Journey South

Journey South

I’m going to try and do a “race” report on each of the triathlons I do this year, partly to document how I do and partly to give you info on the event should you wish to try it for yourself.

For my first triathlon of the year I opted for the PortLoaise Try-Athlon organised by the Trilogy triathlon club. I basically picked this one because the date suited and I did my first triathlon there last August. Also I wanted to do one more as a 32 year old since I turned 33 today. The 170Mi journey down meant I needed to stay overnight in a hotel the night before but I enjoyed spending part of my evening flitting between the swimming pool and jacuzzi.

Organisation / Route

Trilogy opened the registration the night before which allowed me to find the leisure centre and get registration out of the way, letting me concentrate on the event and setting up my transition area on race day.

With 200 competitors for a pool based swim they needed to arrange 8 waves, with mine being the first to head out. This had the obvious problems with so many people but we started just after the planned time and my lane worked quite well. As for the groupings there’s wasn’t a huge difference in our swim speeds, therefore I was only overtaken twice and only had to over take twice so no one was particularity hindered, unlike one of the triathlons last year when I had to over take a guy 10 times in 20 laps. The counters were very clear and aided the overtaking process.

Transition Area

Transition Area

The transition area had plenty of space and operated on a first come first serve basis meaning I was able to pick an easy to remember spot to set up my bike. The pool exit was only a few meters from the transition area but the transition of the bike was about 300meters. They had plenty of mats down so running in your bare feet was comfortable.

The bike ride was well marshaled. It was a single loop which included some country roads with twist and turns as it rolled up and down some small hills. Not overly tough but not perfectly flat either.

The run was also well marshaled with some water handed to you at the half way stage. It was an out and in course that climbed on the way out leaving a comfortable downhill run in before a lap of the astroturf pitches round to the finish line.

The race was a sprint 750m swim, 19Km cycle and 5Km run.

Competitors
The people involved ranged from total beginners -> vets and as it was also the event for an inter-varsity competition there were lots of university Triathlon club competitors there. I was talking to some the QUB guys, they were very friendly and finished around 1h 10m. The winning time was 1:00:44 and no surprise it was one of the inter-varsity competitors.

Supporters

There was plenty of buzz around the pool but outside there wasn’t as many people, however I was in the first wave and wave 3 was still in the pool as I finished so maybe this picked up later on. The marshals all offered support as we passed and as always with triathlons the other more experienced and fitter competitors were full of encouragement.

Freebies

You get a nice running shirt.

My Race

The lead up to the event wasn’t great with the previous two weeks hindered by injury, bad weather and stupidly timed training change. 1) the week before the week preceeding the triathlon I did circuits in work and could hardly more for 4 days lol, 2) Very bad weather meant I didn’t get out on the bike that week either, 3) I was in a road race the Monday before the triathlon and my right calf went again about 2.5Km in, I ran another 2.5Km on it and stopped due to the pain. After a week of ice and rest the pain it had eased but was still sore on the morning of the Triathlon. Anyway excuses over….

Not looking my best

Not looking my best (photo from http://www.trilaois.ie/Photos.html)

SWIM – 14:35 (52nd)
The swim went great I beat my PB by 30sec to finish it in 14m 5s , with the run to transition taking this to 14:25.

T1 – 1:09
This went well, since all I had to do was put on my t-shirt, gasses and helmet (the shoes were on the bike). However the t-shirt got stuck on my back and I put my arm through the neck at the start.

Cycle – 43:06 (111th)
My calves were sore when I tried to push too hard and on any other day this would have been  faster, so I’m a bit disappointing at this. The positive I can take is that getting into and out of my shoes on the bike worked well, even though I’d only practised it a sum total of two times. The run from the dismount to the transition area hurt really bad and I really did think about giving up here but just remembered Mark’s effort last year after he put his back out before the Triathlon and still finished (trying to forget that he’s still having problems) and Lance’s quote about failure. I averaged 16.7mph on the Garmin but definitly was holding back.

Starting run in some pain (photo from http://www.trilaois.ie/Photos.html)

T2 – 47sec
I was really limping through T2 so not the fastest. Also I had take off an extra shirt i had put on for the cycle but in hindsight I would have been fine without this.

Run – 30:33 (157th)
I forced myself through the run by taking small steps. It was sore and my time was about 5-6mins down on what it should have been.

Over all – 1:29:58 (116th)
My target was 1h 30m so I guess I should be happy I hit it, especially considering the injury but I’m really feeling the best I’ve done in every other way so it could have been much quicker.

It was a great day, great event and hopefully something to build on over the summer. Good one to use for your first triathlon or if like me you’ve only done a couple.