Shadowman HIM

Abhainn

Great work by the event organizers.
I did the half and travelled to it from Wicklow town morning of the race

Positives:
Coosan Lake is a great swim location
Bike course of 1 lap is very appealing and on good roads.
Run course is lovely and while not flat has some hills, on quite roads and you won’t get bored.
Split transition worked very well (for me anyway). No issue in finding my drop box and bike mounting area. The drop box which had been transported from T1 also contained my wet suit, goggles and cap
Aid stations on run well stocked especially one outside finish area entrance.
Nice finish.
Volunteers were very pleasant and helpful

Improvements:
Use one color buoys i.e. yellow and possibly add 2 extra on.
There seemed some confusion at briefing on swim route.
“Swim ensuring you keep all buoys on your right“. Even though the morning sun was blinding and while I sighted well I messed up at exit by swimming to yellow bout and not orange
The aid station supposed to be at 70km didn’t materialize. While not an issue for me those with only 1 water bottler expecting it to be there may have been in a little trouble
More marshals need at critical locations on bike i.e. last round about. There was a small sign at round about which I missed and went straight on, lost a couple of mins and a few places but nothing major.
Introduce distance signs on bike (every 10km) and run (2km maybe) would be worth considering
A couple more portaloos at T1

ciah

Enjoyable event.
Some suggestions to make it even better.
- Change the blue energy drink which was given out at the first aid station on bike. Am happy with most brands.
- Have a sign 100m before each of the bike aid stations, missed the second aid station.
- More marshalls on bike route and more prominent signage.
- On run Ritz Crackers or something salty at one of the aid stations.
- Reduce number of wasps at run aid stations.

Excellent long sleeve top. No probem with no medal, am much happier to get a good quality cycle top.
Great location at rugby club with bar, food, camp site within 3km etc.

August bank holiday means there is no need to dash home after event. Would be nice if they served bar food till later after event or perhaps a post race BBQ starting around 8pm should be an optional extra. Think a lot of people left as there was no compelling reason to stay around after race.

All in all very well done and looking forward to next year.

Nwm2

ciah wrote: »

- Change the blue energy drink which was given out at the first aid station on bike. Am happy with most brands.

Blue? It was red when I got there (did the half), and it was probably the worst sports drink I ever tasted.

Nwm2

I did the half, so below applies to that mainly.

Overall: very good event, would recommend. Weather made a huge difference, as in all triathlons, and the weather was perfect.



Positives:

- Swim: I had no issue with buoys. Perhaps another buoy on the way back. Lake was like a swimming pool. I missed the briefing as I was queuing for the loo, but a fellow triathlete explained to me where the buoys were and where to exit.
- Bike: great bike course. I'm sick of racing on crappy Irish roads, and most of this 91k was pretty good.
- Run: nice flat course, aid stations were great.

Improvements:
- Give us at least a few minutes warm up for the swim!
- Don't think there were any bike marshalls. I always had other riders in view, so someone else was making the decisions. I did see markings on the road sometimes - I presume they were there all the time
- Bike aid stations: this is the big area for improvement.

• Firstly there was not enough of them. There was only one real aid station on the half. Would be great if there was another one, but I guess as long as you know the story you can plan for it.
• That aid station was supposed to be at 40k. 40k went by with no sign of the aid station. Then there was a hand written sign saying 'aid station 500m', but the aid station was still a few km down the road, which lead to some sitting up and asking WTF with fellow triathletes. Did we miss it, should we turn back? Maybe this was covered at the briefing, but aid station was at 45k.
• The 40/45k aid station had this awful red-coloured isotonic mix, the worst I've ever tasted as I mentioned above. I understand the difficulties the RDs have here though.
• There was supposed to be another aid station at 80k (water only). If it was there then I missed it.

Run: Only negative is that the course was significantly short - almost 10%. This means everyone's time has an asterisk next to it.