Overshooting it - My first triathlon, Skerries 2012

Beach Start, Skerries Triathlon 2012

When this weekend came along, I was pretty nervous to say the least. Despite all my training, it all felt like it was happening a bit fast and there were a lot of doubts going through my mind. I was only just about able to run 7km in training - could I run 5km after a cycle and swim? Would I able to balance on a bike after swimming? What the hell was being in a race on a bike like?! I hadn't done any brick training - why hadn't I done any brick training*?! As for transition practice... well I had taken my wetsuit off once and that was okay... Oh dear...

Billy picked me up on Saturday morning on the way to Skerries, the day before the big event, which was handy as I had accumulated a surprising amount of triathlon shtuff over the last 6 months! The 1st thing I did once I got to Skerries was one last practise lap of the cycle route - this helped calm me a bit, and I felt I really had a handle on crucial areas of the course to change gears on. Also the familiarity of the course was starting to make it feel a bit shorter, which was nice.

After that, I settled into a bit more of a normal routine, just chilling out with Billy around Skerries like any normal weekend. In a way, I still didn't really believe I was going to be doing this the next day, it was hard to know how to feel about it! In fact, I was probably a bit too relaxed, having a beer or two and a bit of junk food that night watching a movie. I told myself it would help me sleep! Yeah right!

I groggily got up at 6.30am on raceday. Registration was at 7am, 2 hours before the race, and the plan was to register, then go back to the house for breakfast and get ready i.e. so I was not waiting around in transition for two hours! So basically registration is where you sign in, pay a one day license if required (this is essentially paying insurance for the day, in case anything happens - this is included in your annual Triathlon Ireland membership, but if you're not a member and just doing one or two races, you get a one day license), and you get a goodie bag which includes the following:

• your race numbers (for front & back, though if you have a race belt, you only need to wear one race number and rotate to front for run),
• a coloured swimming hat which told you what wave you were in (Blue was for Olympic Distance, Red was for advanced Sprint Distance, White was for Beginner Sprint Distance - despite being a complete novice I registered as advanced sprint, as I was confident in my swim!)
• your timing chip
• a fancy souvenir t-shirt
• various other goodies including a bottle of lucozade and a nutrigrain bar. To my dismay it also included a race-belt and an ankle strap for the timing chip. Dammit, I didn't need to buy those!

Anyways, I got back to the house and had my usual breakfast and got changed into my trisuit. I felt really nervous and almost defeated while doing this, like I was getting ready to walk the plank. This was not a natural feeling. I didn't like this feeling. Had I paid money to experience this feeling? What was I doing here? This feeling of nerves & anxiety did not go away as I walked my bike from the house back towards the transition area. When I got there things were a lot busier than they were earlier that morning, a lot of very serious and athletic looking people walking around setting up their bikes and gear.

When I found my rack, I reluctantly hung my bike off it, not really sure what way I was supposed to hang it. Then I stood around like a bit of an idiot, not really knowing what to do. I didn't want to over-eagerly put on my wetsuit too early and be found out  as a newbie! Then to my relief I saw there were other people standing around looking a bit bamboozled by the whole affair. I was not alone! Then I started chatting to the guy next to me - he had done one or two before and was very helpful. All of a sudden this was starting to feel a little less intimidating. Billy and my uncle Liam showed up and this calmed me down a bit further - around this time I also found out that my parents were coming up from Inistioge, with my older and younger brothers in tow. This was partially to see me race, partially to see Mary and Liam's new house, and partially to see what my designs done to it!.... Mainly to see the race though... Of course...

There was an announcement that the race briefing was about to happen and everyone crowded around a man with a mega-phone. I remembered from my Wheelworx "Intro to Tri" sessions that the race briefing was very important as it not only described the course and where you enter and exit transition, but also informs of any last minute changes to the course. I listened intently. Unfortunately I heard absolutely nothing through the screechy and muffled microphone. Ah well- I guess I'd just follow everyone else!

After the race briefing it was announced that the transition area would need to be vacated in 10minutes time, before the Olympic Distance race commenced. Time to get ready so! I left my helmet on the bike, with gloves, sweatband and prescription sunglass inside it. I hung my cycle jersey off one brake hood on the handlebars and hung my racebelt with race number off the other. I put my runners with locklaces just beside my transition bag, under my bike with cap just in the bag in easy reach for the run. I sprayed tri-slide all over my ankles and wrists, anti-chafed the hell out of my neck and stuffed myself into my wetsuit. I had my prescription goggles and swimming wave hat. I was ready to go!

So, all suited up and ready to go, I watched on as the Olympic distance race started. As they had to do twice the distance in every discipline, they had to swim the 750m triangular route, run onto the beach and through a gate and then run in and swim it again! After a year of (fairly) dedicated training to get me to a point of feeling 50% sure I could even do a sprint distance race, I really couldn't get my head around the prospect of doing an Olympic distance event. Something strange happened to me around this point though - as I looked out at the guys leading the race, I started thinking to myself, "I'm as good a swimmer as them, maybe better...". Then I remembered how in most of my chats with people who had done triathlons before (some of whom had done them quite regularly), NONE of them had liked the swim! In fact for most, it was really something they wanted to get over with. I remembered being baffled at how so many people could regularly enter a tri-discipline event, and hate one of the disciplines so much! I was starting to psych myself up in a big way now - I was probably a better swimmer than most of these people!! Sure, I didn't know this at all, but that's what I was telling myself, and it was working. My nerves were gone and I was ready. I took a quick dip to get some water into my wetsuit and shortly afterwards we were called to starting position. Here we go!

Now at this stage, I was incredibly pumped up and ready to go, but I was still aware that I might be getting a bit overly confident. After-all, despite my swimming background, I had never done a sea swim race before or a beach running start with 200 other people! I nestled in the crowd about 6 or 7 rows of people back. My plan was to stay on the outside, and give myself space to swim at my own speed until the crowd spread out a bit, as triathlons swim starts can be notoriously chaotic. The race steward announced on the megaphone would be starting soon, and starting listing things to do if you started panicking in the water and how to signal the guys in canoes etc, - I didn't really want to hear this! Then he said the siren would go off in 20 seconds and there would be no countdown. The silence was deafening.

Then the siren went, and we were off!

I started to run, but 1 minute of tensely waiting in the crowd had turned my legs to jelly! I was actually happy when my feet hit the water, the cold shock, knocked some feeling back into my legs. I took a couple of skips and jumps over the waves and dived in and started 'dolphining'** from there - it was really effective, and got the feeling back into my legs. Once this happened, the adrenaline kicked in and I started swimming hard ..... too hard - I was in sprint mode! My legs were kicking in full turbo, and my arms were in full swing, and I was cruising past people on my left and right.

Now to be honest, I wasn't sighting (ie. looking out for 1st buoy, making sure I was swimming in the right direction!) at all in this starting sprint. I just was so caught up in the rush of it all. The water was so clear I could base my direction on the other swimmers around me. Then it came to a point when there was no longer other swimmers, so I decided to do one or two strokes of breast-stroke to take in my  surroundings. My, was I surprised!

I looked around, I was close to the first buoy, maybe 20m from it or so, but there were barely any swimmers ahead of me, 4 or 5 maximum. Wow, I couldn't believe it. I was well ahead of the pack - talk about overshooting it!

I continued swimming around the buoy at a slightly more relaxed pace. There was 2 main reasons for this:

1. I wanted to get into a sustainable rhythym to get me through to the rest of the race

2. I was absolutely wrecked! I mean totally destroyed! I was out of breath, had major lactic acid build-up in my shoulders and had to swim breastroke quite a few times on the long stretch to the next buoy in an attempt to settle down, but it wasn't really working. To say I got my pacing was wrong was an understatement!

I rounded the 2nd buoy to start the final stretch back to the beach. My main thoughts at this stage were "I'm dying. I'm actually dying...", and "Oh shit, this is my strongest part of the race, I'm wrecked, and I still have to do a cycle and a run after this. I've made a huge mistake. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...". So yeah, I was in a good place, mentally! People were definitely passing me now, but I couldn't tell how many. It was a relief to start seeing the seabed become visible and closer as we got closer to shore.

 

Swim Exit & Feigning Energy Levels!

I decided I needed to swim as far in as possible to limit the distance I would be running against the resistance of the water. I swam until I couldn't avoid my hands touching the bottom, and then jumped up and started running. This was a really weird sensation, as the my blood realised it now needed to be in my legs! I had feeling in my legs by the time I was completely out the water, but was still struggling for breath. All the same, I felt pretty good - the crowd that were around the big inflatable gate that I had to run through made a big difference and I found myself bounding through that, and even heard my family shouting their support, though I couldn't see where they were.

This good feeling was brief however as I had to run over a little sand dune before entering transition properly. This sapped my energy big time, my legs were burning, and my pace dropped significantly - what a difference 50m makes!

I unzipped my wetsuit while running on entering transition and had half of it off and around my waist by the time I got to my bike .Most people seemed to this as soon as they were out of the water, but I didn't even think of it until I had my bearings - the migration of blood flow from upper body to lower body can have quite a disorientating effect! I took off my prescription and goggles and quickly replaced them with my prescription sunglasses which were waiting for me in my helmet and started to pull the wetsuit off my legs. This was going well (though not as easy as it appeared on youtube videos), but then disaster struck. The right leg of my wetsuit was stuck - it was not coming off! The timing chip was holding it back. I tried to force it but it wasn't happening. I had to sit down down, pull my wetsuit back up, take my timing chip off, and then pull the wetsuit off. I was losing a lot of time, and was aware of LOTS of people passing through transition ahead of me. I got up to put on my cycle jersey - this turned out to be quite difficult, as I had no feeling in my arms or hands from swimming in the sea and it took what felt like an age to get the zip attached and zip up. Clipping on my race belt was a similar experience, but the runners were fine - thank god I had the lock laces, can't imagine what tying laces here would have been like. I put on my helmet (it is illegal in a race to touch your bike before you do this), got on my bike and away I went, finally.

I had lost a huge amount of time in this transition! Obviously as my first triathlon I shouldn't have cared, but in full flow of race day my competitive mentality was fully engaged. Dozens of people had passed me in transition, and it seemed to defeat the purpose of my aggressive swim - something I would need to work in the future. But first I needed to complete this race!

I ran my bike out of transition to the mount line and got on the bike. Was definitely still feeling a bit weird getting on the bike - I had never done anything like this after a hard swim, and my balance and awareness was well off 100% - this did not feel safe! I started to feel better quickly enough though, as I got a bit of speed up, and only my legs were exerting energy, and unlike the swim I was still moving when I stopped pedalling!

The first 2-3km stretch of the cycle (ie the coastal stretch before going up the Black Hill) was difficult. Not only was I trying to find my pace on unfamiliar post swimming legs, I was pretty paranoid about the 'no drafting rule'.***

A long line of cyclists had developed on the route along the coast. As cyclists passed me I felt I had to slow down to make that 7m gap within the time. By doing this I was allowing other cyclists to overtake me easily, some of whom probably shouldn't have been passing me. It took me a while to realise that there wasn't a lot of race marshals out here and it was everyman for himself. I started to gain a bit of confident on the bike and started fighting my corner, re-overtaking some of the guys that had overtaken me earlier. We rounded the corner  under the railway track and started the climb up the Black Hill.

I had done a lot of practice on this course, and knew when to change gears for climbs like this and it showed. Despite being on a very light and easy gear, and feeling like I wasn't putting in too much effort (but at a high cadence), I overtook a lot of people on this section, which was pretty satisfying, particularly when passing some guys on very expensive looking tri-bikes with all the aero gear. "You can't buy hard work!" I thought to myself, which was probably a bit hypocritical of me as I had made some serious investments this year just to have the basic gear... and in hindsight probably could have added more hard work!

By the time I made it to the top of the hill, I was out on my own. I wasn't sure how far the others were behind me, but there was no one ahead of me, which was nice - I was cycling on my own terms now. I belted down the descents and around the flats, and was feeling quite comfortable, while still working quite hard. Occasionally a really fast cyclist would whizz by me - nothing much I could do about that! Despite my disastrous transition, it seemed my swim had put me ahead of a lot of serious cyclists, which felt good!

I found myself passing another little mini-group of people on the rolling hills of the countryside roads and was feeling good. Then I had a bit of a set-back. As I went to change gear, as practiced for another climb, I lost all resistant and was pedaling air - my chain had came off! Balls!

I quickly got off to the side of the road and tried to put the chain on with the bike upright. It was probably because I was on high adrenaline and panicking, but I couldn't do it this way, and had to put the bike upside down to make sure the chain was back on. I lost about a minute here, and during this time about 20 people I had passed on the hills re-overtook me! This was pretty frustrating to say the least, but at least I had the pleasure of overtaking them again over the next 5km!

I was about halfway through the cycle at this stage, and the 2nd half was much more straightforward, passing some people, getting passed by others until we came back to the main road, the pacey stretch back to Skerries. There was someone about 50m ahead who I thought I could catch, but we were about the same pace, so I followed him in for the next 5km at pace. After passing under the railway bridge and coming back into Skerries, there was a lot of corners to negotiate and I lost my rhythm a bit. The fact that I had not fully gotten to terms with my balance on the bike was telling as I took a lot of corners ultra cautiously here, and had to work to get my speed back. I still managed to pass some people on this section, while still getting passed myself by some really quick guys!

The very last section was a bit crappy, with a lot of tight back lane-ways that were full of potholes to deal with before getting back to the transition area. Pace was out the window here, but at this stage it didn't matter. I was starting to think about the run. I must say I was in a much better state of mind now then I was at the end of the swim!

I stopped and carefully got off the bike at the dismount line, and ran my bike back into transition. This transition was pretty straight forward. As I was already wearing runners, all I had to do was rack the bike, remove helmet, put on sweatband and cap and away I went!

Coming up the dismount line at the end of the cycle. As it happens my action camera would have my only record of my cycle split! 

The run did NOT feel good.

Honestly I was expecting my legs to feel a bit ropey after getting off the bike for the run as I hadn't done remotely any brick training in my preparations - strangely enough, this was not an issue at all. What was an issue, however, was the fact that I was not wearing any socks!**** The first 1km or so was fine, but as I started running around corners, there was a lot of slippage within my shoes, and this new friction creating a lot of discomfort. On top of this, as I had not mastered balance on the bike, I had not drank any water while cycling and so at this stage was pretty dehydrated!

The run course went from transition along the coast path around the Peninsula to the lifeboat house where you ran around a bandstand (pain), and back down the coastal path past the transition area and around a car park at the other end of the beach (pain), before returning along the beach path to the finishing line just in front of the transition area. The water station was located just after passing the transition area the 1st time, about 2km in, and I was dying for a drink at the stage!

Drinking from a plastic cup while running a panting for breath is shit - I would not recommend it. The cups were tiny, about 100ml, 10ml of which went towards my hydration matters, 90ml of which went down my windpipe. I could have just stopped and walked to have a drink, but I really wasn't confident I could get the legs started again if I stopped them! I tried again, getting another cup as I got past the end of the drink station. Same result. Balls. Looked like this final 3km was going to be tough!

I battled through it though, and after rounding the mast at the end of carpark (pain) to head back, I got a bit of a second wind. Maybe I literally had a tailwind to help me out here, but I was a bit more aware of the remaining energy I had, and I picked up the pace a little bit and even passed one or two people! (for the record, my run was mainly defined by getting passed by people, so I was pretty pleased to see I could still pass someone!).

It seemed to take ages on this familiar run route before the finish line came into view, but it was a great feeling to finally see it. Though I'm not sure this would have been clear to the onlookers at the time, I made an honest attempt at a final sprint and crossed the line.

 

Attempting a sprint finish!

My elation was tempered by my exhaustion. I went to the the athletes food station and got (in this order): a water, a banana, a coffee, a flapjack, a water, a sandwich, a bar, a water, a flapjack and a water. I was absolutely pooped, but food and water after such an exertion as heaven!

I eagerly went to the timing station to get my time. From speculating roughly on times and factoring in 'shit happens' I was hoping to do a time of about an hour and a half. To my dismay, as I had taken off my timing chip in T1 (I didn't put it back on), I had no cycling or running and splits! Luckily as an official at the finish line had taken my race number, I had a finish time..... 1:29:59! Brilliant! I had gotten within 1 second of my goal time - who does that?!

By taking my swim split, final time, and working out my cycle split, from the action camera, I was able to roughly work out my splits as something like this:

Swim:  00:12:58 (Official time - was 12th out of 233 people in the swim! Woot!)

T1:       00:03:00 (at least)

Cycle: 00:48:20 (Based on my action camera footage)

T2:       00:00:45 (This felt quick, would be surprised it was over a minute)

Run:    00:24:56 (By deduction, this might have been slower and T1 faster, but unlikely)

Total:   01:29:59 (88th in race overall, not bad for my first go!)

We got back to the house, I got changed and I went for a pint or 3 in Skerries where my brother and cousin had to suffer my reflections of the race I had just done. The post-race buzz had kicked in now. All the bad bits were forgotten about, I was very happy with the way the day had went. Needless to say, I was dying to do the next one!

 

NOTES:

* Brick-training is a training session where you go for a cycle followed by immediately by a run. The distance of the run is insignificant - it just serves to condition your legs for the transition from cycling to running

** Dolphining is a technique used by swimmers on beach-start races. It involves diving in to the water when you are between knee and waist deep, pulling your knees in and then thrusting yourself from the sand into a dolphin-like dive back into the water & repeating this until you are at an adequate depth to start swimming properly. This is a particularly effective way of getting out quickly on a swim start as running out after a certain depth can become pretty tiring! I had only read about the week before the race in a triathlon magazine and thought I'd give it a go!

***The 'no drafting rule' basically states that you cannot cycle within a zone 7m long by 3m wide behind the cyclist infront of you. Once you enter this zone, you have 10 seconds to pass, or face a 2minute penalty. Once your wheel passes the front wheel of the other cyclist, it become their duty to fall 7m behind you within 20 seconds. This all makes perfect sense when reading it, but was quite confusing in the race itself!

**** No socks - One of the things I learned from the 'Intro to Tri' classes in Wheelworx was that you don't generally put on socks in T1 (transition 1) after the swim. This is because you don't have the feeling in your fingers generally to do so, but also because you would generally be putting your feet into special tri-shoes already clipped to your pedals, and would have the option or opportunity to put on your socks in T2 when changing to runners. As I hadn't got clip in shoes or pedals yet, I was already in my runners on the bike, sans-socks, and even though I considered it I decided not to take off my runners to put back on socks when changing to running. This would be to my detriment!

Skerries, the Rás, the surprise triathlon & a new element to my training.

From January onwards I had been going to Skerries quite regularly at the weekends. 1st and foremost, this was because my aunt Mary had who lived out there had bought a cottage on the coast and had asked my to first design an attic conversion and then an extension for it. This was a great opportunity for me - it would be my first built work and would keep my foot in the door of my qualified profession. Her son, my cousin Billy is also one of my closest friends, so this was also a good reason to go hang out there at the weekends, a nice escape from the claustrophobic suburbia of Lucan (particularly when the attic was complete and they had moved into the house by April). Also the money I got from this job helped enormously with all this kit I was getting throughout the year.

So anyways, between the completion of the attic and waiting on planning permission for the extension my visits during the summer were purely social, just relaxing weekends out on the coast. I had even went on a few runs with Billy up along the beach promenade and back, about 5km. Then on the weekend of the 27th of May, we found out that the Rás, Ireland's national cycling race, would be finishing in Skerries. I don't really follow cycling and had never heard of this race before now, but was intrigued to see it, partially as a spectator of an event in the town, partially as someone who was getting into cycling.

On the day, me and Billy wandered into Skerries town and along the beach as had become a habit, not really aware of when things would be happening. On our way back it seemed like things subtly started happening around us - without being aware of the transition the roads were all of a sudden closed and people were now standing around waiting. The Peloton (I think I only learnt what this word meant today) was on it's way! The anticipation was something else - there seemed to be an endless parade of official motorbikes and cares flying through the place and then silence. And then they arrived, and what a sight!

We were parked on the outside of a hard right bend and this massive tight group of (20?30?40? Maybe a hell of a lot more?!) cyclists flew through it, faster than I could take any straight, tighter to the surrounding bikes than I would generally be to my own! It was amazing to see it, and yet so hard to gauge just how fast they were going and how hard it was to do what they were doing while making it look so easy. Within a minute they were gone, another parade of cars passed, then a smaller peloton of stragglers  and then it was over, all within 5 minutes. It was crazy to think about it - I had only seen a snapshot of the intensity that these guys had been cycling the last week or so, it was hard to get my head around it.

It had captured my imagination and had me on a bit of a buzz. We went into the shop we had been standing outside to get some refreshments. Fuelled by my buzz I started chatting to the guy at the till about the Rás, and mentioned I was training for a Triathlon in a months time. Much to my surprise, he mentioned that there would be a triathlon on in Skerries in about 2 weeks and maybe I should try that...

A triathlon in Skerries! Now I was excited. It seemed ideal - I would have a place to stay and it would be a good test run for TriAthlone, the main event, at the end of the month.

That week in work, I looked up the Skerries Triathlon, and found out it would be on the 17th June, just under 3 weeks away, 2 weeks before TriAthlone. The site was very informative with maps of the routes etc and it all looked very straightforward: A 750m sea swim on a triangular route starting with a run off the beach, a 20km cycle loop  into the countryside and back, and a 5km run along the beach promenade and back, which I thought would be nice. (there was also a warning about the jellyfish in the area on the swim briefing, but I chose not to think about this too much.)

There was a moment of hesitancy though. I was only back running (quite tentatively), and wondered was it such a good idea to be entering an event so close to TriAthlone – maybe the Achilles injury would flare up again, maybe worse?! In the end I decided I was just going to go for it. After all, it was just a test run – if the run didn’t feel good I would just stop, like in my training. So I was committed now, in 2 and a half weeks I would be doing my 1^st triathlon!

The following Saturday, Billy picked me up in Lucan, so I could bring the Sensa with me to Skerries. 1^st thing we did, with me as the navigator, race briefing in hand, was to drive around the course for familiarisation – this was a really handy way of doing this, to avoid me stopping a dozen times on my 1^st test cycle! Then when we got to the house, I immediately got changed to try the course myself on the bike!

Writing this post now, almost exactly 2 years on, it’s funny to think that I actually found the prospect of this quite daunting! Remember I had only been cycling on a road bike for the 1^st time ever the last two weeks, getting used to the balance and everything, and this was only in a car free zone, in a straight line on the canal! I wasn’t even sure I could corner yet! As it happens, this was more apprehension and hesitation, once I was on the road I was actually grand… for the most part.

The route worked a little something like this - Once out of the transition area near the beach, you cycle out through Skerries town centre and then onto the coastal road to Balbriggan for a couple of kilometres, then the take a left under the railway bridge and start climbing a long steep hill known as the Black Hill. When you eventually get to the top of this, the road becomes a lot more enjoyable with a lot of winding descents and rolling hills. There were still other little climbs where you had to work your way down the gears but everything seemed fine after doing the Black Hill! Before returning to the main road back to Skerries, you take a left, only to go a couple of kilometres down the road and turn back on yourself to get back to the road you were on (this was clearly to bring the distance up to the required 20km). The main road back to Skerries is great fun, gradually descending back down to sea level over a 5km stretch, making it quite pacey. Then you go around the outskirts of the suburbs before returning to the coastal road and back to Skerries, the route back to the transition area was a bit convoluted, having the weave left and right through a number of tertiary laneways (some of which the road surface was in terrible condition) and back.

My PreRace Lap [clickable Link]

I must say I enjoyed the route with a couple of exceptions:

• The Balbriggan Road, though scenic, was in pretty rough condition (no exactly that there was any potholes, but the surface was in no way smooth) and therefore pretty draggy, which was pretty frustrating on the flat.
• My chain came off just before I started the climb up the Black Hill, which obviously took away all my useful momentum! This was a bit of a concern, but didn’t think too much of it
• The Black hill was definitely a task and quite long – I just had to go right down the gears and be patient that my 9km/h would get me to the top of something!! It really but my bike fitness into perspective, something that I never really felt I had to work on.
• My cornering was a bit apprehensive at times, noting to myself that I definitely slowed down way more than I had to.
• Braking felt funny!! I had to get on the drops to get proper purchase on the brake levers, and in this position I felt quite front heavy while cornering downhill – this just added to my apprehension on corners!!
• My balance still left a lot to be desired – I felt really wobbly indicating right when going back into Skerries and I had to slow right down to almost nothing to manage the tight corners through the laneways.

All in all though, it was great fun, and a relief to be on the road for the first time on my road bike. I could see the importance in cycling at least the distance of the cycle leg in training though, and so did the route again the next week, and again the following week the day before raceday. Also during these weekends, on I went on a light run with Billy along the beach promenade which was pretty the running route, and as for swimming, well, I finally got into the sea with my wetsuit the weekend before raceday – I wouldn’t really have called it training, probably swam about 100 strokes, then got out (I’m not a huge fan of swimming in the sea on my own), and tried to get out of my wetsuit  as quickly as I could (this was the total extent of my swim transition practise!!).

I really enjoyed these weekends, and started to realise that there was a whole element to my training that I had not even tapped into yet, and started to get more of a feel for what triathlon training actually was. The prospect of doing this triathlon started to feel a lot less daunting over this weekends (i.e. it went from incredibly daunting down to just very daunting), and finally I felt I was kind of ready to do this!

Bring it on!

Triathlons - an Expensive Hobby!

The arrival of my bike on the 17th of May, marked the completion of my accumulation of gear in the build up to my triathlon. This process was spread out over 7 months, but it was amazing to see just how much I had invested in this. At the start it didn't seem like I needed that much (I am using the word 'need' loosely here - I could have completed a triathlon with less - better to assume 'to complete my goals' as an extension of 'needed' in this case), but as time went on, I found I always 'needed' something else!

1st, I needed need a tri-suit. This is like a one piece lycra get-up that has the appearance of swimming knee-length jammers, but a full body version that zips up over the shoulders. You wear this throughout the race, under your wetsuit, it has light padding for the cycle, but the padding is light enough for you to run with without feeling like you're running around wearing a nappy! These should have back pockets stitched in to carry energy gels (or whatever race day nutrition you need) - unfortunatley, weary of all the expenses I would have to make, I opted for the 'cheapest' trisuit, with no back-pockets. Needless to say I would recommend investing that little bit extra for the backpockets - i used the back pocket of my cycle jersey but everything bobbed around like crazy in there when I ran!

I also opted to invest in a decent cycle jersey, I had a few lidl ones but wanted something better quality and more breathable and invested in one that was so good at wicking moisture from the body, that it would help dry me quicker as I cycled after my swim. (also tri-suits are not the most flattering pieces of kit in the world, so wearing a jersey made me feel a little less self conscious!).

2nd, I needed a wetsuit! Most triathlons in Ireland make it compulsory to have one so this is very important! (Also if you are a weak swimmer, this helps enormously with your floatation in the water). And not just any wetsuit you may have previously got for surfing - you need a special sea swimming or triathlon wetsuit, with thin neoprene and designed for ease of leg and arm movement (the more you spend, the more panels and therefore flexibility you get in the design). This needs to be as body hugging as possible, as any airbubbles in wetsuits can fill substantially with water and cause drag or even get weak swimmers into a lot of difficulty. I would recommend going into a triathlon shop and trying on anything before buying.

Ideally with this you get tri-slide and body glide. The first is a lubricant spray that you apply to your wrists and ankles before putting on your wetsuit, this helps you slip out of the wetsuit easier in transition as opposed to battling with it! Body glide is an anti-chafe roll-on that you apply to your neck to prevent some pretty nasty friction burns! Being really short-sighted (literally, not figuratively), I also decided I needed to invest in some prescription goggles. Contacts were an option, but I could see potential problems with me blinking them out mid-race, and I needed to be able to see for sighting my destination during the swim and finding my bike in transition!

3rdly, I needed a bike! I already had the hybrid which in fairness was pretty fast, and nobody will stop you from cycling a mountain bike or whatever as long as the bike, brakes and gears and deemed to be safe by the race marshalls, but I wanted to do this right (by my own personal standards) and have all my hard trained energy used as efficiently as possible, and a road bike would be a lot lighter and have the much more aerodynamic drop bars. Long story short, I was always going to get a road bike!

Other things I got were a new pair of swimming jammers (knee-length speedos) at the start of my training and a new pair of runners (bought at the start of my training also, so they were well broken in), lock laces for the runners (these are elasticated laces, locked in a tied position, so you can easily slip in and out of them in transition), a race belt (so you're not using safety pins to stick your race number to yourself, and you can also freely rotate your race number from your back on the cycle to your front on the run), and ankle strap for the timing chip (turns out I didn't need to get this - they are pretty much provided in most race goody bags), a running cap (mainly realised I needed this during training, but used it in my race too), a sweat band (because sweat getting into your eyes behind your glasses while cycling or running literally is a pain in the face!). a new toolbag and spare tube for 'just-in-case', and a transition bag (something for keeping all my various race gear in on race day)

Now these costs were spread out over the year (particularly the smaller things, with one big expense every month or so) as I found out new things i needed, but needless to say this all added up!

Tri-suit:                                                €50

Decent Cycle Jersey:                           €40

Westuit:                                               €250

Tri-Slide:                                             €15

Tri-Glide:                                            €10

Racebelt & Racechip strap:                 €15

Sweat Band:                                       €10

Running Cap:                                      €15

Iphone armband (training):                 €10

Sports Headphones (training):            €10

Sensa Road Bike:                                €600 (worth €1200 - I got a good deal on this through a work contact!)

Asics Runners:                                    €85

Lock-Laces:                                        €10

Swimming Jammers:                           €25

Prescription Goggles:                          €60

Prescription Sunglasses:                      €180 (yup, that stung)

Maintenance Bag & Spare Tube:        €20

Transition Bag:                                    €65

Grand Total:                                     €1470

Now don't get me wrong, you can turn up on race day with swimming togs under a standard wetsuit, battle through the swim, change at your own pace with a towel in transition area into standard t-shirt and shorts and do your cycle on that raleigh activator mountain you had since you were 12, and be all set for your run and nobody will laugh at you - plenty of people do it that way and are all running their own race. I'm just not wired that way - aerodynamics aside, I wanted to get all the right stuff to ensure I flowed from one discipline to another, and I wanted to do a good time. Obviously I also got completely sucked in too. I rationalised it as I would do tri-Athlone once a year, so this was an investment and I would not have to spend this money again! I never realised just how much my spending would continue! ie this does not include my purchases since of €150 on tribars, €30 on aero drinks bottle for tribars, €120 for combination of tri-cycling shoes and clip-in pedals, €90 on new club tri-suit and jersey, my current wishlist includes a €120 aero helmet and a €350 multi-sport gps training watch, and god help me if I decide to upgrade my bike or even parts of my bike! And when you have your gear, you still have your race fees, which range from €45 for a sprint distance triathlon right up to €400 for a full Ironman (or more if you start going to the big international events, like Kona).  Pick a figure, you can spend all you want on triathlons!

I guess, to counter that, all I can say is that it became my passion and my life after work. It gave me a spare time occupation when my social life was dwindling due to friends leaving the country during the recession, and it was my weekly motivation booster when I was not working in my qualified profession for a long,long time. When you compare it to the annual expense of just running a car or looked at the avg man in his 20s' annual spending on beer or even gym memberships, it puts things in a better perspective!

All in all, personally I think it was worth the expense, and still just about is!

Apps, Investments & Crash Courses - Preparing for a Triathlon - October '11 To May '12

In October 2011 I had the wonderful double whammy of finally getting paid full time after working full time for my Dad the past year, and getting Iphone 4 as he had just upgraded. The pay was going to come in handy early next year as I found out about all the bloody things I needed to get to actually do a triathlon, the Iphone was going to have a much more immediate effect - it was going to get me training!!

I had just recently discovered in summer boot camps that I could run again after nearly 3 years of resting a dodgy knee, and was eager to start proper running training. A lengthy lazy holiday in Spain towards the end of summer had somewhat halted the momentum of my boot camp training, but either way being able to run very fast at short bursts didn't by any means translate to being able to run for any length of time at all and 5km of running (at the end of a swim and a cycle) seemed pretty daunting!

Just to be clear on distances, the triathlon I was training for in Athlone was a 'Sprint Distance' triathlon of which the distances are as follows:

750m Swim

20km Cycle

5km Run

The 1st app I got on the Iphone was something called 'Couch to 5k', which is aimed at doing exactly what it says on the tin - getting someone from a sedentary lifestyle to running a 5k in 8 weeks by going through a progressive programme of interval training 3 times a week. The app itself worked like this: Preferably having headphones , you press 'Start' at the beginning of your workout and then a voice tells you to 'Start Warm-up'. After 5 minutes the voice tells you when to run and walk on set intervals depending on where in your programme you are. The first session is about 20 minutes of mostly walking broken up by short 45 second runs, by the last session it has built up to about 40 minutes of just running. Another handy thing about this app, is it tells you when you are halfway, so if you are running a set route away from your start point, you know when to turn back. This was pretty meaningless on the 1st run I did around a park after work but really came into play when I decided to do my runs at lunchtime on the canal. This was great as I could see very clearly that I was getting further with every session. Doing the running within my work routine meant I pretty much always did it, so this app and my running training became the staple of my triathlon training. This app has changed names a few times, and there are quite a lot of similar or identical ones, but would highly recommend any of them as a tool for building up your running in a steady incremental fashion (there is a 'couch to 10k version too).

The other app I got was 'Cyclometer'. This allowed me to record cycles to work and back (6km each way). Because they were short distances, I really did sprint them most of the time, and this app really helped in comparing attempts at a route, showing a green upward triangle for pb, half green for above average,  orange for average, half red for lower than average and the dreaded full red for worst (not sure I ever got this, unless it was a particularly windy day). So cycling intensely for a short distance to work and back was what I figured to be enough for my cycling training (funny to think that now, but in fairness it served me well!). Either way, having cycled Dublin to Kilkenny twice before, and having experience of regularly speeding 14km into college, I was not too worried about the cycle.

And the swimming... well I really didn't treat this with too much importance! I had high hopes and good intentions of getting back into training regularly but it was always the 1st thing the gave way if I was too tired (I would only go lane swimming in the morning when the pool was quiet) or too busy. Either way I wasn't too bothered about it, as I had a background of being in a swimming club for 10 years and even in the sessions I did now, my warm-up alone was 1000m. So 750m? Not a worry!

And for a bit of resistance training, I had the '100 push-ups' and '20 chin-ups' apps, both incremental interval apps that I used Monday Wednesday and Friday as soon as I came back from work.

So all this got me on a great start, training throughout the winter and into the new year. Through January/February, I started to find out through acquaintances who had done the triathlon before and other sources how this triathlon actually worked, and what I needed for it. Wheelworx Triathlon Shop had a great 'Introduction to Tri' workshop, and a friend of a friend who was pretty serious about triathlons also helped de-mystify the gear I needed, so I went about accumulating all I needed between February and June.

I'll go into more detail on the gear and what happens on raceday in other posts, but needless to say I was starting to get my head around the logistics of doing 3 events in one. That said, I still had certain doubts and questions right up to raceday- it was a lot of information to take on!

So on I went, being pretty consistent with my running 3 times a week, and short high intensity to cycles to work and back etc, swimming inconsistently thrown in from time to time. Your are advised generally to work on your weakest discipline the most, so I was pretty with this hierarchy of training.  My program had been broken up by Christmas, so I repeated the previous 2 weeks of the programme when I started back in the new year. I did this each time there was a break of some sort, so the 8 week programme became staggered somewhat into a 3 or 4 month programme! When I finally finished it, I started the programme again, this time jogging when it said 'walk' and sprinting when it said 'run'. Like I said before, this was really the staple of my training. When rain stopped me cycling and eh, laziness stopped my early morning swims, my lunch time runs where always pretty reliably done, unless the weather was really awful!

One thing I started to realise as I continued with my training was that I had never been through such a long spell of training so consistently, not since I had left the swimming club when I was 18,  12 years previously! As time went on, I really started to embrace this training as a very healthy way of life, and it was becoming more than just a means to an end to complete some race in June - this was a nice realisation, but at this stage I still did not know where I was going with it!

My training was not without it's hiccups, however.

I ordered my road bike in early March, with the hopes of getting it by the end of the month (I was given a two week lead time), so I would have 3 months of preparations on it before the TriAthlone which was on the 30th June. This, however, did not pan out so conveniently and through various delays and mishaps I did not get the bike until the 17th May, only 6 weeks before the event! Ordinarily I would have cancelled this order, but it was through a contact in work, and I was getting a good deal on a good bike (about half the price), so the inconvenience was undone by the fact he was doing me a favour!

When it did arrive it was well worth it though, what a beauty! I had never owned a bike like it before, for a while I couldn't believe it was mine! (my bank balance could...)

My beautiful Sensa Romagna Special, on day of Arrival!

So I had to get used to this bike, and quickly. Despite having cycled a lot the past 4 years, it had only been on a hybrid (my previous experience being my Raleigh Activator II in my teens). I had never been on a frame this light, wheels this narrow, had never used drop handlebars, or paddle gears (took me ages to figure out how to change down a gear!!) . In short, I felt hopelessly imbalanced!

Also in early May, a week before I finally received my bike I had suffered a major setback in my running. On one of my canal runs I started to feel intense pain in my Achilles tendon. I stopped immediately and walked back - not the time to be a hero about it! There was no major damage, but it was really tight and tender (hard to describe, but it felt fibrous or strandy to touch). So as a precautionary measure I stopped running completely until it felt good again - this turned out to be about 3 weeks which was pretty frustrating, coming to within a month of raceday! It didn't seem to effect my cycling however so at least I got to continue with that!

I still cycled to work and back with the hybrid, as I always had my change of gear in my panniers, but at lunch time on Tuesdays and Thursdays (the days between my now very tentative run days) I took to the canal  and cycled 20km. Sometimes I also cycled on my run days - I was trying to be as efficient with time as possible - it's one of the great things about triathlon training: when one of the disciplines has a set-back (or if you simply get sick of it) you still have two other disciplines to pick up the slack!

Anyways these cycles were great fun, and unsettling at the same time! Despite there being plenty of obstacles in the way of people and their dogs enjoying the sunshine on the canal path, and the fact I had to stop and turn around 7 times (I did my 20km on a 2.5km stretch between two canal gates!), I was still achieving average speeds of 28 to 30km/h - this was promising! Imagine what I would do on the closed roads!!

In any case May was a bit of a month of mixed feelings, but I came out starting to feel positive again. My first triathlon was going happen in the next month, but there were a few more surprises in store for me! 

Surfing, Knee Injuries & a Brief History of my Pre-Triathlon-Days Fitness

I don’t know exactly when I got it into my head that I wanted to try out a triathlon, was definitely something that was on the to-do list for a number of years before I decided in October 2011 that I was going to sign up for Tri-Athlone 2012. I would have definitely done it much earlier had it not been for a long term injury that kept interfering or simply putting me off.

In 2008, I went on a surf trip to Ericeira in Portugal. It was a really enjoyable trip and I was actually getting the hang of it by the end (i.e. able to stand on the board for up to including 5 seconds). However over the course of the week I had my fair share of falls trying to figure stuff out. I would go through a spell of falling off the board a certain way for a dozen times or so, then I would discover a new way of falling off and try that out for a dozen times or so. One of my favourites was falling off in a way that my right knee would smack of the board every time on the way down. Another fall that stood out was when I fell off the board, and while I was still dead-man-floating in the water another wave yanked the board away from. No big deal here, except it was attached to my right leg via cord so that was yanked with it! I definitely felt a pop when this happened…

Ericeira 2008: "Not sure I'm doing this right..."

That said, these falls happened early in the week, and nothing seemed up, as we were quite mobile otherwise, travelling around on bikes etc. However, when I came back from my holidays, my knee completely seized up, and didn’t really loosen up for about 2 weeks afterwards! Then I thought it was over it, as it never seemed to effect my cycles to work. But every time I played football or anything that involved running, the same thing would happen, me knee would seize up and not loosen for at least a week. I spoke to my cousin, who is a physiotherapist, about this and she said it might be some strained or thorn cartilage - it’s the sort of thing that can be operated on, but can also sort itself out sometimes if rested enough. It took about 6 months of trying running, seizing up, resting and trying again before it started to sink in that this wasn’t going away. The tipping point was me having an awful time playing 5 a side football in early 2009 (I was not playing remotely regularly hence had a terrible touch), going in goal for the majority of the game, and still seizing up almost immediately after the game. It was incredibly frustrating.

I decided after a week of recovering that I was tired of this cycle of events. I decided I simply was not going to play football anymore, period (this was kind of depressing, but an easier decision to make when I hadn’t really enjoyed playing football for the last year or so), and I was not going to run or do anything that involved running for at least the next year. This wasn’t an entirely pleasing prospect, but all was not lost – I had my hybrid bike which I had only acquired in February 2008, and had really started to cycle everywhere, and to college or work, depending on the time of year. Also I was would go through spells where I would have a very regimented 2 months of going to the gym regularly, so all in all I was staying relatively active.

This was fine and good, but never really very consistent. Despite me thinking I was being pretty healthy, I was struggling with my weight, and there was always a final (failed) push to ‘get in shape for the summer’. This wasn’t really what living a healthy lifestyle was all about, was it?

(Btw, just to be clear, I wasn’t exactly a model of healthy living before my surf trip injury – I had probably been struggling with my weight since about 2005 – but not being able to run certainly didn’t help!!)

So, as previously documented, my previous Dublin Kilkenny cycles in 2009 & 2010, bookended a huge attitude change and life overhaul for me. My fitness and health was generally much better, and I was cycling pretty much every single day to work or somewhere at the weekends. As well as this I was just a bit more responsible and aware of healthier nutrition. However, my approach to ‘staying in shape’ was still somewhat aimless and inconsistent.

In Summer of 2011, my first ‘normal summer’ after graduating in 2010, I got into Boot Camp training in a local park in Lucan. I was weary of doing this, but it was a nice combination of doing some very involving interval training (lifting heavy tires/ pushing weighted sleds along the grass, various body weight exercises), and being outside in the good weather while working out. This was 2 sessions a week for 6 weeks, I enjoyed it so much that I signed up for another block of 6 weeks. I think part of the reason for this revelation was I had during these sessions -  I COULD RUN AGAIN!! During one of the sessions, we had interval sprints. I was pretty hesitant but seeing as we were only sprinting in a straight line a gave it a try – to my surprise not only could I run, I was the fastest person there! I think when I went to these sessions I was almost doing them just for the runs, it was such a great feeling to be running again!!

That summer my older brother completed the Tri-Athlone for the 2^nd time. I decided I was going to finally sign up for it for next year. In fact, I was so buzzed about doing it I had to stop myself from signing up for it that year!

But I decided to be smart about it, I had a year to find out everything I needed to know about this sport, get the right gear and train right. If I was going this I was going to do it right!

Good intentions are great, aren’t they?  

Hello Scenery! Hello Mini Destinations! Hello again...... Wall?! - Cycle home to Kilkenny, Attempt 2.

I was extremely positive about my 2nd attempt to cycle home, 1 year on. After all I was much healthier than I was the year before, and I pretty delighted about just getting out of college. I wasn't really in the state of mind to tell myself that I couldn't do something.

1st of all I reviewed my route. Still having to print out Google maps for my routes at this stage, I was looking for a route where there was minimal turns to look out for. I was also looking for more mini destinations (to break down the route a bit) along the way and more scenery. The N81 was ideal. A straight shot from my Lucan via the outer ring road, it goes from Tallaght, just by Saggart, and then around the Wicklow mountains and southward, hitting Blessington (and Blessington Lake!), Baltinglass, Rathvilly and Tullow before hitting the N80 which goes towards Bunclody, Enniscorthy and beyond. Long story short, for the first 90 or so km,I would not have to look at a map at all. The plan was to cycle as far as Bunclody, then take a right over the Leinster Mountains (Between Mt Leinster and the Blackstairs) towards Graiguenamanagh and then home.

My Route

Nutrition wise, I now had a polar watch and as I had spent the last year reaping the rewards of calorie counting, the plan was to track my calories burnt on my watch and for every 1000 calories burnt I would have some kind of meal. For water I had a camel back that I had not used before. It has a 3 litre capacity, so felt it was perfect for the job..... I think I should say at this point that I had pretty shambolic balance on a bike at this stage. I could indicate right, but not left, and the thought of wrestling a water bottle from its cage while cycling in a straight line was too much for me. So the camel back would go on my back in a backpack as well as me carrying my panniers on the bike.

Gear wise, thanks to the wonders of Lidl special deals, I finally had cycle shorts, jersey, gilet and gloves. I had noticed a real difference in cycling to college in cycle gear, and so was really looking forward to seeing the difference it made to a much longer distance. I hadn't moved up to clip-in pedals just yet, but I was much better set up than the year before.

So, I had a better route planned, had adapted what I thought was a better nutrition plan and had better gear - how could I go wrong?

WELL......

One major thing I overlooked was that in the countdown months to thesis hand-up, and the subsequent months of celebration, I hadn't really cycled all that much!!!

Another little thing I didn't think too much about the time was what I was carrying - as this was a test run, my panniers were not just packed with what i thought i needed for this trip, but what I thought I would need for a trip around Ireland. So they were absolutely stuffed with changes of clothes for all weather, shoes, towel, sleeping bag as well as a tent (I was planning on using as little accommodation as possible), and a full backpack - this all meant I was carrying a lot more weight than I was used to. I never really thought about the effects of weight on a bike before, not least the effects it has on your legs when dragging all that weight up a hill. In layman's terms, I was an idiot....

Ignorance is Bliss.

My cycle started pretty well. As before, I had carefully planned my journey times, so it was early, it was a lovely day and it was all ahead of me. Cycling out the Grangecastle road was nice , flat and stress free. The bike was not going as fast as I wanted it to go - I presumed it was because I wasn't warmed up yet and burned my way through it (shouldn't have done that....).

I had to take the dual carriage way for about 1km to get to Saggart which was a bit ropey, but felt pretty good after turning off and in through the pretty picturesque town centre of Saggart - this was already a nicer route than last year !

The cycle up around the Wicklow hills was pretty punishing, mainly because I insisted on pushing through it as fast I could (really shouldn't have done that...) but the scenery was pretty rewarding. Once it flattened out, it had a predominantly downhill feel to it, and all the weight of the bike was now working for me, and I was something of a juggernaut, bombing along the roads. Unfortunately, because of the way I had commuted to college, I didn't not feel like I was going fast unless I was feeling some strain in the legs. For all my experience last year, I still didn't really know what I was doing!

Blessington was a massive disappointment, I was really expecting to get a sense of a town on a lake, but it was just one long, wide market street, no evidence of a lake at all. I cycled on through. About 5km outside the town, I finally found it, revealing itself through a series of vistas through the trees. At this stage I looked at my watch and saw I had burned 1000 calories. I stopped in a garage and picked up a breakfast roll, a bag of nuts, some lucozade and possibly some other rubbish and stopped at a car park for a bit of a picnic. It 9am, the sun was shining, and I had 30km behind me already. This was going great!

The Blessington to Baltinglass road was magnificent. 30km of predominantly downhill roads and wonderful scenery- I was really enjoying myself. I didn't know it at the time but this was working against me -with all the adrenaline rush of enjoying these roads, I was still cycling WAY too hard.

Baltinglass

Baltinglass is a really scenic little town, in a picturesque valley, with a prominent abbey ruin in a park across the river visible on the approach. I stopped to take in the scenery and finish off the nuts. At this stage, I was so happy with the route I was genuinely starting to feel regret over the fact I took that rotten route a year before! 60km down. I thought about having lunch there, but it was a teeny bit too early and i didn't want to be having prolonged stops at every town - I headed on, full of the joys.

On the road out of Baltinglass I found myself climbing for the 1st time in about 40km. It wasn't a huge amount so I pushed on through it. This got me on some nice rolling roads, the momentum of each downhill taking me up the following uphill. I pedalled hard. It wasn't long before I was coming into Rathvilly.

The approach to Rathvilly involves cycling down into a mini valley, crossing the river and up a steep hill the other side to get into the town. I decided I wanted to get some momentum going on the downhill so I stood up to put some force into the pedals. All of a sudden I felt a massive jolt in my right leg, I giant twitch in my quads that was my muscles saying "I'm gonna cramp real soon !'. 66km in. Holy Shit!

Very soon after crossing the river, I quickly realised I had absolutely no energy to get up the hill into Rathvilly. For the 1st time on the trip I got off and walked it. This was not good. How quickly the mood had changed!! I didn't panic (yet) though - I figured this was a good time to stop for lunch. When I reached the shop at the top of the hill I sat out on the grass in the sunshine, and ate and drank a lot... I took my time too, I was in no rush to get back in the bike, I wanted to make sure I recovered, and as I had left early, time was on my side. At this point I had wished I had stopped for lunch in the scenic riverside park in Baltinglass...

Rathvilly - My heavy bike finally having its say.

 When I eventually got back on the bike, over an hour later, I felt OK. I felt I had recovered and disaster had been averted. I continued on, a bit more cautiously. The road to Tullow wasn't great - very twisty and up and down, and with recently laid grit on the roads, no place to get any momentum. It was also a bit of a placeless place - just trees and fields - no mountains or rivers to punctuate my journey, just lots of samey road. It seemed to take an age to get the 14km to Tullow, and I was not rewarded with a scenic town! It had a steep downhill main st, so I just went with the momentum and shot out of the place - no need to stop here! 80km down and I felt I was getting somewhere again

The roads out of Tullow were pretty draggy, not steep but seemingly endless uphills on wide slow bends. Not great, but eventually I got to the end of the N81. My legs were not feeling great at this point, but I knew I would soon be turning off at Bunclody towards Graig and more familiar territory....

Halfway to Bunclody I met a hill.

It didn't even look that high, maybe 50m climb, but it was steep looking - it had a bit of a downhill leading up to it so I figured I could get some momentum. Nope. Not really. I very quickly was on the lightest gear and struggling. I wasn't even half way yet. I had to get off the bike, I had nothing left. I sat on the embankment. I couldn't even face walking my bike up the hill. I just sat there drinking water. Lots of water. I was very close to the entrance of a driveway, and I found myself hoping that someone would pull out in their car and happen to be going in my direction and offer me a lift. 50km left and I had hit the wall. Jesus, this was not good!

Eventually I got up. I walked the bike to the crest of the hill. Delighted is a probably a strong word considering my state, but I was pretty flippin happy to see that the road rolled away downhill into the distance. I got on the bike and started rolling. The weight of the bike alone had me speeding along in no time. I knew Bunclody was only about 10km away,so I felt my despair was behind me. I must have been steadily bombing along downhill for about 5km, maybe 6 or 7, and was no longer feeling shit. This didn't last long! I reached a long stretch of slightly uphill road. I tried it for maybe half a kilometer, but had to get off again. Maybe it was deceptively steep, as it was a long road with no real reference for slope, but I think at this stage I didn't have the capacity to cycle on roads where gravity couldn't help. This was getting silly. It was taking me forever to cover distance. And I still had to go through the Leinster Mountains!!

I must have walked the bike about 2 or 3km. One thing I did right, was leave Lucan really early. I took comfort in the fact that I had so much time. However, I didn't have time to walk the next 40km home, so was happy to find another descent, and I rolled into Bunclody. I stopped here for another bit of food. The weather was still fantastic but I was in pretty low spirits to be honest. I took my time, and thankfully had a bit of energy to struggle through what was going to be a bit of a climb to the pass between the Blackstairs and Mt. Leinster.

This part of the trip was no fairytale. It was a slow climb and my legs where pretty fed up with me. I got lost too, at a crossroads with no signposts, and my print-outs on their first appearance of the trip were pretty useless, without any blinking 'you are here' icon... I was pointed in the right direction though and  an age later, I did feel a bit of sense of achievement and relief as I came over the pass, and felt pretty happy as I came thundering down the descents on the other side! I really began to value the distance travelled on these downhills, as I quickly found myself walking my bike up a long steep country road again. At this stage I think I was at peace with the fact that I would be walking my bike a lot before this day was over! I got into a conversation with a farmer as I walked passed his driveway. I couldn't believe I had been cycling from Dublin that day, and had to run in to tell his wife! That gave me a bit of a boost, and I kind of got a 2nd wind as I continued to eh, walk my bike up the hill. I was rewarded on the other side with kilometres of mostly descents that allowed my new friend Gravity to take me all the way into Graiguenamagh. All of a sudden I was a mere 10km from home. I was getting there!

The right side of the Blackstairs Mountains, taken on one of my 'long walks' (I came through the pass just left of centre)

A long break was had at the river. It was about 4pm now, I had taken a lot longer than expected but there was still no rush. It was really pleasant there and I had a bit of a feed and fed the ducks too. I wondered why I had so rarely visited this place that was so close  to me. I found out very quickly when I went to complete the final 10km - there was a big feckin hill in the way!!

Graiguenamanagh - So close, yet so far.

I walked my bike again up the steep streets out of Graig to the ring road and got on the bike again when I found the road to Inistioge. There was a steep descent almost immediately which was great, but I had to brake hard near the bottom when a Landrover pulled out in front of me. I cursed him for his bad driving, but cursed losing the momentum even more as I saw the massive climb ahead of me, easily 3 or 4 times the descent I had just come down! The road kindly humoured me for a minute or two while I made a valiant attempt to stay on the bike, but I quickly found myself walking again. I had been fine with it the last few times, but this kind of broke my spirit a bit. I was so close to home, and this was taking so long!! I just walked and walked. There was no celebration at the top - still 8km left. It seemed to feel difficult to even roll downhill at this stage.

I would be surprised if I made that last 10km in less than hour, but you know what? I made it! It may have been an absolute disaster, but I had finally made it all the way home by my own means and it felt great. I even could recognise in my destroyed state that the route was much much better than last time. At the time I actually didn't really know exactly why I had hit the wall so early, as glaringly obvious as it seems now. I thought I simply wasn't eating the right food or something - it would be a while before I truly copped onto the cycle touring philosophy of cycle light and steady, eat little and often - but I was happy I had a route I knew I would do again.

Sidenote: To further my 'Ireland tour Experiment', I slept that night in the garden in my little tent. It was about 30% smaller than I'd imagine my coffin would be, and I couldn't even sit up in it if it was closed. I woke up about 5am at first light, my back in bits, and knew if I wanted to embark on a long cycling tour, I would need the comforts of a bed and a roof over my head - these cycles were gonna be torture enough without having to sleep in that glorified sleeping bag! So I postponed my planned trip, indefinitely, due to financial reasons..... nothing at all to do with the fact that I was not remotely fit enough or have any idea what I was doing!!