Well I�ve dodged putting up a race report so far this year so �

It approached quicker than I had imagined� it was the 9th of September and I was putting the bikes on the car to head down to Kenmare. My plans of getting some warm weather training in Portugal the week before had disappeared when the first bottle of wine was opened on arrival. Such discipline!

I teamed up with Conor in the car for some company going down which was a good thing given the drive took nearly 7 hrs!! Conor filled me in on another way he�d found how not to finish a race� a timely blow-out in the Dublin City Tri!�

You�ve just got to love Friday afternoon traffic in Ireland and those idiots who decided 10 or 15 yrs ago to put a set of lights in Johnstown! As we were driving down the harsh reality came to light� Id never swam that far, cycled that far or run that far� and now I was going to do all three � one after another� it would be a long day!

Registration went smoothly� no blips� this would be a piece of cake� even got a couple of free bars from one of the stands and two spanking new drinks containers. Bring it on!

A good friend has a house down in Caherdaniel so we headed out there after registration to get �carbed� up with heaps of pasta and Turkey and off for some quick shut-eye before the games began.

5:30 am came pretty quickly. Had a quick bowl of porridge a couple of delicious carb bars and swished them all down with some tasty High 5 carb drink, packed the car and we were on our way.

Crap!� it was 7 am and we still hadn�t arrived at the start� it was going to have to be a quick preparation kick off was scheduled for 7:45. Got all the bikes out put the wheels on, well apart from Eoin who it had turned out had left his wheel back in Caherdaniel. This was going to be a really long day! Eoin managed to sequester a wheel with the help of a friendly marshal and a loudhaler! The bikes were ready

A voice shouted on the loudhaler � � Transition is closing��

WHAT? Legged it down to transition fully clothed, a bit shocked that all the other athletes were all neoprened up already. Met Peter Mills at transition who squeezed over his bike to give me a bit of space. Back to the car to put on the race number and get togged out

Once again the loudhaler �� 15 mins to race start� �

It was going to be tight� Got tri suit on� then the bottom of the wetstuit� while a bystander was zipping me up the back I heard �they�re off�! B****X

Spotted Eoin entering the fray a bit late as well. It was going to be a crowded swim.

The water was beautiful and flat� well at least that�s what it must have been like for the guys up the front! I quickly put hat on and goggles and ran down the pier and latched onto the end of the field.

The swim course was a 1.2mile swim out around three buoys anticlockwise and back to the pier. I tried to flank the group on the right going out to clear water with the intention of hooking up with some faster swimmers around the 1st boy if I managed to catch them. Everything was going to plan apart from my goggles becoming so foggy I nearly swam into a canoeist who kindly pointed me back in the right direction!

After the first buoy I got into a better rhythm and managed to pick off a good few swimmers while keeping a smooth stroke and breathing well� this wasn�t so bad after all! The pier came pretty quickly then and it was great hearing all the people on the pier cheering from a distance as I swam in.

Out of the water in 33 mins which wasn�t too bad.

T1 could have been better though, I soon realised I had pinned the race number onto my tri suit but had no pockets on the tri suit to carry food for the bike so I had to get one of the marshals to unpin the number and then put it on the training top and off we went.

The cycle was going well enough, I kept saying to myself 1) refuel and 2) this is not a race�. Just concentrate on finishing

The first leg of the cycle was a straight out and back to Kenmare bridge 3.5 miles back then a loop around and off on the real part of the cycle� as I was starting off again after the turn I heard a familiar voice � �A for f*ck sake � a f*****g puncture�� It was none other than Dave Adams � not the greatest start to his cycle!

The first bit of the cycle was a gradual climb and then down towards Lauragh where the real fun and games began. While cycling up a gradual part of the climb I had cycled up behind someone to overtake him but there wasn�t too much room in front of him so I knew id have to do a big enough overtaking manoeuvre to take two bikes, the draft marshal on the bike pulled up beside me thus blocking my obvious overtaking route and I can only guess that they reckoned I was drafting there as I saw a 6 minute penalty beside my name on the board (not that 6 mins has any relevancy down around the 6 hr mark!).

If there is one thing I advise anyone doing a tough course, is to make sure you know what is ahead of you at what point on the cycle! There was a long climb before the Healy pass started and not having looked at the detailed race map I thought this was the Caha Pass... and that the Healy pass was just after it!

The �Caha pass� or what I thought was the caha pass went smoothly and I started overtaking a good few people� When I got to the top of it I said to myself � one down, one to go��This was in fact as I found out later merely an 11 mile category 2 climb!

The Healy pass was tough but manageably with negligible winds. Conor went past me half way up the pass and we had a quick chat� both of us actually thought this was the last big climb of the race!. Conor went on ahead I shouted some encouragement at him and he shouted back �yeh going well � no crashes yet!�.

Fair play to the Belpark guys who were dressed up in masks jumping around shouting encouragement to everyone for the last tough bit of the Healy pass.

The descent from the Healy pass was long windy and pretty technical; I think my brakes took a fair grinding as everyone I�d passed on the way up went flying by me! I think ill have to practice my descents!.

At the bottom of the Healy pass the road flattened and I noticed a couple of cars on the side of the road and some people shouting out phone numbers to call. One guy was being helped around by two bystanders, he was holding his head, it was Conor! Not again! I slowed down but there seemed to be loads of people there and the situation was under control.

I had decided to eat a power bar or banana every 10k on the bike and keep sipping away at the carb drinks and I was feeling ok nutrition wise but my legs started feeling like they were going to cramp. It only read 50k on the odometer and I was already goosed. This wasn�t good. I kept plodding on but my legs were getting weaker and I seemed to be covering no distance� I hit a big stretch of road and I looked behind me, nobody there, and I couldn�t see anyone in front of me. Had I gone the right way?? Am I last? It was getting lonely. So I chowed done some more power bars.

A couple of miles up the road there were some soldiers on the side of the road handing out water bottles, I must be on the right road after all! And then came the unexpected� up and up and up � it was a relentless climb� why didn�t anyone tell me about this climb. I shouted to another cyclist �hey they didn�t have this climb on the site?� he laughed, I think he thought I was joking. The Caha pass as I was to find out later was a long and windy 6 mile Category 1 climb and seemed never to end. When I got to the top and went through the tunnels I was spent, the downhill would be recovery time and a chance for all the people behind me to overtake me! The last 15 k of the cycle or so was pretty flat so I got some energy back in the legs and started to fuel up with carb bars and bananas as I suddenly realised I had a half marathon to run!!

For the last 10 k of the cycle I had a private race with one Arch Nemesis in an orange top, he had just overtaken me and I was starting to feel good, I decided I was going to overtake him, and so we spent the next 20 mins overtaking each other about 4 times, eventually losing out on the last 1k. Its funny how the small things keep you going!

Into transition I went and I had no idea how my legs would feel after a 90k cycle, the reality? They didn�t feel great! It felt like I had two planks of wood attached to my hips and I was supposed to run a half marathon with these?? I got a little bit of stretching done in transition and wolfed down a banana.

The run started well, a lovely flat bit along the road we cycled on for about 1.5k until some marshals waved me to the right, then the little road went up, and up, and up, and up� I passed the 1 mile marker and asked the marshal where the next foodstation was. I mile up the road was the reply, that�s not too far I thought until I still hadn�t got there after 10 mins! They were handing out little bottles of water and small bottles of �gel�, I grabbed both. The gel tasted like a mixture of tippex, sugar and glue but I reckoned anything that tasted this bad had to be good for me so I continued sipping at that with gulps of water to wash it down.

The run was the toughest run I have ever run, I started to spot a few familiar faces, Paula passed a few times smiling away� she seemed to be enjoying it. As I was shuffling up the hill Eoin was coming down a good 4 miles ahead.
The top of the hill was the most gruesome hill I have seen, it was actually faster to walk up it than run it! As if the race organisers thought that we wouldn�t be wrecked enough after the swim and cycle the decided to put in this piece of torture, sort of like the icing on the cake! The rest of the run was a bit of a blur, I shuffled along a people came racing by me! I spotted Dave Adams tearing past me at a rate of knots (he clocked 1:33 for the run, v impressive). I thought it would never end but kept on drinking water and kept sipping the devils carb gel. When I saw the 10-mile marker on the ground I knew I would make it and all of a sudden my stride lengthened � Eureka! I could run again! When I hit the 12 m marker I felt like Seb Coe, I even managed to overtake 5 or 6 people on the road in!

I finished absolutely wrecked tired promising I�d never do the race again!

Below are all the Pulse times:




Place Overall NAME Swim Cycle Run Overall penalty Adjusted
53 eoin MC DONALD 00:29:07 03:10:04 01:47:21 05:29:11 5:29:11
78 David ADAMS 00:34:42 03:29:32 01:33:37 05:41:41 5:41:41
119 oran MURPHY 00:33:29 03:25:38 01:48:11 05:51:56 0:06:00 5:57:56
127 Robin MOONEY 00:40:48 03:13:13 02:06:19 06:02:51 6:02:51
159 Paula MC FEELEY 00:35:24 03:54:43 01:54:11 06:27:34 6:27:34
176 Mark KELLY 00:32:02 03:35:44 02:18:15 06:34:10 6:34:10
177 derek BOYCE 00:37:09 03:36:33 02:13:33 06:34:10 6:34:10
205 Alison KANE 00:35:06 03:54:40 02:25:03 06:58:08 6:58:08
228 Rob CUMMINS 00:41:26 03:18:21 03:37:55 07:42:14 7:42:14
conor CLANCY 00:36:04 0:00:00


Well done to everyone who finished the race. Fair play to Rob who picked up an injury during the cycle and still went on to complete the run� great guts, although I�d say his legs are feeling it now.

Conor sat out most of the afternoon in Bantry hospital contemplating his road racing techniques! A couple of bruises and cuts, concussion and some mild amnesia was all he had to show for his efforts! As it turned out his helmet smashed completely on impact, god bless helmets.

Bring on next year!