The weekend after my 1st triathlon, I found
myself in Skerries again. I had left my bike there for the week, for my uncle
to drop it into the local bike shop, to see what had cause my chain slippages
that had happened a few times in training and also during the event. As it
turned out, the gears weren't tuned terribly well and either were the brake
cables. I suppose this was forgiveable as I had purchased this directly from
the supplier, and had it quickly put together by an agent over here – if I had
bought it from a bike shop, I would have expected it to be fully serviced and
road ready.On a side note, the bike shop owner asked me about my bike and how
much I paid for it. He was pretty impressed by the spec on it and was surprised
by the cost, saying it wouldn't be able bik
es of that spec into stock for what
I paid for it! I was pretty happy to hear that from someone who knew his stuff.
I had kind of winged on my bike selection on the Sensa website, picking the
Romagna Special because
a. with the discount I was getting, it fit in my budget
b. as a special, it was a package deal on groupset, saddle,
wheel and forks (I was intimidated by such choice on things I knew absolutely
nothing about!)
and c. I liked the color scheme!
So yes, by some stroke of luck, and through no skill on my
part, I had landed myself a decent bike – good to know!
In any case, apart from the usual social reasons, there was
another triathlon reason I was out in Skerries that weekend – I wanted to have
a proper go at sea-swimming training.
There was a few reasons I wanted to do this:
1.I was now confident I could swim out in the bay,
after my impressive swim split the previous weekend, on the other side of the
peninsula.
2.I had noted the muscle fatigue I had gotten
during the swim, and figured I needed to practise in the wetsuit more.
3.With TriAthlone coming up in a week, and the
possibility of an Olympic distance swim as part of a relay at the end of the
summer, I wanted to start putting more focus on my swimming again. I actually
thought I would make this a regular thing, if I was to be out at Skerries most
weekends like I had been lately.
From Mary's house on the coast you could clearly see
Skerries peninsula, and crucially you could see a straight line from a little
beach below the house, to the beach and slipway below the life-boathouse on the
peninsula. I had plotted this on Google Earth as about 1km, so thought it would
be achievable to swim there and back again on a plod. Also as this stretch of
the bay was one to those few parts of the east coast of Ireland that is
actually northfacing, the sea in this area, sheltered by the peninsula was calm
pretty much 90% of the time.
I figured I needed to get it over and done with, otherwise I
would've spent the day deliberating about it, but by the time I had my wetsuit
on but I was nervous. I think had been fine on race day because of the
adrenaline, and the fact that there was safety in numbers (there was also
safety in safety boats) – even when I went swimming in the sea a lot as a kid,
I was only comfortable doing it with other people. Also the water was not as
calm as it could have been – it wasn't very rough by any means, but I would
certainly have to swim out against a bit of choppiness!
I got down to the little beach. The swell seemed bigger when
I was at sea level. Mary, Liam and Billy were looking at me from the back
garden – was that camera in Liam's hand?! Oh well, can't turn back now!
The plan was to swim out perpindicular from the beach until
I knew I was clear of the craggy outcrops on either side, and then beeline
towards the boathouse slipway once I could see a clear path to it between all
the moored boats. Billy was to meet me at the other side, just in case I didn't
fancy swimming back.
The swim out was difficult. I had picked out a buoy to aim
for while swimming, but in practise the swell was too big to sight anything.
This resulted in a very stop-start swim out to sea, occasionally swimming
breastroke, occasionally swallowing some seawater. Not pleasant at all, but no
major problems. Once I had the lifeboat slipway in sight I effectively turned
right and was now swimming across the swell, making it almost unnoticeable,
which was a pleasant surprise! I took one last look towards the house, where I
could just about still make out one or two figures, before I decided to get to
my swimming.
This part was initially quite pleasant – the sun was out,
the water was clear, it was easy to sight the boathouse and I was finding a
good rhythym. This did not last for long.
After about 100m of swimming, this huge white pulsating
thing passed right under me. A jellyfish. This thing was at least 1meter in
diameter, and that's assuming it was only 1 meter below me. If it was deeper,
it was bigger! I recoiled and lifted my head out of the water. I was well aware
that jellyfish stings themselves were harmless from local irish jellyfish,
though I was also aware that most people who die after getting stung by
jellyfish are people who then went into shock and subsequently drowned! I'm not
sure if when that fact was presented to me that it was meant to be reassuring
or not, but it wasn't a good thought! I tried to compose myself, swam a few
strokes (quite urgently) with my head up to get away from that area, then put
my head back in the water and continued swimming. This had relaxed my
breathing, but my heartrate was still in the clouds! I figured that was my
jellyfish sighting for the day and I would calm down.
It was not be though – within 50m another giant, possibly
larger than the last, pulsated by underneath me. Holy crap! I recoiled again,
and swam with my head out of the water extensively. I told myself, they weren't
after me, they don't swim after people, just go were currents take them, they
only get swam into, and they seemed to be swimming too deep to touch. I didn't
put my head back into the water though, I could recognize I was now in a panic
and I wanted to control it a bit. I looked back to the house – no one to be seen.
I knew there was some small dinghys out sailing with a support boat too, but it
was very difficult to see with swell. What was I thinking, coming out here on
my own?!
I kept swimming towards the life-boathouse slipway with my
head up, trying to calm myself down again. Then my right hand hit something – a
jellyfish! This was much smaller than what had passed under me, about the size
of my hand, but no less disturbing. I'm not sure I'd ever touched a jellyfish
before! Then I hit another with my left hand, then another. These things were
everywhere!! I turned onto my back and started swimming backstroke, hit
another. At one stage I crossed my arms and just kicked my legs, even still, I
hit 2 or 3 with my feet! I was aware that I was probably freaking out a bit too
much, but I couldn't calm down now – I was swimming out on my own, in a swarm
of jellyfish!
"That's the Guy!"
I must have kicked my legs for about 5 minutes before I
realised I was not hitting anything anymore. I turned to see I was about 200m
from the slipway now. Thank god! I swam frontcrawl again, and was relatively
calm but still didn't dare put my head back in the water again. Eventually I
got back to dry land and met Billy. There was no way I was swimming back again.
When I got back to the house and got changed, even though I felt calm, I was
still shaking for about an hour afterwards before my nerves had completely
settled.
In the days that followed the triathlon, I was on a bit of a
buzz, to say the least.
1st of all was the event photos. Within hours of
the event itself there were photos on facebook that my brother tagged me in.
Then there was the fact that I had about half a dozen relations on the day
taking photos and videos (I used all this footage to make the video that I
attached to that blog post – which Irish Triathlon liked so much, they have
used it to advertise the Skerries triathlon since!). Anyways this served a few
purposes. 1st of all, at the very least on some subconcious level,
there was a vain 'hey look what I did' element to it all – I had trained hard
and I was proud I had done it afterall. But secondly and more importantly for
me, it made it real! It sounds strange, but in the event of the race the
adrenaline is flowing and while you can acknowledge the passage of time and
your experiences during the race, within hours your perception of it just
starts fading away, like it was just some dream! By the time I had showered and
changed on the day of the event, the event seemed separate, like it hadn't
happened that day or even at all – I couldn't believe I had actually done it!
So yes, the facebook photos etc. were for me like some kind of certificate of
authenticity - “yes Brian, those memories were real”.
Then there was the results page. Obviously I only had my
swim split and my overall time, but I had worked them out roughly from my
action camera footage and deduction. The results page had your race broken down
into splits on a spreadsheet, and you could order the rankings by any of the
splits. I had been 12th on the swim, but I was intrigued – I started
to compare. My cycle time was okay – about midway through the rankings, and my
swim transition was woeful but I could how that would be easily remedied. My
cycle to run transition was comparably good, but my run split was well off,
probably the lowest 25% which was disappointing considering that had been the
main focus and the staple of my training for the past year.
Already I was starting to look at areas I could improve on.
I had enjoyed my test laps of the course in the weekends running up to the
event – what if I had been doing that every weekend throughout the year? What
if I had been strength training with that? My past year of running training had
gained me the fitness to run a 5k at the end of a triathlon, what would another
year of training do, now that I had that base fitness? I had come 12th
on my swim, by only doing one or 2 sessions a week, sometimes no training at
all – what would an actual swimming training plan bring me? Imagine doing a
competent swim transition and keeping my hard-earned advantage (if only
briefly)? There was so much improvement to be had. I had only ever planned to
do the TriAthlone (which I hadn't even done yet, due in 2 weeks time), there
was no way now that I was going to leave it at that. I had trained for the last
9 months to do a triathlon as fast as I could, and I hadn't done that yet! Also
I wasn't just going to stop all the training after raceday, was I?
Then there was the Irish Triathlon facebook page. I had
'liked' it in the lead up to the Skerries triathlon as I had realised (too
late) that it had been advertising free supervised sea swim sessions the week
before the event. This was helpful also as it showed when the results and event
photos were up.
But then, other events were starting to get advertised on my
feed from them. 1st of all was the
Phoenix Park Duathlon which was 10 days after the TriAthlone – a 2.5km
run followed by a 13km cycle followed by a 2.5km, all within the cycle friendly
environment of Phoenix Park on a Wednesday evening after work (ie no race-day
hassle of getting there etc) – I was fit enough for a triathlon, why not this?
And no wetsuit transitions to worry about! I asked my brother Andrew if he was
interested too. Boom, signed on!
Then in this same browsing session I found another running
event, the Port Tunnel Run – this was exactly what it said on the tin, a 10km
run through the Port Tunnel. It was done before the opening of the tunnel 3
years previously, and was so successful, it was decided they would do it again,
with closed roads, obviously. This was not such an easy one to decide on. The
most I had ever ran at this stage was about 7.5km. But then again it wasn't
until August 12th, 2 months away! I had time! Plus there was no pesky swim or
cycle beforehand to tire me out. I asked my brother if he was interested. Boom,
signed on! 2 events booked within an hour. Oh dear.
I wasn't finished yet though.
After seeing two Dublin
events that were right on my doorstep, I was even more intrigued to see if
there was another Triathlon handy in Dublin.
I looked on the events calendar, and in a way was not disappointed – there was
at least one event every weekend until mid-september. Wow! Unfortunately there
was not any in Dublin
(though if I had been looking at the Triathlon Ireland website, I would have
noticed there actually was) – however there was an event on the calendar that
really caught my imagination.
I saw a picture, an advertisement link, in the top corner of
the calendar, of a very fortified looking island with the title, Escape from SpikeIsland
- Interesting! I clicked the link – it was an Olympic Distance triathlon in
Cobh harbour, where you swam 1500m from the former prison island of Spike
Island (like an Irish Alcatraz) to the mainland in Cobh, before doing your 40km
cycle (2 laps of a 20km course) and a 10km run (4 laps along the historic Cobh
waterfront, where Titanic made its final stop before heading on its ill-fated
trip) …. Novelty overload! I was hooked. The prospect of doing an Olympic
Distance triathlon did not appeal to me at all, I had not trained for that, but
I HAD to do that swim. There was a sprint distance option too, but that did not
involve swimming from the island.
I remembered my cousin Billy remarking in Skerries that
watching the triathlon had really made him want to train for a race,
specifically running. A friend of his was also a pretty good cyclist, so I put
it to him that maybe we would do it as a relay! It certainly seemed like a
great idea, and something we could do very well in as we would all be playing
to our strengths. He said he would think about it, so that was another option
for later in the summer. It wasn't until the 25th August so there would plenty
of time to think about it. More about that in later posts!
So, in the space of an hour, two days after my 1st
ever triathlon, I had signed on for a duathlon, a 10km run and had possibly an
Olympic Distance triathlon relay on the cards. I had well and truly caught the
triathlon bug. To this day, no cure has been found!
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!
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 1st
triathlon!
The
following Saturday, Billy picked me up in Lucan, so I could bring the Sensa
with me to Skerries. 1st 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 1st 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 1st 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.
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!
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!
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!
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 2nd 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!
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