Joey Hannan

kingQuez

Hi Folks,

There isn't a lot of info on the website for the Joey Hannan tri yet; from what I gathered online it's based out of the UL pool?

Anyone any recommendations for accommodation the night before? Haven't been in Limerick since I was a kid so no familiarity with the area--cheers!

Bungy Girl

Hi, I got a B&B in Castletroy 5 mins from UL on this site

http://www.ireland-bnb.net/

Hope that helps.

Bambaata

So anyone else at this on Sunday? I went down early Saturday. Was glad i did as MCOS brought me along to the Arena to check out the pool and did a light 20 - 30 bike/run to loosen out.

So Sunday morning up nice and early. MCOS, the great host, had nice porridge by the ready (i love my porridge!!). I had setup in transition with 1/2 sports drink 1/2 water in the aero-bottle and 1 isogel strapped to the bike. I haven't used the Isogels before but i like the reviews ive read so i was eager to try one out in a race. I planned on using it with about 10 mins to go on the bike. Set up everything and went and had brekkie #2

Swim went well. I went out 6th of 12 in our lane and hung onto the guy in front for the entire swim. It went very well and felt like a warmup. To 500m i barely kicked. Drafting really has an impact! I hung to his feet and must have touched them 50 times. I told him beforehand that if i wanted to go through he'd know (as in id grab his ankle). We passed out a few guys and swam around 1 mid-lane. I wasn't letting his feet go and was glad to post a 25:50 swim.

T1 went fine and out i went on the bike. Coming out of T1 i saw MCOS on the ground and passed him as he got going again. The out section of the bike went well. I made up huge ground on some. I must have passed 20 or so and was passed by 1 (who had the best bike split). I never pushed the bike as i was keeping enough to have a good run. That said my heartrate was probably a lot lower than it could have been. It averaged 147 and my GPS clocked it as 37.55km. About 10km into the bike my isogel decided to part ways! I obviously hadn't it taped tight enough. I was looking forward to trying it and was going to buy a large box had it been ok so i never did get to test it. The send half was quite lonely! It took til the last 5km that i got up to anyone else. I reigned in two other guys who seemed to be drafting for quite a while. As one would pass the guy going behind was following him out into the middle of the road and getting right up his wheel. I gave them a shout to cop on as i passed them but who knows if they stopped. I took it easy in the last 2km to steady the legs and had them pass me again but i didn't mind. Finished the bike in 1:00:29 (average speed 37.2km/hr)

In T2 i had the 310XT to get off the bars but id left it on the bike in such a way that id say it only took 3 seconds from my T2 time. Passed 1 or 2 in T2 and out onto the run.

I felt great on the run. At Nenagh two weeks ago i felt like i was out on my feet the whole 5.4km but at Joey i felt very comfortable. I was glad i took the watch as all i looked to do was hold the lap pace under 4:00/km. The run was a two lap, quite flat course with only a slight incline to the turnaround/finish. I passed a few and kept nice pace. At about 3km a guy caught me who finished just ahead at Nenagh and i was not going to let him go,. I upped my pace and slotted in behind him, He then seemed to star to slow up, possibly he had tried to burn me off but then another Limerick Tri athlete caught us. I then tucked in behind him. I knew i was never gong to hold onto him for the duration but i was happy to stick with him until the 5.5km mark. In doing so we lost the other guy. For the rest of the run i just focused on maintaining a 3:50/3:55 pace. Kerry Spearing was not too far behind either so that pushed me to stay ahead. Id nobody to sprint against unfortunately so just cruised home to a 37:14 run. The 310XT says it was 9.75km but i was delighted to average 3:48/km for the distance. I haven't yet run a 10km nor 5km road race so i don't really know where im at so i was very pleased with that. I didn't kill myself either and the HR averaged 150 for that leg.

All in all i was very pleased with the race. I placed 12th overall in 02:05:42. I haven't done many Olympics to date so i was delighted to feel strong right to the end. That was the aim for the race too so mission accomplished. I know had i pushed myself i could have taken some time from that but it wasn't a priority race and i had a cycle yesterday planned which i didn't want to jeopardise. Cycle went great Was over in Galway so i scoped out Moycullen to Maam Cross which i believe is part of the 70.3 bike route if it does go ahead next year.

toomuchdetail

Good days work Bambaata , good reason to be pleased . Hope to pencil this in next year as it looks to be a great race...even for the slower guys like myself.

EC1000

Great report Bambaata. Was down myself and considered this my first proper triathlon (did one last year but was only learning how to swim properly and struggled badly just to complete).

I entered the tri a tri and put down a time of 10 mins for the 500m swim. Turns out that I was being conservative as my watch was bang on 10 mins getting out of the pool despite having to breast stroke a couple of lengths due to being held up - I was afraid to pass mid lane as they were so specific about this in the briefing but in hindsight, lots of people seem to have gotten away with it...! Anyhow, got through the bike and run fairly comfortably and managed to scrape inside the top 30 overall so was v happy with that.

Onwards and upwards.........

Huff n Puff

I gave this triathlon a go as well. As a former member of the Limerick club this race is always one I look forward to. I did prefer it when it was only a sprint distance though; doing an Olympic distance triathlon so early in the season doesn't sit right with me for some reason.The chance to get one over the Limerick tri boys is as good a reason as any to do it.

I had felt good all week coming up to this event. Training was going grand and I was making some steady progress. It is hard to tell how you will go so early in the season so I was hoping more than expecting a decent result. As long as I had a solid race without any mishaps then I would feel grand about it no matter where I came.

Race Report

Transition: I always spend an ungodly amount of time deciding the best position to rack my bike. I know it doesn't save much time but I feel it is more psychological than anything. I went with racking it closer to the swim exit so that I would have less distance to travel in my bare feet on the second transition.It was less crowded down there as well and I could rest my teeny weeny bike illegally against the vertical crowd barrier! (when racked the front wheel doesn't hit the ground and in windy conditions I find my bike rocks a lot and the saddle sometimes comes loose). In the end my transitions went well and saved me some time.

Swim: I swim in the 50m pool with the Limerick triathlon crowd so I was used to the pool and I was hoping to put in a time between 22:00 mins and 22:30. When our lane started getting filled with extra triathletes I was less hopeful. The swim itself was fairly chaotic with a big difference in racing standards. It was hard to find any rhythm and in the end I was just glad to get out (roll on the openwater swims!). I am pretty sure that myself and 4-5 other people in the lane did 2 lengths too little but we were told to get out anyway. 1 or 2 of us started swimming another 2 lengths but were dragged back!

Bike: After a decent transiton I wanted to put the head down and put some early distance into my main competitors but my legs both started cramping immediately. I couldn't sit down and pedal and spent the first half mile stretching my legs, and cycling out of the saddle. Eventually the cramps cleared and I put in a solid bike time after that. After hearing about all the technical difficulties some people had I feel lucky that cramps were the only bad thing that happened to me on the bike. The bike route itself was pretty flat and the ditches seemed to keep most of the wind at bay, although I did feel the disc being caught a few times. The second transition went well too so I was happy with that. So far so good.

Run: My previous history at running a fast 10km off the bike in Olympic distance triathlons had been woeful so I was expecting more of the same. But for the first time I can remember I didn't get any cramps or stitches on the run and was able to run freely from start to finish. I had a target in Brian Jenkins up the road whom I was targeting. I felt like I could reel him in and was confident that I could do it on the second lap. But Brian is one tough lad and he held me off easily in the end. My final run time was just under the 36 min mark. Shortly after this both legs seized up and I have been hobbling around since!

All in all I was happy with 4th place. I could of predicted that at the start once I knew Kevin Keane and Colm Turner wouldn't be there. It gets fairly predictable up top after a while. You can be pretty sure your main rivals are training just as hard if not harder than you, so taking any scalp at all would involve a lot of hard training and serious improvements.

Well done to the Limerick triathlon club for putting on another well organised and enjoyable race, and well done to everyone who took part. It would be far easier to stay at home and snooze on the couch!