PortLaoise Try-Athlon 2010

Right this minute as this post publishes itself I’m in the pool at PortLaoise Leisure Centre about to start the first of a number of triathlons I’m taking part in this year.

PortLaoise Try-Athlon 2010

Hopefully my sore leg from Monday’s running race has recovered by now and I’m about to set a sub 1h 30min time in this standard Sprint Triathlon (750m swim, 20Km cycle & 5Km run).

Last night I stayed in The Killeshin and hopefully after my pasta dinner I will have enjoyed a light swim, a sit in the sauna and jacuzzi before catching an early night.

This is the first Triathlon I’ll be doing using clip in pedals, this requires me to jump on the bike in my bare feet and pedal with my feet on to of the shoes until I reach a decent speed and safe area to slip my feet into the shoes and fasten the Velcro strap. Likewise at the end I need to slip my feet out on the approach to the transition area, pedal with my feet on top of the shoes and smoothly step of the bike when I enter the transition area. Wish me luck with that!!

The Triathlon has 8 waves, which basically means there are 8 different starts to the race. They have grouped people together with others who will complete the swim in the same time and I’m in the middle bracket (12-15minutes) as I will hopefully finish the 750m swim in 14m 40sec. If each wave takes between 15-20 mins this means that I could be finishing before some of the other have started, which will be a little weird.

The last time I did a race in PortLaoise I came 27th of 37 males, so here’s hoping I’m a little higher up the table here. There’s well over 100 males and about 1/3 of them are racing as part of the National Intervarsities Triathlon 2010 series. So lot of very fit 22 year olds to make me look bad. Unfortunately despite 8 months of (light) training since the last time I was here I’m the same weight but April, May, June are the months I best lose it.