Tri Athy review

Andrewf20

What did folks think of the big day?

Swim went very well for me, although transition was a disaster as I could get my tight t shirt onto my wet back.

My cycle started a disaster after I couldnt get the chain onto the big ring at the start. Ended up having to get off the bike, and man handle it into place, resulting in very oily hands. The gears just didnt work that time, despite never giving me issues before hand!

I found the run gruelling in the heat.

Overall, I thought the organisation was brilliant, although more toilets in the transition area at the start would have been nice, perhaps just 1 more. Also, I found it wasnt clear where eactly the u turn point was in the village for the 2nd loop of the cycle. I ended up going too far, right back to the transition area pretty much. The marshals were waving me on, probably passed the point over doing the U turn, perhaps assuming I was finishing the cycle. Ho well.

Excellent day. Look forward to doing it next year. Now for some R&R.

kevin7

Super day! My first tri - I did the sprint. Great organisation - I thought everything went like clockwork, and with such a big field that really surprised me. The weather was glorious, and with all the family/friends milling around the town it was a realy good festival feeling. Couldn't ask for better!

Swim : I enjoyed the experience of doing the river swim : very pleasant (if you werent in a race!). Nice cool water on a hot day. I was really afraid the cold water would be a problem but it turned out to be beautiful!
I definitely overdid the first quarter of the swim which made the next section a big struggle. Proibably a beginner's mistake fuelled by adrenaline. I was exshausted getting out, which was also a surprise cos I usually wouldn't be after doing that distance in the pool. My time was, I think, around 13 mins, and I think this was around the middle/back-middle of the pack. Very hard to tell where you are with all the activity. I'll find out when I see the results on the website.


Happy with my transition and very happy with my cycle. I borrowed a high-end bike from a buddy, and I reckon it must have been responsible for what seemed like great speed. I was overtaking most of the time, but sure, I dont know if I was overtaking better swimmers from my "wave", or just the tiring Olympic distance cyclists. I think my watch read 52 mins when I started the run, which makes it a 39 min cycle, including transition.
Good smooth road for cycling, and closed to traffic, so no complaints there.

Seemed like another smooth transition, ran off down to the riverbank feeling kinda good, but straight away realised I was completely out of breath, and just had to stick with a slow joggin pace for about 1km. All the guys and girls I had overtaken on the bike seemed go past me at this stage! After that, felt much better and got a steady rhythm going in the run and started to pass some people again. It was about 60/40 from there in for passing/being passed, so this made me feel good. With a couple of km to go, I was so glad it was just a sprint distance! When I realised the finishing line was less than 1 km away, I tried to go for the max, which worked for a while, buit then the line turned out to be a good bit further off, and the last few hundred metres were nasty!

Finished in a time of 1:19. I'm very happy with this overall, most of the time I was enjoying myself. I had no target for time, so at least I now have something to aim at!

Final word : just ate the Magnetti's pasta which was being given out in the recovery zone. Absolutely georgous.....I'll be looking out for them in future!

hardCopy

Great day! Couldn't believe the weather. I need to concentrate more on the old transitions, picked up my running shoes in T1 when I already had my bike shoes on the pedals, forgot about the clips again in T2 and had to clip out at the last second and run around transition in my bike shoes.

I did the sprint. Finished the swim in 10:10, 37 for the bike, didn't get run split but I was about 26 minutes by my watch.

Best teeshirt I've gotten at a race too!

dalkener

Done the sprint today, wave 9. My first triathlon but had done a few duathlons. Was quite nervous about the swim after seeing at least one guy being picked up by a canoe and several doing backstroke and breaststroke.

Have to say though, I loved the swim and would have loved to have done 1.5k, water was lovely and nowhere near as cold as I've experienced at the 40foot or Connemara. Brilliant day.

My cycle went great and run also. Looking forward to Athlone:)

Bambaata

Great day for it. I was in wave 9 also. Water was nice and warm in comparison to others I've done. Got in a bad position in the swim though and was sandwiched for a while between two with one right ahead and one behind so it slowed me a bit. Transition was a nightmare for me. Made the terrible mistake of not drying my feet enough which meant i struggled for ages getting my socks on!! Was about to do it bare foot but have some bad past experiences with that so i persisted until i got them half on!

Cycle was great. By the bike clock it was 35/36 mins. lost a minute on it too. was getting a good speed and next thing i hit something with the front wheel and immediately had a hissing noise. stopped thinking id a flat and had about 20 people id just passed pass me!! Very frustrating. I couldn't find anything wrong so battled on and at about 14km a sticker suddenly flew off the wheel!! Was relieved it wasn't a puncture but very annoyed losing the time.

The run was fine. Although the river bank was like a sauna with little breeze i managed to get a good pace. Had very few pass me and passed plenty. Actually picked up the pace for the 2nd half of it. Had plenty left in the tank by the end so I'll do the Olympic next yr (but will need to get the swim sorted a little first)

I didn't hang around to queue for my time so I'm anxiously waiting on the results to be put up. How long did it take them to go up on the site last yr does anyone know?

One thing though, i don't like having to do "laps" of an already covered section. I almost skipped one of the run laps by accident! I'm sure others had similar experiences of that

Bambaata

Results are up now:
Olympic - http://triathy.com/TriAthyOlympic.xls
Sprint - http://triathy.com/TriAthySprint.xls

Finished in 01:15:01 which im happy enough with. That is 80th overall. Will be looking to improve a lot next time too. Spent way too long in transition bcause of my stupid mistake and then getting off the bike lost further time so looking forward to taking it on again next yr

HardyEustace

Enjoyable race. Organisation was absolutely brilliant. It really was superb.

I thought that the you tube clips of the swim/cycle/run sections were a great idea.

Things that would improve it.
T-shirts, while nice were WAY too big. I'd to give mine away. They were definitely "men" sizes.
More signs for GAA club as you drove into the town itself would've been great.
Did anyone else think that last km on the sprint seemed to go on FOREVER. I really can't believe it was only 1km.
More toilets in transition.
No water at the end. This was a biggie. I was in WAVE 10 and by the time I finished there was no water anywhere. On a hot day, this was really awful.

Overall a great race though and will definitely be back next year to do the olympic.

Andrewf20

Dont forget your photos at actionphoto.net! Just found 1 pic on the website of me on my mountain bike, looking a little angry as the pic was taken soon after the my derailler problems.

I finished 444th out of 467 people on the olympic triathalon. Overall Im very happy none the less.

Bambaata

they didnt get a snap of me unfortunately. wud have been nice to have one to add to the diary

gabgab

Did it and thought it was great fun, but niggly injuries leading up to it and that just frustrated me, will do the greystones one in August though, bit of craic and keeps you fit :D

AndrewMc

Testing out a new lens, I took quite a few photos of the day, mostly of the earlier waves:
http://andrewmccarthy.ie/TriAthy_2008/

I haven't edited or deleted any apart from duplicates and the really bad ones where I can't make anything out. If you don't see yourself/friends in these, I've nothing else to show I can't guarantee how long these will be up for, a few months maybe. Copy whatever you want to keep.

Enjoy!

Andrewf20

Great stuff Andrew. Cheers. Cant look at the shots on the triathy site as I seem to need some whopper browser.