“Aul’ bull says to young bull…” (Photo copyright James Shelley/TI Media)
[Report by PJ Dunne]
The sunny shores of Lough Ennell was the location of the last Irish round of Bill & Ted’s not so bogus journey for 2012.
The Caroline Kearney olympic tri is famous on the circuit for its great atmosphere and organisation.
We were not disappointed. Well done to Midlands tri club.
In the car on the way up Frank amazed me with his knowledge of the race manual (he’s not known for reading them). Maybe the 3 hrs plus Barry & himself spent putting the Tri 795 manual together taught him. Unfortunately Frank and myself were in different start waves so would have to race our own races.
The Swim
The swim out to the first buoy was very choppy with the usual kicking and boxing.
Frank had his now customary tour of the lake and exited the swim in 39 mins and was delighted to not get the ” poor ba*tard claps” as he says himself.
I felt I swam well but was disappointed to see 34 mins on the watch as I entered t1.
Talking to people afterwards and Frank’s watch confirmed it, the swim was closer to 1,700 m.
The Bike
The 2 lap, 42 km bike route is undualting to say the least and the wind blowing never seemed to favour us.
Frank put in another legendary bike spilt coming home in 1hr 9mins 33sec. Avg speed 36.2kmph!
I was happy enough to knock 1min 25sec off last year’s time finishing in 1hr 14 mins 6sec Avg 34 kmph
The Run
The flat 9.8km run is, on paper, “handy” but with the day hotting up and the heat taking its toll, it was anything but handy.
It was 50/50 road and trail surface. With about 6 km done I was starting to wane but saw Frank coming towards me and my focus soon came back, he shouted some words of encouragement so I must have looked bad He told me later that he was in the hurt locker also, maybe the summer league 10km finale was still in our legs.
Despite that we both put in solid runs of 46.02 and 44.36.
Finishing in 113th place was Frank in a time of 2hrs 37mins and 29sec
And myself in 100th place in 2hrs 34mins 29sec.
As I’m writing this I have just discovered I had the quickest T2 of the day, 2 seconds quicker than the next person Trevor Conroy.
It was nice to finish the Irish season the same as I started on a lovely course and lovely weather.
Well done to Frank on his huge improvements this year most notably on the bike but also his swim and run.
Our road trips have made this year’s tri season the best craic ever despite what Frank says .
Roll on next year, hopefully we’ll need a minibus for the road trips.
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