable to take on in mini chunks.
As soon as I started I knew this was not going to be straightforward. My achilles, like at the 10k Run TT was super tight and tender. Dammit. I did think about quitting, only 200m in. It had been something I had always been mentally preparing to do afterall. But something inside me told me no, just keep pressing on and see. I'd just have to hold it back a bit, I just couldn't fully enforce that spring in my stride that I had been working on all year.
This policy of holding back immediatley proved to be mentally tough, with a handful of people passing me in the first 500m. It was also quite hilly. Something I hadn't really taken in on this stretch on the bike, but it was ringing alarm bells now with my achilles now protesting. As I came over this first hill down into a drop I started seeing the leaders returning and I started counting. It actually helped distract me while I ran at what felt like compromised pace down the hill (downhill running is not something I've ever enjoyed, even at the best of times!). I came to the 3km turnaround point and was surprised to see I was still 25th. Nice.
This perked me up somewhat, though on the return I could defnitely see some gazelles that were bound to catch me (see what i did there?). It seemed hillier somehow on the way back, and my achilles was making itself be known. Don't get me wrong, I was still working hard, but there was a tentativeness to every single stride.
6km out and back done, a stop at a water station (which cost me two places) and I was passing transition in the other direction. No sign of Carwyn - where was he? After 6k of running alongside the end of the bike course I though I may have seen him by now which was a concern... On I went into the town for the 2 km loops to the harbour.
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| 6km done, wondering where tf Carwyn was |
The sun was out now and the heat was up, but this part of course was refreshingly flat, the achilles quietened up a bit and I settled into a pace to get to the turnaround point at the end of the far pier of the harbour, even passing one or two people on the way. As we came back in on the loop there was a small section of steps to climb to a higher street. I was surprised to find myself catching up to people on this small section - I definitely still had some spring in my step. The course then looped back down to harbour level where I asked the volunteers at the drink stations to just throw water at me - much to their delight.
Starting the 2nd loop I felt my mini 2nd wind (i think it lasted about a km) fading a bit, but tried to hold onto the pace I had made for myself. This was the only part of the course where the positioning got a bit blurred as we started to mix with people on their first lap. I really liked this aspect of the course, it was nice and broken down but without causing any part of it to get too crowded. The steps the 2nd time completely sapped everything out of me. It was only 10 or so steps, but springing up them on this occasion had me walking for 30 seconds at the top, to shake my legs out and stop my heart exploding. Steady steady now - just bring it home now.
Finishing the 2nd mini loop there was a bit of a straight back to transition - I tried to pick up the pace for a strong finish but the achilles started protesting again. I still found something extra coming into the transition area for the finish line - at least to look like someone who could still just about run.
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| The last good thing my achilles did this year! |
Done! Woot.
I looked at my watch and couldn't believe it - despite running at what felt like 90% to keep the achilles at bay and a few walky bits, I was seeing 45 minutes something for my 10k split, at the end of an olympic triathlon. There was a weird combination of delight with what I achieved at that effort and frustration of what could have been without the niggles... but mostly the former. I had also done the triathlon in 2:17:41, an Olympic triathlon best by about 18 minutes, finishing 37th o/a out of 365 finishers and 8th in category.
TriAthlone 2018, I finished 10th from back, TriAthlone 2019 I finished middle of the field - it was pretty satisfying to be in top 10% of field in a national series race after 3 years of training slog (and with clear sight on where to still improve).
After finishing, there was no finishers medal - not something I necessarily expect for anything less than a half ironman distance, but a bit of an anticlimax after getting my lovely skerries medal 3 weeks earlier - but there was a glorious burger stand, free to finishing athletes that completely made up for it. I hung back and waited. I hadn't seen Carwyn the entirety of the race! Was he still out there? The cul-de-sac nature of the transition and finishing area made it hard to just wander out onto the course to have a look. I had my burger by the finish line and waited, committed to wander the course when I finished. The fact that my achilles had now completely seized up helped make it easier for me to stay put!
I was just about to reluctantly hobble out to the course, and there he was, with his now trademark leave- every-last-bit-out-there sprint finish. What a man. I checked my watch. What a time! 2:42:07 with what we would later find out was a 31:17 swim split. Let's try and put this into perspective a bit. Ignoring the fact that a first olympic triathlon under 3 hours is a great achievement anyway, this guy couldn't swim 2 lengths without stopping 8 weeks previously! It had only been 3 weeks since his first ever Sprint distance triathlon? His first 800m TT was 25 minutes, only 6 minute quicker than his split for TWICE THE DISTANCE today! He had never swam 1500m or ran 10km before today! What the actual?? Is there some kind of club award to acknowledge this? A Best Newcomer award? A WTF Just Happened Award? A Who Does This Guy Think He Is, Coming Down Here, Joining Our Club, Achieving His Goals in a Fraction of the Expected Time award? If so, I have a nomination to make!
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| Happy Carwyn |
Anyways, he seemed pretty pleased. Although this may well have been because of the free burger... He had carried some frustration since Skerries that he hadn't put it all out there on that occasion - this was a different matter and he was wholly satisfied with every aspect of that, which was nice to see. Looking back on flybys we really had just missed each other a few times on the course, passing on the bike leg on the one 5km stretch where the return wasn't the same as the way out, and he just popped out on the course after I had passed the transition at 6km.
It had been a great day out and an Olympic Triattlon course I would highly recommend
- A fantastic swim course set in around the harbour pier, making it great for spectators
- A super fast rolling bike course
- A great 10km course, nicely broken down into tangible little sections
- Fantastic marshalling on the bike course.
- Finish. Line. Burgers.
Maybe something the club might want to travel to next year? Watch this space!
