Ironman 70.3 Ireland – Relay

‘In like Flynn’, ‘The Peoples front of Judea’ and many other names (mostly inappropriate for my own immature amusement) were suggested for our team relay.  A team which was randomly born on the base2race facebook page via the ‘like button’ at the end of last week. I think I logged on just a Cal Naughton Jr said ” I like to think of Jesus as a mischievous badger”.

The movie Talladega Nights was on in the background and I was slumped on the couch after a hard morning of not doing much – one eye on my laptop and a mouthful of possibly the best banana and jam cake ever made by a human. I am serious about that. You may even find it to be an official fact. I am not even sure I want to try and recreate it as it could lead to disappointment. Seriously.

Anyway . . .

Brian Cullinan from Ennis Tri Club led our team off and had a great swim . We were all a little bit blazay about the competition in the beginning- ‘it will be a fun weekend’ – but, and I definitely speak for at least myself and Brian when I say that we definitely wanted to win by the time the run started !

“No time to chat Aileen !”

I shouted at one stage as my competitive demon embarrassingly rose to the surface. Aileen Flynn from Pirahna Tri Club in Dublin may have had the toughest leg of our relay, but she seemed to be cruising around the final half marathon. Always in control.

I have often wondered about the speed, effort level and how one would train for a half ironman bike leg – I was on a 90km investigation. Although I do long aerobic rides for Olympic distance my longest individual time trial effort would be maybe 20mins. I am used to lots of variations in pace, max efforts, hard group rides, attacking and chasing. So I was not sure about my effort over 90km. My plan was to go out steady and come back harder in terms of effort – something that didn’t really happen ! My back was getting very tight, my neck and left glute too around 60km. At around 75km I wondered if I would ever be able to have children as the stiffness of my carbon saddle became more apparent every minute !

I was enjoying myself and the course though. It was fun to be a part of a team and to take part in another very well organised Irish event.

‘Uncomfortable’ is maybe a good word to use when describing the effort level on the bike – it is that pace above steady and just below threshold – I found it was my leg strength and overall strength endurance that was being taxed and not so much my breathing. Or maybe you lose condition by not training much, eating banana cake and watching movies ??

Sometimes though in order to be part of an adventure you have to be in the right place at the right time and for me that was on a couch making a jammy mess in front of a movie.

“Shake and bake . . It rhymes, they’re both verbs…it’s awesome!”