A Tale of Three Relays - Pembrokeshire Coast Triathlon 2015

Last year I had done the Broadhaven Triathlon in full, and although it was clear it was a fantastic course in every respect I hadn't really enjoyed it. I had been struggling with a back injury the previous year, so I had only really started back running a couple of months before, and it was only my first year getting used to Pembrokeshire hills on the bike! On top of this, I had went over on my ankle twice on the coastal path, choked on an energy gel and generally died on my feet during the run. It was the 1st time since I got gotten into triathlon that I was really disappointed at the end of the race!

With all this in mind (time of registering: around Christmas, before Ironman training really got underway), I decided I'd be happy with a relay team entry this year. The office had entered last year as a relay, and had won the corporate relay, and there was talk of entering 2 relay teams this year, so I thought that would be a bit of fun. My one rule was that I didn't want to do the run - with the Ironman in mind (or more pressingly, the long course weekend coming up two weeks after), I didn't want to run the risk of injury on the coast path. In all honesty, I thought I'd be a dead cert for the swim, but it didn't exactly turn out that way!

One of the secretaries in the office, Michele, had recently gotten into running about 9 months before, and said she would definitely be up for the run. This guaranteed that we would have two relay teams, which was great. With another colleague, Rhodri, taking on the whole event again this year and our two relay teams, we would have 7 people from our office of 10 participating this year. What a fantastic participation level for an architectural office (or any office, for that matter)!!

There was a lot of discussion in the office as to how to split up the teams. We could put together a really fast team, and a 'B' team, or just divide ourselves randomly between the two teams. In the end, we decided for the latter -it was the fairest option, to maximise enjoyment for everyone on the day, and the opportunity for a back-and-forth race between both teams sounded more fun! 

The teams looked a little something like this:

Acanthus 1

Me - swimming background and always good for a top end of field swim split, but technically able to put a decent shift in the other two if need be.

Mark - had done a few marathons and a naturally good runner, despite limited training opportunities due to have a young family, had run for the relay team last year

James - mainly into surfing, but seemingly an all round natural athlete, a very strong swimmer and runner, and managed an impressive time on the bike last year for the relay team, despite only cycling a handful of times in the lead up!

Acanthus 2

Peter - our boss, in his 60s, and a very good swimmer, still capable of a 27-28 minute 1500m with minimal training.

Jonathan - probably along with myself the biggest triathlon enthusiast in the office, and probably the fastest runner and cyclist of the lot of us

Michele - new to running this year and really caught the bug! 2 or 3 runs a week, her first 10k only a few months previously, and due to do a half marathon this summer - was great to see someone get into a new sport!

Looking at our teams, it was pretty obvious what Acanthus 2 would be doing, Peter was only ever going to do the swim, Michele was only ever going to do the run, which left Jon with the cycle.

Our team was a different story. Technically, our strongest team would probably have been me on the swim, James on the bike and Mark on the run (though Mark and James could easily have swapped to similar effect). However, Mark had just gotten himself a decent bike (and had been joining me on my hill repeat sessions in Freshwater East), and James, already a decent swimmer, had improved dramatically at swimming during our weekly office sea swims last year and had been doing a lot of swim fit training over the winter (I was eager to see to what he would do enough to forfeit my swimming place!), so we decided to completely turn our team on it's head, with James on the swim, Mark on the bike and ...... Me on the run. Yes I know that was the one discipline I didn't really want to do, but this order of things actually made things really interesting between our two teams: Peter and James were probably going to be level enough on the swim, Jon was probably going to open up a sizeable gap against Mark on the bike, and I was going to spend the run leg chasing down Michele! This was going to be great fun!!

And then I threw something of a spanner in the works...

As time went on I thought I really wanted to do the swim as well. While still not swimming quite as much as I would have liked, I had been swimming a bit more regularly than last year, my general plod pace was a bit more consistent and I wanted to give it a good go this year. So I advertised with the Pembrokeshire Triathlon club for any relays looking for a swimmer, and sure enough within a few weeks Kirsty Pope, another Pembs triathlon club member who I had yet to meet, invited me to swim for her team. She was going to be doing the run, and a fellow called Jeremy would be doing the bike. By the sounds of their predicted times for their legs of the race, this team was going to be much faster than our evenly spread relay teams, but I didn't think much of it - after all our office teams were going to be in the 'Corporate Relay' so we weren't really going to be racing each other anyways.......

It only later dawned on me that the team I had agreed to swim for was not a Pembrokeshire Triathlon Club entry, but an entry for a local sports shop called Haven Sports! I decided to leave it late to tell the office I was swimming for another Corporate relay team that was likely to beat us. Oops!

In the weeks leading up to the event, banter and smack talk in the office really heated up. I had a touch of Tenosynovitis (inflammation of the shin to foot tendon sheathing) which meant I had to frustratingly rest for two weeks with three weeks remaining and made my general ability to run look very doubtful, James was going on a two week sun holiday and was due to be back the day before the race, and Mark achieving times of about 1 hour 39min on similar profiled 44km courses, about 18-20minutes slower than his Acanthus counterpart Jon. All of these developments lead for some very bold statements to be made by our rivals ("you are going to get so destroyed by us!"' Jonathan Pickford, June '15), which I duly wrote down and put on the notice board for 'motivational purposes'.

On top of this I decided to speculate on what all the relay teams would actually do on the day and make a spreadsheet! ..... I know, right? Seriously, if you weren't into triathlon in our office, you would either catch the bug, or be driven crazy by it! 

Meanwhile my injury woes were probably working in Haven Sports favour, as I was now swimming a lot in lieu of cycling and running, in particular in the sea, was getting used to swimming with my wetsuit a lot more than I previously had, and was also getting more used to the local wildlife - The relatively mild winter meant that there was a significant increase number in barrel jellyfish (in laymen's terms: the fecking massive ones!) in the local waters - last year the most I saw in a single swim would have been 1 or 2; this year, in one of the sessions I swam over 40-50 of them! Strangely though, the sheer amount of them had gotten me a lot more used to them is year. The occasional appearance out of nowhere last year spooked the bejesus out of me and had me jittery & paranoid about when the next sighting would be for the rest of the swim, whereas this year their constant presence this year forced me to deal with them. All in all I was much more confident in the sea last this year, and felt good for race day!

Ultimately, it looked like Acanthus 1 were going to edge it over Acanthus 2  by a minute (possible beach finish?!) but would not stand a chance against Haven Sports, which meant I was possibly going to win a corporate prize for someone else and have to come to work on Monday. Brilliant, I guess....?

So yes that was the background, sometimes the race is not all about the day but the banter and outlandish claims made in the run-up! But race day was upon us now and all of a sudden things were very quiet in the office! Time for the legs and arms to do the talking!

I cycled out to Broadhaven on the Friday for registration, and met Kirsty and Jeremy of my Haven Sports team for the first time, both nice friendly people and was looking forward to racing for them on Saturday. Maybe it was just the week that was in it but I was still in the mood for some outlandish claims: "top 10 in the swim" and "49 min in the run" were my goals, fairly optimistic as it was the Welsh Championships tomorrow and I hadn't run in 4 weeks and wasn't sure if I even could!

Peter picked up myself and Michele on race day and things were looking good. It was a lightly overcast day with minimal wind, and as we came down the hill into Broadhaven, I was delighted to see that the sea was like glass, hardly a swell, barely a ripple - perfect swim conditions!

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty pumped up in the transition area, as we waited for things to get started. This race could not get started soon enough. in fact I felt I needed to get into the water as soon as possible before all this adrenaline wore me out! One thing that helped was meeting the various people I had come to be familiar with through various training sessions (and strava), and wish them luck for the race. The difference in the amount of people I knew at this race compared to this time last year was noticeable - it's great to be living in an area so actively involved in triathlon!

 Eventually after the race briefing we had access to the sea where we could have a quick dip before the race. I practised a bit of sighting to the 1st buoy and generally loosened the arms, but didn't stay in too long. Then the nerves kicked in. Where should I line up in a Welsh Championships swim start? Was top 10 a bit optimistic? Where my goggles already fogging up? Was my shin injury starting to flare up again? Was I even going to be able to run into the sea?! Flipping hell! 

I lined up at the front in my own little space on the beach, but quickly found myself surrounded by other athletes. Apparently the inside line (where I was) was where all the fast guys would be going - I was in the shit now! I tried to hold my position at the front of the bunch, but I ended up with two really tall guys to either side of me, their shoulders above my head height made them effectively in front of me on the start line. My apprehensions got the better of me and I decided I would let them take the lead by a millisecond and I would follow in their wake.

There would be no countdown, just notification of a minute to start and then 60 seconds of silent tension until the gun. And boom, eventually off it went and the mayhem began!

I hesitated maybe a half a second too long, and the two guys slightly in front of my became two or three rows of people! How the hell did that happen? The next 300m was chaos - fists and feet and kicks to the teeth. I held my own though and felt like I got a good draft off the strong swimmers that were around me. The good conditions meant my sighting was pretty good, and I was confident I was holding a good line. In previous years I would have held back and given other swimmers right of way as they bashed into me but this time round I held firm and accelerated when needed. 

After rounding the first buoy, the first of 4 corners of the rectilinear course to start the long part of the rectangle parallel to shore, things cleared up a bit, and I seemed to be in a mini pack of 3-4 swimmers. I could see another bunch quite a distance ahead, but hard to tell how far away - it was really hard to tell where I was in the scheme of things. Oddly, I couldn't see the next buoy for sighting, but could see the one after that. There was a subtle chop out there, probably invisible to those watching onshore, that made for tough swimming, but also as it was coming at me diagonally, whenever I sighted I kept looking slightly right instead of straight on. Instead I sighted off the bunch of swimmers ahead, and gauged off the other two swimmers in my mini group, occasionally getting the odd bump as one or both of us lost our way momentarily - would be fun to see aerial footage of this! A massive barrel jellyfish swam right under me too - am happy to say I didn't freak out one bit!

We rounded the second buoy, and were around the third in no time, back to the 4th buoy parallel to the shoreline again. This was the business end now, and I had to try a bit harder to stay with the pack - my shoulders always seem to get a bit fatigued at this point, as my entry level wetsuit always seems to restrict the mobility in my shoulders. I was confused by other swimmers positions around me, very far left, and very far right, as I could see the buoy perfectly and was sighting well towards it - maybe it was simply the difference in how we all took the corner. I saw a giant spider crab crawl along the see floor - nice!

We rounded the 4th buoy for the final bit back to shore. I kicked my legs harder for a little bit extra, but my arms had very little left - I kept telling myself 'no bike after this' and persisted. I swam and swam until the sand looked close enough to touch my face and then stood up. Damn, still too early, was nearly hip deep as opposed to below the knee deep - damn hydro-magnification! With the adrenaline pumping, I forced legs against the resistant of the water and ran out anyway - it must have been the adrenaline, as I felt I ran out and up the slip at a decent pace. I got into transition and saw Jeremy and Kirsty wave me down. Jeremy took over and took the timing chip off my ankle and away with him on the bike.

Exiting the Water for the Haven Sports Relay Team

 Only then did I stop and take things in. I looked at my watch, 22:30 including the run out - nice! The guys were telling me I was out in the top 10 - it was hard to believe - it was difficult to tell how many people were in that pack ahead of me, but they must have been the lead pack. Sweet, audacious target no. 1 met!

I waited in transition with Kirsty, Mark, Jon and Michele. James came in very shortly after me, must have been under 25 minutes, very impressive, and Mark was away for Acanthus 1, approximately 2-3 minutes behind Jeremy for Haven Sports! Rod was in shortly afterwards on his individual effort, then came in Peter at 28 minutes and Jon was away for Acanthus 2! 

James, exiting for Team Acanthus 1

Rod, exiting on his individual attempt 

Peter, exiting for Acanthus Team 2

After all the relevant action had happened for us, we settled down a bit and watched all the other athletes come in, cheering for all the people I knew, which was a surprising amount! I got changed into my running kit and checked my phone. Mark had his phone on him so I was able to track his location using the 'Find My Friends' app, very handy indeed!

Swim Route Flyby [click to go to link]

It was then, a bit of banter kicked off between the relay teams (possibly mainly started by me, trying to hold on to my post swim buzz). I gently reminded Kirsty I was no longer on her team for the day (though based on predicted times, I hadn't a hope of catching her). I told Michelle to just enjoy the run - it was really impressive the progress she had made in only 9 months of training - and then reminded her, with tongue firmly in cheek, that I would be chasing her down!! I just couldn't help myself! 

(l-r) Michelle, Peter, James and Myself waiting in transition, for the cyclists to come back!

In all seriousness though, I had to think about an etiquette strategy for racing Michele on the course - it was all set up for a bit of fun after all, and I didn't want to ruin the spirit of it by being a competitive asshole! Our predicted times showed that Acanthus 2 would be finishing about 1 minute ahead of us, so chances of a beach finish together (the first and last 800m of the run was a run across the beach) was high, if I caught her at all.  So I decided that if I caught her for the finishing stretch on the beach, I would cross the finish line with her. However, if I caught her significantly before then, I would run my own race, and then run back for her and run with her across the finish. Excellent, everyone will be happy then, right?

I wasn't going to catch Kirsty. I did not have a plan for Kirsty...

The cyclists were starting to come in and it was time to stay sharp. I checked Mark's progress - he was on the final 10km stretch, about 20 minutes away. It was great to see the really quick guys come through and watch their transitions. The lead guy was flying it, minutes ahead of the guy in 2nd. It was interesting to see how many of the top 20 guys were not having brilliant transitions, at least half a dozen had problems locating their spots in transition finding runners etc - weird, but showed the importance of walking yourself through transition before the race for orientation - every bit of prep helps!

Jon was the 1st to come in and he was flying it. Michelle nearly missed the changeover, putting her phone band on for strava, so I did the timing chip changeover for them (is that allowed?), and away Michele went. Jon was seriously pooped, and justifiably so - 1:19 on a hilly 45km - he could barely stand. It didn't seem long before Jeremy was in and Kirsty was away - I didn't catch Jeremy's split as I was keeping a sharp eye out for Mark. I was also starting to worry about the run - what if I couldn't? I hadn't ran in 4 weeks after all! Or worse still, what if the injury flared up again?! What if I went over on my ankles again like last year? Flipping hell!! 

Jon, coming in first on the bike for Team Acanthus 2

Jeremy for Haven Sport Team

  I didn't have too much time to let these concerns take hold of me, as Mark was coming in on the bike - here we go! 

Rod (centre) on his individual attempt, chased by Mark (right) for Team Acanthus 1

I went to get his timing chip which he'd hidden under his sock (aargh!), but managed to get the strap around my ankle and get going pretty quickly. Aside from my new trisuit feeling 'a bit odd' and a gust of wind nearly blowing my cap away as I ran down the slip to the beach, I got into my stride pretty quickly. I ran down the beach at a nice springy tempo but had no idea what kind of pace I was doing. I would have to average comfortably under 5 minutes per km if I wanted to break 50 minutes... I saw my 1st km split as I start the climb up onto the coastal path - 4:36... Nice! I felt good and springy climbing the beaten track to the high point of the coastal path, and passed out 5 or 6 guys. My next split, if the terrain was anything to go by would be the slowest of the day - I was expecting about about 6 minutes, maybe slower. My watched bleeped just as I finished the climb - 5:06... Sweet! I was already feeling good but this gave me a boost, and I really focused on finding a good rhythm. I was still passing quite a few guys, maybe 1 or 2 a minute - an unfamiliar feeling in my runs. I passed the point where I had the 1st of my ankle twists last year. Woot, not today!

Just as a dense sea fog quite suddenly rolled in on the cliffs I saw a familiar figure in the distance, highlighted literally by her pink arm band - Michele. I passed her and wished her the best, and told her I would be back for her. This was confusing - there was no way I should have been catching her by now... With Jon's bike split, they should've been 20minutes ahead of us... I struggled with the math while running, but the only conclusion was that Mark cycled well beyond himself!!

4:34 split, and I was off the coast path - more like that please. I continued to reel in one athlete after the other, though maybe not at the same rate. Nobody had passed my either  - what a difference not cycling makes! 4:31, 4:16 and into a hilly section I'd forgotten about from last year. Oops. Just as we passed the 5km marker, I saw a familiar kit in the distance, maybe 200-300m ahead. The blue and white of the Pembrokeshire triathlon club top - it was Kirsty! I was not expecting this! She was going a good pace, and without changing my effort level on the hills it took me about 2km to close the gap. I caught up with her on the 7km mark, last drink station. I was now racing my own relay team. Awkward...

"ah, does this mean we're not going to win the corporate relay?" she said when she spotted me,

"the race isn't over yet!" I said, which was probably a mistake!

We chatted a tiny bit more. I mulled over just running alongside Kirsty to the end, but worried about the prospect of a beach sprint finish for the corporate relay team title. I had not planned for this scenario at all! I decided to try and continue at my pace and go for a good time. I wished Kirsty luck with the rest of it, and pulled slowly away. Really, really slowly....

Awkward...

Most of the stretch back to Broadhaven was steadily downhill and I powered down, probably to the detriment of my quads on the descent.  I was starting to feel it in the legs now but the splits were still looking good for a good run so I persisted. 4:27, 4:14, 4:18, 1.5km left, time to bring it home! Legs really heavy now on a mini climb before joinng the main road back to Broadhaven. I heard quick steps behind me. I look over my shoulder - Kirsty!! Had she been on my shoulder this whole time? Balls! 

Well I actually didn't know how to feel about it. It was my team that was putting me under pressure after all! She slowly passed me and pulled away from me as we approached the final beach stretch. "sure you're going to win something anyway" she said as she passed. I had no answer to that or her pace at that moment. Did I just spend 7km catching up on her to watch her cross the finish line before me? We rounded the corner and onto the beach, she was easily 20-30m ahead of me now. Peter Lloyd, another familiar face from Pembrokeshire Triathlon club and Strava, was between us. I picked up the pace to catch up and say hi to Peter - you know, social energy! I passed him and kept accelerating. Screw it, I was going to go for it!! My legs were heavy and burning, but I kept going, in full flight as I passed Kirsty. I really hoped she had nothing left for a sprint as I passed, as I would've been screwed! I didn't get exactly what she said but it was somewhere between "ah come on, Brian," and something with a lot more expletives in it! She was not going to be happy!!

Final push on the run for Team Acanthus 1 (Kirsty in the background) 

Kirsty, coming in for Haven Sports Team

I crossed the line, utterly spent. I checked my watch, 48:37* - yus! There was some dazed wandering around, inhaling of welsh cakes, bumping into some familiar faces and shaking some hands - updating the work relay teams as to where I saw Michele on the course, and generally avoiding Kirsty... It was unavoidable though, and while there was some jovial anger thrown my way, I got an overriding sense that she genuinely wanted to kill me. I couldn't give an overriding answer as to why I went for it - it just felt right, and it was a race after all. No consolation at all!

Run Route Flyby [click to go to link]

Rod finishing his solo effort

So.... That was that, then I realised I had to go back for Michele! Shit! My legs were not feeling it at all.... I tried to start a gentle jog, but my quads and calfs firmly said no! I was talking to my teammate James (swimmer with acanthus 1) and asked him to come along with me. We walked along the beach, seeing familiar faces as we went. I didn't realise until this point that Rod hadn't finished yet - he'd put in such a strong time last year I figured he was just ahead of us. We saw him as we got back to the edge of the beach, along with Kevin Wheeler, another familiar face from the tri club. James wasn't keen on going any further, so I jogged on from there. The legs felt a teeny bit better after stretching them out. I headed back along the course into triathlete traffic. 

"you're going the wrong way" many triathletes helpfully shouted at me.

"feckin' show off" someone else shouted. Now that's more like it...

Coming back with Michele

I got to the point where the country back road joined the main road  (where I realised Kirsty was over my shoulder), and was delighted to see Michele making her way up  the mini climb to me. She was delighted to see me too as she had been starting to fade. I gave her some encouragement as we jogged back. She deserved it, she had only done her first ever 10km run a month or two ago, and this was a tough 10km (and a bit) by any standard. Not long to go now. We jogged up the beach and I left her to the finish line. All done now, time for some rest. It was great to see that despite the fatigue, Michele was still buzzing after the event - another ones caught the bug!

Michele, coming in for Team Acanthus 2

(l - r) Myself, Rod, James and Michele, shortly after finishing

Myself, James, Peter & Michele hung around for the presentations at the end. As it happened, all the rivalry didn't mean anything. We were beaten by 2 relay teams, both corporate, which meant for an interesting trickle down of awards. The open relay went to the 1st team, with the 2nd team winning the corporate title. This meant that Acanthus 1 won the all male team award, and Haven Sports won the mixed team award. Wahey, double whammy! I met Kirsty again to share the prizes, and everything was civil again.

Haven Sports Team, Mixed Relay Champions 2015 :)

The times were definitely interesting. Apart from me hitting my outlandish claims, James was just over 25 minutes on the swim, and Mark had done a whopping 12 minute personal best on the bike course. It was also interesting to note that the best splits from our two office relay teams would have combined to make the fastest overall time by 3 or 4 minutes! That made me feel a little better about our trickled  down Best Male team prize :)

All in all it was a good day at the office, and a good day for the office. And a good day for an office team to not get 'so destroyed' by another office team. And a good day for 3 randomers  competing for a shop they didn't work for. And a good day for a relay team to get beaten on the run by its own swimmer.... 

All in all, it was a confusing day!

*the official split time was in fact 47:57 - no complaints from me!

A Sensa Pace - Rosslare to Dublin with Brian Attley

Well, this was one of those crazy ideas that was exciting at the time, but one that I never thought I would follow through with! When I had been back in Ireland on the bike for  the Easter holidays, I had visited my friend Sabrina for dinner. During our catch up session she told me she was planning on having some kind of 30th celebration at her house on the 21st of June, and of course I had said I would do my best to make it. It also made sense to come back that weekend as my sisters birthday was on the 23rd and my mother's birthday the following week, so I thought it would be nice to drop into Inistioge on this weekend too.

Only when I was back in Wales a week later did I start thinking about how exactly I would do this. Would I get ferry over on the Friday, get picked up in Rosslare by the parents stay overnight in Inistioge, get bus to Dublin early Saturday, leave my stuff in Lucan, wonder how the hell I was going to get back there post party, and try and do the reverse of that whole journey the next day? Or maybe get the train from Rosslare to Dublin directly (presuming the ferry and train matched up, which they generally didn't),  find a friends place to stay and head back the next day? This was a better option but pretty expensive with trains and all. The option was simple - I was going to cycle there! Not only was it a great money saver, but I'm always looking for an excuse for a long cycle!

So this was all still a bit of a vague plan. I knew Rosslare was quite a bit further from Dublin than Inistioge was, so I started to think outside the box a bit - if I arranged to stay at my sister's place in Saggart, on the outskirts of Dublin, that would cut down the cycling distance for me. I plotted a route - if I went via Wexford to Enniscorthy, I would find myself on the N80 which leads to the very familiar N81 which leads straight into Dublin and within 2km of Saggart. I checked the distance - 146km! All of a sudden this seemed a bit more feasible, but still felt a bit longwinded. I even thought about maybe posting whatever clothes I needed for the weekend to my sister, so I could cycle without luggage on the Sensa!

I put this to the side for a bit - I had a few things going on that month, and had moved house, so I didn't really think about it for a month or so. As a result of my busy-ness, money was really tight for me so I really held off on making any firm decisions on anything for a long while. I needed more motivation.

Then I had a thought, what if I got some people along for the ride? I really wasn't sure who I would ask - after all a 150km is not that appealing to most. I thought about JJ and Brian Attley - I had obviously cycled quite a few long cycles with JJ, and Brian's family have a place in Rosslare, and would both be at this party so it made perfect sense! As it happens, JJ crashed and wrecked his bike pretty much the week I thought of this, so I resorted to only asking Brian.

The plan would be that he would get the train down to Rosslare after work on Friday and stay overnight. Meanwhile I would get the ferry at 3am, (this was the 'affordable way' with Megabus), arrive in Rosslare at 6.45am, rendezvous at Brian's place and embark on our big adventure. Exciting! When I contacted him, he was recovering from a virus, but in principal was up for it. We were about 3 weeks away at this stage, so things were looking up.

I couldn't commit to a decision until REALLY late though. I had moved into my new place a week before the term in my old place was up, and the estate agents were really taking their sweet time giving me my deposit back. Because I had obviously had to give a deposit to my new landlord I was essentially broke! I waited and waited, and only due to the fact that I got paid a week early as the director was going on holiday (thank you cycling gods!!), I just about managed to book my ferry on the Thursday, two days before our planned trip - finally it was all systems go!

One or two little things subtly changed in my plans over the course of these 3 weeks of deliberating. My sister was not going to be in Ireland the weekend of the cycle, so instead of staying in Saggart I would be staying in Brian's place in Clontarf which made more sense. I didn't really think about at the time, as there was plenty of other things to be thinking about but this meant that that the distance would be closer to 170km instead of 146km. Also as I had left it so late, I didn't have the time for the 'mail my clothes' plan and so would be taking the hybrid instead of my Sensa, and would be taking some luggage as opposed to well, nothing! This really didn't sink in until I had finally booked my ferry. Ah sure it was going to be grand. One thing in the my favour, was the weather forecast, which predicted a smashing weekend ahead.

So Friday was a busy day. 1st of all i managed to get a pretty good pair of bib shorts second hand froman advertisement I saw on facebook. I had been looking for bib shorts for months, but even on deals I couldn't find anything less than £60 - here I got the shorts as well as a jersey for £25 combined! It may have been something to do with the fact it was a Team Discovery Kit (Lance Armstrongs old team), but I didn't care. Bargain!

After work I needed to get everything ready by the evening so I could get a nap in before heading to the ferry at 2am.  This involved giving the bike a thorough clean and oil, trying to pack everything I thought I needed for the weekend into one pannier (in the end I couldn't avoid absolutely stuffing it), and doing my stretching routine and a bit of a session on the foam roller.  The last bit was crucial - I had burst a massive blister on my foot running on grass earlier in the week, and whatever compensation I had made to my stride had caused my calf muscles to be in an awful state! In any case, all this preparation seemed to take ages, mainly because after a busy day in work I was a bit all over the place and instead of doing one task at a time, I seemed to be running around in circles doing all tasks in tandem! All of this meant that by the time I got to bed at 9 o clock, my mind was racing and I couldn't get to sleep at all. By the time my alarm had went off at 1am, I'd say I was lucky if I had managed an hour of shuteye.

There is something quite nice about night time cycling (once you have a good enough headlight) and I really enjoyed the short 20 minute trip to Pembroke Dock, despite the cold. After my usual negotiations with Irish Ferry to get my bike on for free (and by sheer jamminess also getting into the Club Class Lounge for free!), I managed to nab a blanket and get a whopping 2 hours of sleep in. It probably would have been a bit more if it was not for the sudden brightness brought on by sunrise at half past 4. I didn't mind though - it was pretty spectacular and it was going to be a lovely day. There was no point in trying to get more sleep in at that stage - I fashioned a sort of breakfast from the complimentary food available, plotted my route to Brian's place and just enjoyed the rest of what was a pretty smooth sailing.

4.30am Sunrise in the Irish Sea

Coming off the ferry at 6.45am on the bike was pretty liberating, it's a nice way to arrive in any country! No time for stopping though, I pushed on and was at Brian's place by 7.10am. I was surprised to see a car parked outside - had he not got the train down? I was trying to figure out the logistics of driving down and cycling back when I realised what was going on. Brian's mother had driven him down, was going to stay the weekend, and bring his stuff back the following day. This all made perfect sense of course, but had one major implication - he was going to be cycling without any luggage! In fairness, Brian's mum offered to take my luggage too, but I needed most of it that night. Either way I didn't dwell on this too much, Brian holds a good touring pace, so I was confident (at the time) that it wouldn't be a problem.

All that aside, I finally got to see Brian's Sensa cyclocross bike, which I had helped him get earlier in the year through my contact in work. It was a lovely looking bike! Also Brian had made a simple but ingenious 'old-school sat-nav' - basically a laminated sheet to be stuck on the crossbar which had had all our destinations and total distances to each. In between each destination was the road number and intermediate distance between each destination. All the information you could ever need! Definitely an idea to bring forward to future cycles.

Satnav - Old School

So after getting ready etc (crucially I put some sun-block on to avoid being burnt to a crisp) we were back on the road by 8am. The plan was to cycle the main road to Wexford and then onto Gorey via the R741.  We would be stopping there at the house of fellow Cicloturisto Paul O Brien, for a some scones. Then onto Greystones via Arklow, Brittas Bay and Wicklow. Here we would have some lunch before the final stretch to Dublin via Bray and Blackrock. Simples!

Wexford was lot further away than I thought it would be! In my head it was just around the corner from Rosslare, but it took the guts of an hour to get there, and the main road was not too rewarding scenery wise. I suppose it wasn't that far, maybe my unfamiliarity with the roads was already playing it's part in my experience of cycling them. Also, I also got a sense that my effort levels were slightly harder than I would have liked them to be keeping up with Brian on his pannierless bike. It's not like it was a challenge or anything, but I did have a concern it would be unsustainable over 170km! I didn't say anything though - a part of me thought my legs would warm-up and I would find the pace more manageable, the other part took it on as a training challenge

Wexford was a lovely place to cycle through in the early morning sunshine. Cycling along the quays and then across the bridge at the town centre, you get the full experience of cycling along the Wexford estuary. I think I just like cycling along rivers and coastlines generally. The roads closed in quickly enough after leaving, and soon enough it was all about getting we were going again.

The roads were very samey, but the scenery was still very pleasant - a series of rolling fields and very lush and very green landscape. Castlebridge was a nice little place to cycle through, with some well preserved mill buildings well presented by the sunshine. That said, there wasn't a huge amount of towns on this route to break up the samey roads and give an impression of progress. Even though it was written on my destination sheet, I completely underestimated the time it would take to get to Gorey. In my head it was 40km from Rosslare, when in reality it was actually more like 60km (or 70km,including my trip from the ferry!). Other factors where starting to come into play too. As the morning I heated up I was starting to sweat a bit, and a LOT of sun lotion had been sweated into my left eye - this was a real nuisance made the next 20km seem like a lot more.  Another thing was my effort levels - with 50km behind me now (Brian had done 40km), the slightly elevated pace was beginning to take it's toll. I was fine keeping up on the flats and downhills (I even tried to lead a few times, just to be polite), but on even the slightest incline, Brian was pulling away from me effortlessly on the lighter bike. This resulted in me putting in even more effort to catch up when the roads got flat again. I have no problem saying I drafted Brian shamelessly for big portions of this cycle!

Finally we got to Gorey, but we still had a bit of a hill to climb to get to Paul's house. Ordinarily this hill would be no big deal, but my left eye was stinging like crazy, and my 'uphill cycling muscles' had signed out for the day. All in all, I felt a lot more out of sorts than I wanted to be by the time I got to Paul's place!

This was a very welcome break for me. I think Brian had been going at quite a manageable pace (I don't think he was pushing it at all), but the weight difference in the bikes had definitely taken it's toll. I washed my eye out, but it was still quite bloodshot and stinging a bit.

Paul played the role of host very well, with scones and jam and nutella on offer, as well as jam donuts, coffee and tea. I think I had a jam scone, a nutella scone, 2 jam donuts, a coffee and an espresso! This combined with my complimentary food breakfast 5 hours earlier meant I was probably at about 1million % my RDA of sugar, but I didn't really care. When you've only slept 3 hours, have cycled 70km and know you still have 100km to go, these considerations go out the window! It was nice to chill out there on the terrace with Paul and his family, who were recovering from some birthday celebrations the night before. I certainly was in no rush to go anywhere any time soon!

Also it was my first time meeting Paul, who was experiencing the buzz of getting into cycling I had experienced a couple of years previously. I had only been in touch previously by offering advice through the Cicloturismo facebook page, and sharing this very blog. It's been nice seeing someone getting some benefit from reading about my experiences - by writing these blog entries, I'm well aware that I could have done with some advice when I was starting out!

Anyways, we chilled out there for a good hour before we decided we needed to head on, at about 12 o clock. One of the downsides of going on a long cycle like this to get to an event on the other side, was that it added a sense of urgency that otherwise would not have been there. Either way it was probably good to get going again, before the legs completely cooled down. We refilled water bottles etc and I put on a sweatband to minimise any further stingy eyes, and away we went.

Leaving Paul's place, refueled and ready for another 100km!

The way back out of Gorey was nice and down hill but turned out to be pretty frustrating as the roads were jammed pack with crawling traffic. About a kilometre or two outside of Gorey we discovered a possible reason why. A long trail of cyclists in illuminous orange jerseys with a motor escort - it was the Cycle Against Suicide! As they were going at a pace to suit all levels, we overtook them steadily and easily, about 200-400 cyclists in total. It was great to see so many people out on their bikes for such a good cause. After we got ahead of the whole group, the next 20km was quite amusing, with photographers dotted every couple of kilometres taking pictures of us like we were part of the group! There was a possibility we'd be in the papers the next day, but glad it didn't turn out that way.

Well maybe it was the break, or maybe it was all the media attention, but I was feeling a lot better on the bike and was holding pace a lot better again (though I'm not sure that Nutella scone was such a good idea, my stomach was starting to feel pretty unsettled!). We worked down the km steadily to Arklow (90km done now) and it was nice to see glimpses of the Irish sea again, though the main st through Arklow town centre was packed with traffic too. It must have been people getting to the beach or something.

Just outside the town centre we turned right onto the Sea Road, and needless to say the roads started to feel a lot more scenic again. The road got a bit more lumpy here too, with little climbs leading to little descents. It was at this point that I realised my legs were not going to get any better on the inclines as this cycle continued. I think if I had been cycling on my own, even in this state, I wouldn't have found any problem with this - I think it was just demoralising to see Brian pulling away so easily on the climbs and I felt obliged to keep up!

I quickly forgot about all of this though when we started to approach Brittas Bay. Coming to the top of a small hill, this fantastic view opened out to us of the 5km crescent of Brittas beach. Over the next half hour or so, we were cycling on roads between the dunes, with occasional gaps affording us select glimpses to parts of the beach again. It was very pleasant altogether and made me forget all about distances and deadlines - it was just nice to be cycling there and then.

Unfortunatley shortly after Brittas we found ourselves on pretty hilly roads and I found myself struggling, and thinking about distances and deadlines again! Nothing makes cycling seem longer than just counting down km to a destination - I'm sure if there was a bit more scenery I would've found this section more manageable!

We had a pleasant surprise when we came to the Wicklow bypass - very good quality double lane cycle ways on each side of the road, which took us right around Wicklow to the other side. It was really surprising to see such a high quality amenity for cyclists here - more of that please! At this stage we had Greystones in our sights, 'only 30km' away. Soon we could stop for some lunch, or in an hour and a half to be more precise! The road was quite winding and sheltered by trees, and I'm sure it would have been lovely to do this section on a smaller 40km cycle, but I just wanted to get through this. My legs were starting to feel really fatigued now, and this hour and a half, felt more like 3 hours. I could not get to Greystones soon enough! As if to highlight my urgency, hunger hit me like a kick to the stomach when we were only 2 km away. Come on Greystones, where were you?!

When we finally got to Greystones, it was disappointing to see that the main town was blocked from the sea by the railway line. Not that this was news or anything, I'm pretty sure it was always like that, but me and Brian were so hungry at this stage that we weren't in the mood to see if there was somewhere to eat on the other side of railway with a view to the sea, which was a shame in hindsight. In the end we settled for an italian sandwich bar, which had street seating, in the shade. This was perfectly fine by us, though we found ourselves moving our table into the sunshine when we cooled down. In the end we could have sat or ate anywhere - we were fit to eat anything, and we inhaled whatever was put in front of us.

Then we had to make a little route alteration. I thought we were going to be taking the relatively flat coastal path to Bray from here, but we decided that Brian's tires weren't exactly suitable so we would have to cycle over Bray Head.  This represented a much bigger climb than all the little climbs I had struggled with so far today, so I was not looking forward to this too much at all. Ultimately I figured it would be mostly downhill or flat on the other side as we came into Dublin Bay, so I would just have to suck it up and do it!

The climb out of Greystones was not very enjoyable, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I think I just accepted that Brian would be getting away from me and cycled at my own pace, working down the gears. It wasn't that the climb was steep, it just felt really long, but it was a great feeling to get to the top, take in the view of the Sugar Loaf and start the descent on the other side. The descent was lovely and took us right into Bray. It was around here that I realised I hadn't been replacing my salts very well, as it became clear that my motor skills were not as reliable as they once were. The first clue to this was meaning to change the gear with my thumb and instead jamming on the front brakes with my fingers and nearly going arse over tit! It was the one time on the trip I was thankful to have a heavy pannier on the back of my bike!

The sprawl of Bray blended into the sprawl of Dublin, and we were on pretty samey subarban through-roads for a long stretch until we hit the coast just after Dun Laoghaire. My right knee had really started to seize up along this stretch, but it was such a great feeling to see the twin chimneys of Poolbeg overlooking Dublin Bay, I almost forgot about it. We were on the home strait now, and I no longer cared how long it would take. I did have another motor skills fail where I couldn't make my left hand decide if it wanted to indicate left or wave to a van that was allowing me to turn left. This was weird and worrying, but we were nearly home now! It was nice to be cycling on the flat, nice to be in familiar territory. We worked our way up the quays, crossed the Liffey at the East Link bridge and within 15 minutes we were at Brian's place in Clontarf at 5.30pm. 170km done in 7 hours and 24 minutes of cycling, my longest ever cycle by 15km, my longest cycle on a bike with a pannier by 25km! Boom.

Route & Stats [clickable link]

We had some beers and chilled out watching the World Cup, and even went to the chipper before heading to Sabrina's. I think we were fully justified in this! Strangely enough though I wasn't drinking terribly fast on the night and didn't have that much of an appetite (this is a strange thing for me, even if I haven't been cycling all day!), except for a few small cravings for munchies towards the end of the night. I was becoming aware of the stiffness in my right knee again, and wondered (probably aloud, quite possibly a few times) how the hell I was going to manage another 145km in the morning. Brian said he would cycle with me to Tallaght which I thought was great, so I just enjoyed the rest of the night.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day!

Office Rivalry Part I - The St Davids Duathlon

When I first moved to Pembrokeshire, Wales in November 2013, it quickly became clear that the office was very into its activities, in particular triathlon. This was amazing. For the 1^st time ever, I had people to talk to about this crazy sport I had been training for all this time on my own in Dublin.

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• There was the boss, Peter who was in his 60s but still big into his surfing and also a strong swimmer. He was the swimmer in the office relay team and had done the 1500m swim in Broadhaven in 28 minutes – faster than I had done in either of my Olympic triathlon attempts!
•  Rhodri, who had just done his first Olympic Distance triathlon in Broadhaven in 2013 and seemed to be keen on improving on his time for 2014.
•  Jon, who was particularly keen on Time Trial cycling, but was looking to do his first triathlon this year. He had been cyclist in the office relay team in Broadhaven the previous year.
• James, a keen surfer but also up for a race and a bit of banter.
• Mark, who had done a few marathons in the past, but was always opportunistically up for an event.

 Coming off the back of a very quick season In which I took chunks of time off in my revisits to Skerries, TriAthlone and Cobh, I was full of beans, and suddenly became this triathlon ‘expert’ within the office (newsflash: I wasn’t). This resulted in ever increasing banter, lots of speculation about who was better and lots of bold statements, in particular from me! What can I say, I was pretty confident in my abilities!

There were a few things I hadn’t taken into account though…

1.  Due to the move, I was without my road bike for a few months and even though I had the hybrid, I hadn’t been cycling it at all. My apartment was a few minutes walk from work, so there was no need to cycle there, and this had been a big part of my training in Dublin – a 12km round trip 5 times a week, which I endeavoured to do as fast as I could every day. All of a sudden I was not doing this, and I didn’t appreciate the benefits I was missing from this.
2.  I had acquired an injury from the Escape from Spike Island triathlon in Cobh. A cyclist crashed into me as he came WAY too fast into a u-turn section of the course and since then my back was troubling me – basically, I couldn’t look right! – in short, I had not really run since I had moved over either!

Basically, by the time the first competition came around, the St Davids Duathlon in March 2014, I had done 4 runs and 1 cycle in 4 months. My confidence may have been misplaced!

ST DAVIDS DUATHLON, 2^nd March 2014

Myself, Rhodri, Mark and James decided to do this event as an early season opener, a teeny event with a 3km run and a 2km run either side of a 12km bike. It was a miserable day, defined by grey wet shitty miserableness. Mark gave me a lift, and it was my first opportunity to get a glimpse of North Pembrokeshire’s dramatic coastline on the way.

When we arrived, it was clear I had ‘over-dressed’. I was proudly sporting my ‘Pixels Pro’ kit, with all the sponsors that where printed on it I looked like a pro-athlete (physique aside) compared to everyone else, who had just turned up in standard t-shirts and shorts or leggings. I lined up with Rhodri my customary few rows back, hoping he would be someone I could pace off over the course of the race. James was just in front, Mark was just behind.

The gun went off and James bounded off like a gazelle. I knew straight away I wasn’t even going to try keep pace with him but my god the group started at a hell of a pace. Within a kilometre I knew I was not going to be able to hold this pace and Rhodri slowly pulled away. As well as Rhodri, people slowly passed me, who I tried to hold and failed. 2km in and I didn’t feel good at all, my calf was pulling up. I actually had to stop and walk. 2km into a race, and I was walking! I had been in my own space at the point with a gap ahead and a gap behind on windy country roads, and the next person that came up behind me was Mark. I started running again to keep up appearances, but basically told him I was fucked.

James, leading the race off in style

Mark, finishing the 1st run, me trailing in the background

Finishing my first run, already fucked

Into transition after 3 and half km, and I took my time fumbling through transition, trying to get some composure back after a shitty run. At least the cycle will be good, I thought. Wrong! I was horribly sluggish. I couldn’t get my legs moving at all, my gear changes were woeful on the hill coming out of a dip and my cornering was overly cautious and cumbersome. The only time I felt good was when I got on the main road into some headwinds, and passed Mark while I was on the tribars. I actually did start to feel a bit better at this point and passed one or two more people.

Starting the bike, trying to regain some composure

Back in from the bike, finally warmed up!! James on the right, starting his 2nd run

Mark, finishing the bike just behind me

Back into the run, and I vaguely felt like I could find a rhythm. The bike had clearly warmed me up, at least a little bit. It was a little over a mile, and I just about managed to stay ahead of the people I had passed, with Mark coming in behind me at the finish line.

Rod coming in, first of the bunch

James coming in not far behind

Finishing my run, glad to be done!

Mark coming in just behind me

James and Rhodri were already smuggly sitting there, like they had been waiting all day. Rod had smashed us all, getting bragging rights for the day, with James not too far behind. My race had been a shit show but I know I would get it back before the Broadhaven triathlon in June, especially with the swim to get me ahead.

However, in the week that followed another name emerged – a young lady called Catherine Marks. She had won the race overall, and for all our pre race banter none of us had come close to her! We had been chicked. This particularly affected James, whose masculinity seemed to have been challenged by being beaten by a woman. This would become a running joke within the office, with this lady becoming the ‘office nemesis’, brought up especially to wind up James, but also putting all our banter into perspective.

A week later, Jon showed his abilities at the Neyland Duathlon (which was twice as long in every discipline), starting with a sub 20 minute 5km.

The office rivalry had begun, and I was way behind!

The Winds Prevail - Part 1

This was a strange weekend - I was planning to get a few fellow cyclists down to cycle Dublin to Inistioge and back on this weekend while the parents were away but nobody could make it so we postponed it by a week. As it turned out I had to go down anyway, to check the mail for my little brother's Leaving Cert Results and clear the mail so there was room for potential college offers! There was no real convenient way of getting down and back so I (eventually) decided feck it, I'll cycle down and back anyway! I had been out for a few drinks with JJ till late the night before hearing tales of his cycle to Berlin, and so I groggily and reluctantly left Lucan at 2pm, about 4 hours later than the latest time I would prefer to leave at for a 140km cycle, with 1 fully packed pannier on the hybrid. 

The Dublin - Inistioge route I take is via the N81 and Blessington Lake, and after an initial climb to Blessington, is predominantly downhill for the rest of the journey and quite scenic. However, to my dismay I noted as I cycled east to the Wicklow mountains, that they were covered in rain clouds (and were clearly emptying away) and worse still there was a heavy south westerly wind - this was not going to be a pleasant cycle. 

One little blessing was that in the 20 minutes it took to get to the start of my climb, I could see the clouds clearing on the mountains and making way for blue skies as I approached. The winds however were not as forgiving and made for a tedious cycle down. The worst moment was nearly getting blown off my bike with the rain washing sweat, sun lotion and hair gel into my eyes midway between Blessington and Baltinglass, 40km from Lucan & 90km from Inistioge and wondering "what the hell am I doing here?!". I tried the keep to the touring philosophy of pedalling lightly and get where you're going, but this was sometimes psychologically difficult when you're on your own, and feel like you should be going faster on a downhill route! 

While stopping in Baltinglass to refuel, I made some decisions of self preservation, keeping in mind that I'd have to cycle back the next day. I decided the take a shorter, flatter & less scenic route from Borris to Graig, saving about 2km, and instead of taking a route around Brandon Hill from Graig to my house I decided I would take the direct route, over the hill which would save me another 12km, all in all saving me nearly an hour of cycling. 

 From Baltinglass, the headwinds didn't seem so soul destroying. Maybe I was getting used to it, maybe I was just getting over my hangover or maybe I didn't mind as much as long as the sun was shining, but I felt more of a sense of progress as I steadily got through Rathvilly, Tullow, Myshall and onto Borris. Some really wonderful little descents between Myshall and Borris really gave me a 2nd wind and I got to Graig in good spirits, the 1st part of my plan to trade off scenery for a flatter shorter route felt justified, and I arrived in Graiguenamanagh in good spirits - in fairness it's generally hard not to - you can't approach Graig from any direction without coming down a wonderful descent - it's leaving Graig that's the difficult bit...... 

The second part of my timesaving plan did not appeal to me greatly. I had only went this way once before - on my 2nd ever cycle home to Kilkenny - and there is a nasty 1.5km long incline that I had to walk the majority of, and truly beaten, I barely made it the remaining 6km of descents and climbs home - This time I was feeding off my good vibes and stubbornly decided I was not walking my bike anywhere today! I felt I needed to do it, to make the remaining 6km of hills manageable by comparison. 

The approach to this climb is actually quite a steep descent but because of the headwinds it was hard to build up any momentum. In any case I was trying to preserve my legs and I was more focused on changing to the lower ring on the front chainwheel at the right time, as my gears were feeling a bit sticky. My momentum seemed to be dead and buried before I even got to the climb which was not a great start and the gears quickly came down - 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Uh oh, lightest gear, and legs were burning, a 3rd of the way there! At this stage my heart was about 150 and I was going a magnificent 7km/h up the hill. I thanked the cycle gods that there was no cars (or even pedestrians) going up the hill at the same as me to emphasise just how slow I was going for the effort I was putting into this. I persisted though and kept saying to myself, possibly out loud, "just get to the top, just get to the top" and finally after what seemed like a lifetime (probably about 20 minutes) I finally made it, a champion! I cycled the remainder in celebration - there were actually other difficult climbs on the way, but they didn't compare remotely to that and I had home in my sights. 

I got back at about 8pm, and quickly got changed and walked down to the village to get to the shop before it closed. Here I found out why I should not shop hungry, getting a cornetto, a lucozade, 2 frozen pizzas (!!), 2 litres of coke, a half pan of bread and a large jar of chocolate spread! I consumed all but the last two items and a litre of coke in a pretty gluttonous 2 hours - I wondered if I maybe kind of overdid it, but with that day behind me and knowing I had the return journey ahead i figured maybe not. My legs were sapped of energy and I wondered how the hell I was going to get back to Lucan the next day....

My Route