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Quick Beat; Slow Feet
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Hi Macrani just catching up on logs now. Really well done on your first OD Tri and a fabulous result to boot! Everything was solid, 27 swim, 69 bike but the second half of the run was sub40 pace, something I'm struggling to get to :rolleyes: Put it this way, it was your first stint at the distance and you got within about 10 mins of Bambaata who is consistently top 10 and has 2 Tri wins under his belt. You are liftin'
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This tri was always going to be a good day out for me no matter what the time or the conditions as it was going to be done in my home county, just a stones throw from where my father was reared, and on a beach that I had come to many times as a child, pot of stew and all in tow!! Well, it was a very well run event and I had a great day overall.
So I arrived down to transition nice and early (~9:00, for race start of 11:00) and parked up, headed over for registration and met Bryan (mate from last week - he’s a member of Pulse). I also met another lad from our school (Anthony) who was doing his first tri. Bryan wasn’t staying around due to family circumstances, but I had a great auld chat with Anthony. He was full of questions relating to the transition and the whole tri affair. So I gave him any tips I could think of and helped him set up his transition. On the way into transition they were checking everyone’s brakes and helmets, which was a first, but proper order really. I met a few others from Clogherhead area and at the race briefing I met a bloke who I had been chatting to a few times in the NAC, who was then training for IM Nice. He did it in around 12hrs, IIRC.
I don’t have splits as when I went to get the slip of paper from the van at the end of the race I was informed that my chip wasn’t working and that he had to manually record my finish time.
Swim
The swim course was 3 sides of a rectangle, so it started about 3 or 400 m south of transition. The tide had turned and was starting to recede so they were anxious to get the first wave in to the water. On walking down towards the start people were going into the water to acclimatise so I did the same. There were a lot of rocks in this section and I ended up standing on one with full force which hurt the arch of my foot. I didn’t think it was to bad at the time but it resurfaced with a vengeance on the run. (I don’t know whether I should write the next bit, but sure what the hell). I had a call of nature on the way to the start so I didn’t want that affecting me so I went in the wetsuit in the water, (no 1 obviously - I’ve read that thread!). It was a beach start so on the count of three we were off and running through the water into knee height, where I started to dolphin dive to get going and after a while I was swimming. I had decided again to go out wide, which I did. Now I was a bit too wide and I managed to get back in closer at the first buoy. Having turned the buoy, there was a fair northerly wind, which created a bit of a choppy wave and also the tide seemed to be pushing against us. I found the next stretch very difficult in those conditions, which wasn’t helped by my p!ss poor sighting. It was very bad sighting , I’ld say I was about 20 or 30m away from the main bunch! I ended up taking a fair few mouthfuls of water and breast stroked for split seconds twice or three times to get my bearings. I need more OW swims, simple as. After what felt like an absolute age I turned the buoy and was dolphin diving up to the beach before I knew it. I glanced at the watch which read 18:xx. I had started it early so I’ld say an 18min swim - 2:24/100m.
T1 Went fairly well. The usual short struggle to get the wetsuit legs over the heel.
Bike
The bike went fairly well for me. I nearly lost it shortly after the start rounding a left hand bend which was bendier than I thought it was; luckily I managed to keep it on the road without going into the grass verge. The surface was not great in spots but overall was ok ish. There were a few little drags but no real serious hills. On turning at the last crossroad the north wind hit us and it was a struggle for the next few km up to transition. I passed a few more here. I had been passed by a couple also during the bike course.
T2 I got my feet out of the shoes and did my dismount into a run as usual. But I forgot that my spot was so close to the dismount line and I was looking all around in front of me for my bike spot, and then copped on to look at the numbers, which I did and discovered that I was about 20 places to far up. So that delayed the T2 by a few seconds. Then I had the usual crampy calves as I bent down to put on my runners. 1 quick stretch on 1 leg and I was away.
Run
As soon as I started running I was hit with the pain in the arch of my right foot, from where I had stood on the rock earlier. I glanced at my watch when I crossed the timing mat and it read 56:xx. So I knew that my planned for 1:10 time was gone, but I continued on and assessed how my foot was feeling. It didn’t seem like I was going to do any real damage from running on it so I continued, trying not to think about the pain but aware of it in case it did cause a long term injury. Anyway, I picked off the few people fairly soon, including one or two who had passed me on the bike. Then it was a matter of picking of another 1 or 2 slowly as I ran up the gentle incline on the out and back course. The incline turned into more of a climb as we neared the turnaround, where I took on some welcome and much needed water. Running down the hill felt good and I passed 1 or 2 more. There was a few a good bit ahead of me with about 1.5km to go but I never caught up with them enough to challenge them with a sprint finish. So about 400m or so from the end I really upped the pace and when I turned the corner (as the bloke on the PA called out my name, as he did for each competitor (nice touch) I sprinted the last 100m or so across the finish line. I was happy to see that the time read 1:14:xx.
Had some sandwiches and coffee then while chatting to the IM from the NAC and a workmate who is a local to Clogherhead. We went over to the massage tent before any queue had formed and I had a lovely massage except for where she nearly reduced me to tears when she worked on the arch of my foot. They were also selling crepes so i had to buy one or two seen as they were for charity, nom nom.
Final time was 1:14:15 which was good enough for 41st O/A out of a field of 300+. The age groups were 20 - 29, 30 - 39 etc, so I finished well down on the AG.
The run was not 5km (more like 4.6 or 4.7km). As my chip was broke I only had a finish time and no splits, but from my watch times the numbers are approx. as so:
Swim 18:00 (2:24/100m), T1 1:30, Bike 35:45 (33.6kph av), T2 1:00, Run 18:00 for 4.6km (3:55/km or 6:18/ml).
I was planning on a better swim so that I could PB on my last sprint of the year, but sure that’s the way the cookie crumbles! A great day was had, and as I drove into Drogheda on the back road from Clogherhead I was reminded of the numerous times my brothers and I cycled out this road on a summers evening, with the fishing rods taped to the bar of the bikes, to head to the pier to catch some mackerel.0 -
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