I phoned up the Triathlon Doctor, I just don’t know what to do. All I want to do is Swim, Bike & Run. And nothing else I do gives me that much fun.......”
“It sure is, just give me a moment son, while I get off my turbo trainer, that’s better, now, what’s the problem? Oh, by the way, what’s your name?”
“But can you stop at number nine?”
IRONMAN IX - D DAY!!
The few days before an Ironman are always fraught. There are the travel arrangements, and then there’s the taper. The nagging question however is whether enough training has been done - or too much? - And there is the rampant paranoia which accompanies you to the start line “How are my injuries?” If my injury in dormant when is it going to erupt like a volcano? Am I sleeping enough/eating enough? How’s my resting pulse? Have I remembered to pack the right gear for the race? (You pack a sports bag in Limavady in one type of weather and you open it up several thousand miles away in
As I pen these last few words, it’s 6 days to go and when you read this, the clock countdown has changed from months to weeks to days and finally to hours. I have been in this position about 8 times before of preparing to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and shuffle a marathon. I am petrified of getting a puncture. I still haven’t got a decent wet suit. My tried and trusted one had the sleeves cut off and was left in North East USA last year (it’s a long story....) I have had to purchase new running shoes, my previous ones deprived me of a toenail after the London Marathon. They say you should never experiment on race day with new equipment and here I am lacking a wet suit with new running shoes and only 700 miles clocked up on my new race bike – you would think I would know better!
I have had some exciting outdoor swims in my time. I nearly drowned off
You suddenly think 14 days before an ironman that you haven’t done enough sea swimming and hence the trip to Benone, the waves were big, the waves were blowing out to sea, the current was uncertain, so it is absolutely vital to swim parallel to the shore. I really try not to stray much beyond three to four feet of depth. It is however very difficult when you are being tossed about by the waves to know what your exact position is, vis a vis the safety of the shallows. The silent killer, of course, is the current. If you get got in a rip tide, it’s not good. Hopefully now I am big enough, and ugly enough to know that panic, whilst understandable is not the best option. You should wait until the rip tide is finished or swim sideways out of the way of the current, but as land disappears into the horizon you must have the strong presence of mind not to immediately flail in the direction of the land as the words of Corporal Jones of “Dad’s Army” spring to mind! ... Ten minutes at Benone was enough to reacquaint myself with the pleasures of salty tangy buoyant sea water. You just feel so good when you leave the sea, then of course the coldness takes over and you desperately trying to wrench the wet suit off with shaking hands and chattering teeth. Sometimes you put baby oil on your ankles and wrists to facilitate wet suit removal. Some race organisers such as we did at Benone organise hot showers to shock the athletes back into life after the 2.4 miles/3.8 k/152 length equivalent swim... There is a lot of nervous energy bound up in the swim but it’s fairly silly when you consider that the swim does not account for a third of the race itself, merely about 6 or 7% of your total race time. All that energy dissipated and then you realise you have travelled 3.8 kilometres and you have still have 222.2 kilometres still to go!
Sunday, saw a rest day – Father’s Day. No training, just sitting watching the clock and wondering and waiting and twitching and thinking I should be training or packing, or psyching up or preparing or doing something useful. The concept of rest to an Ironman wan bee is an uncomfortable one. I was actually reduced to tidying up my sports room – it got to the stage when I couldn’t actually open the sports room door without tripping over a helmet or a pair of shoes or a pool buoy or a set of weights – they say a tidy room is a sign of a tiny mind – let’s just say my mind is not often very tiny!
Ooops, I have suddenly realised that the race starts at 7.00 a.m. Czech time which is actually 6.00 a.m. Limavady time so I will need to adjust the body clock fairly quickly, that means getting up at the equivalent of 4.00 a.m. Hope I don’t fall asleep on lap two or three of the bike course. The most important night’s sleep of the year of course will be on Thursday night i.e. two nights before the race. On the Thursday, William and I intend to open up the bike box after 5 hours driving from
Will we make it to the finish line? Well first of all we have to make it to the start line!
Whatever happens, I promise you that William O’Kane and Peter Jack will finish first and second for the Triangle Triathlon Club, for
Last year Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” was very much the musical sound track to my odyssey. This year it’s Snow Patrol – they have a great line – “The finish line is a good place to start” - a good place to start normal life – or even life after Ironman.
For those of you who have been kind enough to read this column for the last five weeks, thanks for your support, you have only one more column to endure. A truncated version of which will hopefully end up with you in the Constitution. I look forward to telling you all about the Czech Republic Mariviaman next week.
It’s D-Day for William O’Kane and PJ. We will report to you from the trenches next week.
On the Monday I biked only 20 miles and fervently hoped that I wouldn’t be feeling like that on race day. I was listless, apathetic, energyless, just no spark. It was really hot and climbing up through Drumsurn probably wasn’t the smartest move. Anyway eventually I made it. Tuesday saw my usual 3K swim where Adrian had us doing lots of 25 and 50 meter sprints. The main set was 8 x 25 meters on 35 seconds then 100 meters at 1,500 meter race pace and repeat twice. It’s always good to train at a pace that you know you don’t have to sustain during your main race because race pace seems easy in comparison. The problem is for an Ironman you’ve just got to do a lot of hard yards when all you want to do is lie on the sofa and recover from the last marathon training session.
Wednesday was time trial night – an ideal opportunity of getting the heart rate to max over 10 very painful miles around the bridges. Of course being a Wednesday at 7:15pm, it started to bucket and the wind howled. I took off my jacket (which was already soaked) on the start line and then proceeded to get even colder and wetter for the next torturous 28 minutes and 24 seconds of my life. Everybody was passing me. The conditions just didn’t seem to affect them. I haven’t found the speed button this year but most of my time trials have been when I am overloading the training but as Peter Cole said when he kindly gave me and my bike a lift home in his jeep because I just couldn’t face any more, ‘you don’t need speed on June 21 you just need to get to the finish line’. Peter, never a truer word was spoken. Peter incidentally, is doing the 70 Wild Miles in Fermanagh this weekend with Ray Rowe and Gully McLaughlin and Colin Loughery. I wish them all well.
Thursday was a wee relaxing 1K swim. Mind you four hours in Coleraine Police Station at night time wasn’t quite as relaxing.
Friday I treated as a rest day. The body was hoisting the white flag and I know that if I do too much I get colds and the flu which are just as bad as an injury.
If Saturday saw a personal best on Slievedonard (I’ve done it two or three times before but never battling against the clock) Saturday night saw a walk with my fellow Rotarians in Roe Valley Country Park. The idea was to have a calorie neutral evening so that the walk would cancel out the food in the BBQ that followed. That may have been the idea but if we’d had to walk long enough to cancel out the calories in the bottles of wine, I think we’d still be there...
Sunday morning arrived and somewhat dehydrated, I set off on two wheels where I bumped into young 13 year old Kyle Cole, a very fine young cyclist. Kyle has the genes to succeed and if he keeps working at it he’ll be doing 21 minute time trials before you can say ‘Chris Boardman’. I then popped up to Colin Loughery’s house. Colin, a prince among men, is one of the few people I know who will sacrifice his own training session so that he can ride as slowly as me. We got a total of 50 miles done with my quads reminding me of the pounding they had received the day before 100 miles to the South East.
Apart from a moron who shouted out through his car window at us in Coleraine because he thought we should have been on the cycle path and not out on the public road at all (does he not think that we pay Road Tax and Insurance like everybody else?), it was a pleasant 3 hours. The road to Garvagh however reminded me how abysmal our road surfaces are.
What do we pay our Taxes for? The quality of the road surfaces in Northern Ireland is uniformly poor. At the moment, the geniuses in the DRD seem to be putting a top coating on every other road in the country. This is a typical half baked Northern Ireland solution to a Northern Ireland problem. It’s all about dressing and style but no substance. When you get the chance to bike on roads on the Continent you realise how smooth tarmac can be. Never worry about cyclists tyres however, it’s your car suspension and your car tyres that are taking an unnecessary and expensive pounding.
I decided to break my new running shoes in at Limavady Cricket and Rugby pitch where funnily enough there was rugby and cricket being played. Daniel King and a bunch of 12 mates were practicing Rugby League before Daniels’ trip to the Irish University’s Rugby League World Cup in Australia and where also Limavady were playing (and eventually thrashing Waringstown) in a big Cup Match and also there was this lonely plonker covered in sweat before he started running round the outfield determined to squeeze an hour’s worth of effort out of his remaining energy stores. With lots of liquid on hand the plonker managed it although four minutes slower than the week before. 16 laps of the pitches makes you go ga ga.
It was then home for another shower but although I lay in the sun I couldn’t relax as I knew I had another hour’s bike to do later on – thanks Adrian! It was a fairly slow, fairly painful last 17 miles to top and tail the week off. If you don’t think, by the way, that you can’t get a 60cm frame Canondale into the front of an MG, then think again! It had been 11 hours and 20 minutes of effort where I had experienced the worst of the weather and the best of the weather, the worst of times and the best of times. It was now belatedly time to start the taper. I don’t care if it’s Lonely at the Top. It won’t be lonely on the finish line in Ostrava on June 21 as most people will have finished several hours in front of me. My daughter Hannah will be there with a calendar, not a stop watch peering into the darkness to see where her lunatic father has got to – don’t worry Hannah I’ll make it – just don’t wait up!
Randy Newman sang ‘It’s Lonely at The Top’. Well, I wasn’t lonely because there were several hundred hikers, climbers and runners who all wanted to conquer Donard at the same time. I would have loved to have lingered and taken in the vistas and appreciated the beautiful scenery. I lingered for exactly 10 seconds, took off my shoe to get rid of a few pebbles, listened to the hammering sound of my heart trying to leave my ribcage, glanced at my watch and realised I had hit my first target – I wanted to summit in under 1 hour from Donard Car Park. I would love to tell you that I ran all the way... but anyone who is capable of running up Donard without slowing to a walk is a freak of nature.
You are meant to take all sorts of extra equipment when you are hill climbing in case the mountain top turns treacherous with mist and rain etc and a sudden plummet in the temperature. I was wearing running shorts and a short sleeved coolmax top and a bottle of high energy liquid in my body belt. I was travelling light, I was on a raid as I wanted to get up and down as soon as I could. I was also under a bit of time pressure. I was in County Down because young Patrick Jack was due to finish his three day / two night Silver Duke of Ed hike and I needed to be at his rendezvous three hours after I arrived in Newcastle so time once again, was the enemy.
I thought about Ed Smith, former Head of BBC Northern Ireland Sport who has taken up rock climbing and who fell 100 meters down a cliff face after he had conquered South America’s highest peak and was lucky to live to tell the tale. I knew my journey down wouldn’t be quite that hazardous but I didn’t want to risk any injury with only 14 days to go. As soon as I turned to go downhill and planted my left foot on the ground I got a shot of pain up my left quad for my effort. I then recalled the advice of my Chiropractor, Paula Gallen, who had told me my quads were as tight as a drum and I needed to stretch them every night. I had recently been doing my back strengthening exercises but the quads had been neglected. Every step down was like Homer Simpson falling down a cliff as he landed painfully on each rock. I recalled the Mourne Challenge a few years ago with my good friend Mark Kinkaid. The race had taken us over 10 peaks in 10 hours and the downhill section was just murder. There is a very special breed of athlete – a fell runner – who can leap down a steep hill with a huge gait and no apparent effort and they bound for meters before landing for the next stride. I read the fabulous ‘Feet in the Clouds’ book recently about the fell running fraternity. There is a race in the Lake District which attracts people from all over the world and the target is to break 24 hours. It’s all about making up as much ground as possible both on the way up – and also on the way down.
You’d think going down was the easy bit. Two runners appeared out of nowhere and bounded past me like kangaroos. I tried to follow them and put my feet where they had put theirs. Slievedonard is all rock with no forgiving grass. It’s harsh and uninviting. Most of the Sperrins are soft and you can look up and drink in the views because you know that every footfall is relatively safe. On Donard, you have to watch every step with an eagle eye. One false move here and you could end up with a broken ankle and your dreams in tatters. At one stage whilst hurrying and scurrying down the mountain, I planted my foot between two rocks that weren’t quite wide enough and managed to end up with less skin around my ankle than I had started with... onward and upward (or downwards) was today’s motto however. I foolishly thought that if I took an hour to conquer the beast on the way up 30 minutes would do it on the way down. Foolish boy! I was only 10 minutes quicker on the way back to base camp (Donard Car Park) where I finished with jelly legs covered in sweat and hotter than a Turkish wrestler’s jock strap... I managed to blag a shower in a local clubhouse and 10 minutes later was enjoying an exquisite seafood chowder overlooking Newcastle’s promenade.
5 minutes later I was were Patrick and his brave mates were meant to be. No sign of them but plenty of anxious parents. Patrick had been sick for 5 days before embarking on his quest with his six buddies. He couldn’t keep any food down, was alternatively hot and cold but he was hiking up and down the Mournes for 15 or 20K a day with a rucksack that weighed the same as a Belfast sink. On the one hand I envied him as I had never had the opportunity of testing myself as part of a team in nature’s back yard many moons ago (maybe that’s what drives me today?) On the other hand I know that whilst I can push myself really hard over one day the thought of doing it three days in a row (without the benefit of a hot shower and a comfy bed) rather lessened the appeal somewhat...
Apparently the assessor had decided to make them hike an extra 6K on day 3. I must confess that if this bloke had been in Newcastle, I could quite happily have strangled him. These guys had suffered enough and there was a whole bunch of parents wondering why there was no sign of their wee Johnny two hours after their ETA. Eventually thanks to the wonders of mobile phone technology we established that they had hit a main road and their teacher, the inspirational Stephen Bogle, had said they had done enough. It was with great relief that I picked up three very smelly, very tired young men, guys who were all heroes in my eyes. Soon after a feed of chips, chocolate and coke provided by their grateful driver, they were all fast asleep in the car, snoring like the angelic infants they were only 15 short years previously...
I have 27 days from now as I pen these words to get physically, psychologically, and mentally prepared to try to complete my latest Ironman adventure.
Sometimes when I ask seasoned triathletes if they will every do an Ironman, they reply: “Of course, when I feel I have done enough training and preparation” – believe me, you will never feel as if you have done enough preparation.
How do you property prepare for a 2.4 mile open water swim, 112 mile bike ride, then a marathon? When you are swim training, you feel you should be biking or running when you are bike training, you feel you should be swimming or running etc.
It’s not only the demands of the three different sports; it’s the transition from being a swimmer to a cyclist, then to being a runner. Everyone dreads the transition from bike to run, but one transition that is not practised often enough is swim to bike. To do that properly, you have to have a bike at the Leisure Centre ready for you to leap onto once you exit the water.
My young friend Gavin Noble, who had hoped to make it to the Olympics, would do a savage swim set, and then leap onto a torture device known as a turbo trainer which was standing beside the pool.
A turbo trainer would probably be outlawed by Amnesty International. It is a totally unforgiving machine which places relentless demands on the body. As you are sitting there in the one place on the static bike, you feel the need to turn the pedals faster; you don’t even get the benefit of being able to look over a hedge. You are stuck in the same room listening to your gasping breaths and looking at the sweat, drip, drip, dripping on the floor. The only focus for your concentration is your bike computer which tells you your speed (not fast enough) distance travelled (not far enough Cadence (Not high enough) and average speed. To try and do more than one hour on one of the torture devices is going into the realms of the impossible . Years ago when training for an Ironman I was out for a 4 hr. ride and my bike fell apart after 3 hours when I was miles from home.
I got a lift home, then as I had another hour to do, I got stuck into the turbo trainer. Did you know there are 3,600 seconds in a hour and that everyone of those seconds can be given a different curse word? Sometimes when I am on the turbo trainer, I look at the figure on the computer in front of me then I think that the computer has broken, or that the battery has ceased because the numbers have stayed the same and there has been no movement…. The one second passes, the tumbrils fall and the number changes on the screen in front of me and I realise that the second I just experienced has become a microcosm of time itself.
Triumph and disaster
One second can last a lifetime, but one second can be the difference between triumph and disaster.
A few weeks ago in Spain they had the World Long Distance Open water 20K swim race. The winning time was 5 hrs 1 min. and 1.3 seconds. The silver medallists time was 5 hrs. 1 min. 1.8 secs. Five hours of effort to be beaten by ? a second! Some Ironman races have been won on a sprint finish after 8 hrs. of shoulder to shoulder combat by a second. The guy who wins feels delirious but feels no pain; the bloke who finishes second feels disconsolate and feels all the pain.
Obviously for a punter like me who just wants to get round the course, one second might not seem all that important, but if you are on 16 hrs. 59 mins. and 59 secs; you have one second to finish the race and be on the result sheet – 17 hours and 1 second counts as a non finish and a disaster.
So you always push yourself every second, every minute, every hour as you swim, spin and stride. I have done two hours on the bike in the Leisure Centre and they have had to hose the bike down after that, such has been the sweat that has a been expended. You can listen to your Ipod to get you going – ELO’s greatest hits being a particular favourite of mine, just get your legs pumping in time to “Evil Woman” and you’ll know what I mean! You can perform a really useful session in the gym or the turbo trainer but in general you need to be on the road. You need to feel the wind (every cyclist’s worst enemy) you need to experience heat, cold, the hills and bliss, the downhills. You can easily do 45 miles an hour at Downhill or 50 on the Glenshane. You wouldn’t do a mile in the car without a seat belt, so you don’t cycle a meter without a helmet. Also gloves are vital, why? Cause if you are knocked off and catapulted towards the road, you put your hands out to save yourself and the skin on your hands won’t look too pretty as you slide up the road at 20 miles an hour without the protection afforded by gloves.
My main concern at present is my running – or rather lack of. I hadn’t run for 4 weeks because of my back problem. I decided that last week something had to be done about it so on Thursday I did my favourite run of all time the 4.3 mile loop from the Roemill Road, car park in the Roe Valley Country Park to the Dolphin Bridge down one side and back the other.
You see squirrels, heron, fish jumping. Whatever the weather, the country park just looks fantastic. We are so lucky to have it on our doorstep. The running surface is not as harsh as the Cam Forest and it always lifts your spirits to see the waterfalls and watch the evolving face of nature during the Four Seasons. As I had 35 mins. to spare, that was the target I set myself. I went round rather gingerly and made it with 65 seconds to spare. The back hurt but the pain was manageable. Thanks to Greg Kearney, I am doing back strengthening and stretching exercises and noting my usual 100 ab crunches and press ups every night. I grabbed a quick shower, then headed off to the RDS in Dublin for front row seats for one of my all time musical idols, to see Mr Bruce Springsteen from New Jersey. In case of medical mishap with my back I took my Doctor – Paul Finlay – with me! As I had two extra tickets, I flogged them to an unsuspecting New York couple who were in Dublin for a wedding. We all had a ball. Bruce hit the stage with “Thunderland”, then segued into “Radio Nowhere” and then it was just a one show stopper after another.
“Baby we were born to bike”
If Bruce Springsteen were an athlete, he would be a marathon runner. He just never stopped on stage. He has the energy of a 20 year old. His music is still relevant and he puts in 100% enthusiasm and commitment. His passion for his art is total. When he sang “The Rising” it took me back to last year’s Ironman in Lake Placid as that was the track I listened to constantly in the New York apartment in Canal Street. I needed to rise up for the occasion to conquer various ailments and Bruce got me to the finish line. I thought of another of his songs that would be relevant to an athletic pursuit – The seminal “Born to Run”. That’s all very fine Bruce but what about “Born to Swim” or Born to Bike “? It was just about the best gig I have every been to. There was only one problem – travel and lack of sleep. Paul and I boarded the midnight bus from Busarus back to Belfast and it was packed. It took me back about 30 years when I boarded a bus overnight in Australia and I would sleep on the floor at night and stumble out into a different city or state or desert every morning and drink in the local sites. I used to have the luxury of a pillow in my rucksack but alas there were no such luxuries on Bus Erin. Eventually I made it to bed for 4.00 a.m. All I was fit for 12 hours later was a little light 50 length swim.
Our main swim set in the Triangle is Tuesday night. The session is usually taken by the Clubs – and one of Ireland’s – best Ironmen, Adrian Devine. Adrian’s sessions are always hard work but always worthwhile. Last week was a short session of only 100 lengths which included 25 metres, 50 metres, 75 metres, then 100 metres x 6 at race pace. Everyone’s idea of race pace is different but it usually involves a lung bursting effort when you are trying to keep o the toes of their swimmer in front of if you are the unlucky bloke in front, you are trying to ensure that your toes are never tickled cause you don’t want to get the satisfaction to the guy behind of catching you. Ironman swimming is mostly aerobic (i.e. with oxygen) but sometimes it’s anaerobic (without oxygen). Sometimes when you finish a TTC swim set you don’t have the strength to haul yourself out of the pool but that’s why the steps are there I suppose.
“Why do I bother training? What’s the point?” I hear you ask.
This may sound weird, but it’s great to wake up and put your foot on the floor and shuffle down the stairs wincing with every step. Why? - Because that discomfort reminds you that you are alive. Many of us live sedentary lives behind a desk. We no longer have to forage for food and water and warmth. Everything is given to us on a plate. The remote control is King.. Sometimes it’s good to have reaffirmation that there is a little daily struggle involved in life. It stiffens your resolve, it steels your nerve. That pain when you get out of bed is replaced by the satisfaction of thinking of yesterdays tough session that mentally puts you one step closer to an Ironman finish.
Energy creates Energy
Training for triathlon enables you to become not only a very efficient user of the only resource we have all available to us – time – but also it gives you energy. Energy creates energy. If you come in fro work and slump down on the sofa it’s so hard to find the resolve to train later – leave the desk running, get to the Leisure Centre, change for a swim or bike or run and release those endorphins. There has never been one training session which I have done in the last 30 years which I have ever regretted. I have felt the benefit of every single one. As a stress reliever, it’s ACE. As a guide for life, it’s unbeatable – as a sign that you are still alive and kicking, it’s unmissable.
Sorry Ken!
Last Wednesday was of course the Champions League final. I decided to put a little bit of extra pressure on myself. I left the house at 5.40 p.m. wanting to complete 35 miles and be back in time to see Man United –v- Chelsea.
Despite the wind, I made it at an average of 18.1 miles an hour with 3 mins. to spare. One thing triathletes learn to do is to shower quickly. 90- 120 secs. does the trick. Why on earth should it take any longer? Not a second of the match was missed. The exquisite touch of Ronaldo’s header was matched only by the passion of Springsteen the next night in “Jungle Land” which could only be matched by the satisfaction of organising the Ulster Sprint Triathlon Championship in Limavady last Saturday for 165 competitors from all over Ireland (but only one from Limavady!) We had 30 marshals and helpers and it all went very smoothly.
For once the weather was kind. I tried not to gloat when I saw the Constitution’s photographer, Ken Reay, a well known Chelsea supporter. I told him we were a tad fortunate when Terry hit the post and not the back of the net, one inch away from Triumph for him and one second away from disaster for me. I always like doing a big training session before watching a major sporting event. I feel I can empathise more with the athletes.
I came back from a 35 mile bike ride. I came back from that 35 miles bike ride knowing I hadn’t left one second out there on the road. I couldn’t have gone any quicker to Dungiven and back and then round the bridges. I merely wanted the Man United midfield to expend as much energy as I had.
When you organise an event like last Saturday all you have the energy for is to prise the top off a beer bottle and watch the European Cup final on TV. The next day was a different story however, I hit 35 miles at 8.30 a.m. again on my trusty new Cannondale and then in the afternoon, I completed the 6 mile loop in the Cam Forest in the running shoes. My back at this stage was on fire due to the hard surface. I have learned that if I run in a certain way holding my back just so, I can still continue to move forward towards the goal of the finish line. Every step counts, so does every second. My time was the slowest ever, some 11 mins. outside my PB but the only time I am interested in is on June 21st in the Czech Republic. Anything under 17 hours is a win and vindication. Anything over 17 hours is a failure and waste of the last twelve months of my life. Every second counts, (even if there are 61,200 of them during an Ironman…).
Now, where did I put those Brufen tablets….
This year it was somewhat different, William and I only entered the race in January. It looks very unofficial but very friendly. We haven’t even paid the entry fee yet. We pay on arrival which I think speak volumes for the Laissez-faire attitude of the organisers. As we are the only entrants from Triathlon Ireland, let alone the Triangle Triathlon Club we are going for 1-2 finish!
Normally when you enter a race of this nature, the race is always “next year”, then January comes but the race is still 7 or 8 months away. Training is easy when you know that the race is so far away. Then suddenly the race looms up on the horizon like Lewis Hamilton in your wing mirrors, - now it’s June – help! And the race is THIS MONTH!
My training went fairly well last week. As Monday was a Bank holiday, I left the kids to school, the rubbish to the dump and the car to Chris McFeely (hopefully all in the right order). As I had the bike in the back of the car, I left Benone before 9.30 a.m. I didn’t know where I really wanted to go except East. When you plan a major ride, you look at the forecast the night before and you head into the wind. The theory is that at the start of the day you are stronger so you head where it’s hardest then you turn around at half way and feel the benefit of the tail wind on the way home, though there are some days I feel as if I am into a head wind the whole way! On Monday it was warm so it was just the bib shorts and short sleeve bike shirt. I wanted a pair of arm warmers though and as my normal fluorescent pink ones were in the wash, I found an old pair of socks and a pair of scissors – problem solved! I called into Castlerock to see my Mum (and get a telling off for not doing some gardening!) then headed to Coleraine and Portstewart. For some reason I do most of my bike rides in Dannyboy County and I haven’t given the North Coast the attention it so richly deserves. After Portrush, I climbed up to Dunluce Castle, the sun shone but the wind was strong. You would have need to have been a real curmudgeon though not to be spell bound by the scenery. Soon I was in Bushmills, then past the Giant’s Causeway.
If you are ever going to buy a round then O’Briens Bar in Lisnagogue is the place to do it – it’s the smallest bar in Ireland! The fiver I had in my back pocket would probably have meant that I could buy a drink for everyone in the premises but anyhow I pressed on. Soon I was near Ballintoy and I was just knocked out by the fantastic vistas. All of a sudden, I saw what appeared to be a sculpture of a man’s face in the rocky coastline. You don’t get that view from the height of a car seat so get on your bike to see what I was talking about and appreciate natures finest.
As I pedalled further, I saw an animal in distress and got off to help. A lamb was stuck with its head in a fence and I was glad there were no Sunday Life photographers present as I approached it and eventually freed it – a few nettle stings were a small price to pay.
There was a lot of traffic near Carrick-a-reed Rope Bridge but the road rose alarmingly – was this a bridge too far? I was in the granny gear and out of the saddle, secretly relieved that my pulse meter wasn’t on my chest as it would have been sending me signals that I probably wouldn’t have wanted to see...
I could now see Scotland and Rathlin Island very clearly as I stopped for a cup of coffee and a Galaxy Bar at a lay-by road side van. Sugar and caffeine at the right time are a great boost and a we rest didn’t do any harm either. It was great to see a sign for Ballycastle and the fact that the road was downhill wasn’t bad for the morale either.
Why was the North Coast not buzzing with US and German tourists? I have travelled to a fair few spots in the world and you would need to go an awfully long way to find anywhere nicer. It’s a pity that any tourists we have seem to spend all of their time – and money – in Donegal and have just bussed in for a few hours without spending any bed nights here. We don’t seem to have the right infrastructure or hotels in place to maximise the opportunity of removing tourist dollars from the tourist pockets. Bike riding and hill walking packages would seem to be tailor made for the strength that our Georgraphy has so kindly bestowed upon us.
I found myself in Ballycastle in very busy traffic but the news wasn’t all bad. The wind had been in my face for 40 miles was now blissfully on my back. Once I climbed out of the town I time trailled between 25 and 30 miles an hour without breaking sweat. Move over Chris Boardman! Soon the East wind seemed to be replaced a North cross wind and I was back to normal speed as I passed through Armoy and Ballybogey and a few isolated hamlets on the way to Coleraine. A quick detour through Ringsend meant at least I could avoid the cruelty of the hill between Coleraine and Limavady. I ended up back at the house after 4 hrs and 15 mins. with the speedo showing a total of just over 70 miles and a feeling of a job that was well done. I settled down in the sunshine in the garden ready to eat for Ireland...
Sometimes however, if you want to lose weight you will be amazed at how little you eventually do lose. A few weeks ago I weighed myself, went out for a three hour ride and weighed myself again when I returned – I had lost precisely 0.6 of a kilo i.e. 600 grams – I could just have stayed at home and skipped a few rounds of toast and had the same effect. I know I want to be 75 kgs. on race day – it will help get up the hills that are on the 18.6 mile bike lap (which we do 6 times). You always feel good if you set yourself a target and then hit that target. It also does you good psychologically because you convince yourself that the very fact that this goal has been conquered will help you make it to the finish line.
Sometimes I see athletes who have spent several thousand pounds on a new light bike but their waistline is bulging over their belt. They could have saved themselves a big hit on their bank balance on just eating less calories at the dinner table. I have been at functions and been surrounded by several hundred professional and elite athletes and I have seen more fat on a butcher’s dog. The guys look at food as if they have never seen it before but they know that carbs (although they give energy) also can pile on the pounds (or grams in their case). My heart goes out to them.
At the minute I am about 76 Kgs. - so I am within my range of dropping one last kilo before 7.00 a.m. on June 21st. Swimming is not readily associated with weight loss but it’s still training. It’s important to keep a drink by the poolside either of water or a light energy drink. On Tuesday, armed with the requisite drink, I clambered into the pool earlier than my team mates. I thought I would get out early to once I had the requisite 3K swum but I just kept on swimming... Eventually I clocked up 190 lengths (about 3 miles). The main set was 25/50/75/100 metres times 6 with every length to be covered in 30 secs. or less – another great set from Adrian. My speed wasn’t great but hey, they don’t hand out finishers t- shirts in the Maraviaman for being quick over 100 metres.
Wednesday is bike day. The Roe Valley Cycling Club are doing an APR (or Austrailian Pursuit which is a road race by any other name). I had an appointment however with Robert Paul, brother of Anne, Ireland’s greatest several multi discipline athlete. My verucas were playing up again but I left the house a bit late. I covered the 6 miles to the NWIH at an average speed of over 23 miles an hour (downhill with the wind behind me...) quicker than I could drive Mark to school in Ballykelly everyday. Robert saw me and told me he would need to go in deep this time to rid me of this nuisance. W e agreed to postpone the pleasure of this painful surgical intervention until after Maraviaman. Robert said however that he would need to perform the op after he gave me a big injection of adrenaline – oh goodie, fun for all the family.... I decided to concentrate on the pleasure of the finish line and not think about what fate awaited me on my return....
I left Ballykelly and climbed up the Carnamuff Road. I know there are fabulous views from that road but the views were behind me and I couldn’t see them so I ploughed on managing 30 miles before walking through the back door, so hungry I could have eaten two scabby waines......
On Thursday, I decided to try this running lark. My troublesome back had been sore after a run on the Cam Forest on Sunday so I headed for grass to make it easier on the vertebrae. The John Hunter Memorial Pitch at Limavady Cricket and Rugby Club (of which I am now a proud member) was the perfect venue for my experiment. I managed 16 full laps of the pitches which hopefully was about 8 miles and was without much pain which was a real morale boost. I know that the third discipline i.e. running a marathon on June 21st will be a big test for all the hard work that my Chiropractor (Paula Gallen) and Physio (Gregory Kearney) had done over the last few months. It’s a pity that the run is on concrete and tarmac and not grass but as the man says, you play the ball as it lies.
Friday was another crazy day with a trip to Belfast in the morning and a visit to the Pig Race in Ballykelly at night so the only window I had was an early start, therefore at 6.45 a.m, I was on my bike clocking up a few miles to get me 112 miles for the week i.e. the Ironman distance. A few lengths at 5.30 p.m. was the perfect way to top and tail the week.
Saturday 4.00 a.m. came very early as Sharon and I flew from Belfast to London for the Springsteen gig. While I was in the airport I met Heather Wilson, Northern Ireland’s best cyclist with her bike box. She was flying over to Nottingham for a time trial and then next week she is going off to Holland for a road race. She is dedicated and I hope she reaps the rewards that she so thoroughly deserves. In London I was able to see Bruce play for the second time in 10 days. I hadn’t seen him for 15 years but he obviously knew that I was in the audience because he played a different set! - feast or famine etc. Again he held the crowd of 50,000 in his hands, we would have done anything he said. If he had declared, “We march on Poland!”, the only response would have been “When?” and possibly also “What’s the road surface like? Can I bring my Cannondale?”.
On Sunday morning I woke up to see myself on Channel 4 ( a more surreal sentence than that I will not write all year) for the British Triathlon Sprint Championship in Reading where I assisted a few weeks ago. The helicopter shots looked impressive as did the whole package. Suitably inspired I donned my running shoes , stumbled into the lift and the blinking in the sunshine on the Pentonville Road in Islington. I headed for Regent’s Park as I know Hyde Park fairly well but wanted to run somewhere new. They were setting up the Camden Town market fair and there were lots of joggers and bikers doing laps around the park in relative safety that is the madness of the London traffic. I stopped on the way back to view the magnificent Cathedral that is the St. Pancreas Railway station and the launch pad for the Euro Star to Paris and Brussels. I made it into the breakfast bar ready to prove that I could not only rock and roll for Ireland but eat for Ireland as well...
Travel is not compatible with perfect training. Too many different plane seats, standing on the tube, different hotel beds etc. can throw a routine out of line. No more trips and no more changes of routine for the next three weeks for me. Normally I find it hard to do “Normal” but I am going to try really hard for the next 21 days. My week had finished with more than 10 hours training, I was satisfied. Now it was time to start tapering.... What’s a taper? – You’ll have to read next week to find out...
When you are training for an Ironman, all you want to do is train, eat and sleep. So why am I in Heathrow? Well I am waiting for my flight back to Belfast from Reading where I was commentating on the British Sprint Triathlon Championships sponsored by Corus (owned by Mr Tata, the Indian Billionaire). (The races will be on Channel Four on Sunday the 1st June at 8.00 a.m. by the way.) It was another fairly tiring day. I obviously tried to squeeze my training into 5 days rather than the usual 6 or 7 so I managed to achieve 100 miles on the bike and 200 lengths in the pool. There was only one problem, my back prevented me from running. It has been playing up since mid January and it seemed to relent for a while to allow me to finish the London Marathon, but is now causing me daily problems. Not only is running impossible but walking is a pain and as for standing or bending over and picking up a stick to throw for the dog, that to is a nightmare. It was good however to be surrounded by top class athletes whose performances could only inspire you. I had spent 30 mins. at the official dinner the night before talking to Kris Gemmell from New Zeland. Chris’s dad was an All Black and when Kris was growing up he found himself in the wing for Palmerston North against the opposition winger, one Jonah Lomu! Kris wisely decided that his sporting future lay elsewhere so he quickly became an exponent of the triple discipline endurance sport involving swimming, cycling and running. Kris has already qualified for the Olympics where he has a hard act to follow. His fellow countrymen Hamish Carter and Brad Bevan won gold and silver in Athens in 2004 where young Patrick Jack and I were privileged to attend….. It’s amazing but everywhere I go I seem to bump into people from Limavady! Paddy Corr has just come up and said hello in the middle of Heathrow, it’s a small world etc…
Anyway, Kris was up against Tim Don, know as the “Don” 2006 World Champion. Tim and Don had a great battle throughout the entire race working their way up through the field driving the peloton on the bike to catch up Richard Stanard, former double world Aquathon champion before blitzing the run where Tim beat Kris in a sprint finish. The crowd went ballistic, the sun shone, the sponsors and BTF all seem very happy, so I can now forget about being a commentator and try and concentrate for training for an Ironman again.
The woman’s race was won by Scotland’s Kirsty McWilliam, a very talented 19 year old who beat Andrea Whitcombe who is based in Swansea. I had talked to Andrea the previous evening and I knew about her Achilles injury so obviously the next day on the mic I asked her about it, when she confessed that she couldn’t actually do any run training (join the club Andrea!). I saw her Achilles after the race and it was not a pretty sight, it was really inflamed. Anyway apparently the BTF Performance Director was really miffed that I was relaying details of this state secret about one of their star athletes inflamed tendon as no one was meant to know!
My interview caused great consternation and led to bouts of apoplexy. The words ‘Big Brother’ 1984 and National Security all seemed to be mentioned! I learned a long time ago that you can’t please all the people all the time, so you just get on with it. Anyway the crowd appreciated this additional information because they could sympathise with a top class athlete who is aiming for the Olympics and who may be prevented from qualifying by a very inconvenient injury. Andrea won £1,800.00 for 61 mins. work and she ran a 5K (3.1 miles) in 17 mins. 44. with a bad heel. She said she can only run in a race, and I told her just to do that. Why bother training when you can run that fast anyway! It was also great to meet Emma Davis, whose parents are from Bangor and who will be representing Ireland, hopefully in the Olympics in Bejing in August.
I had managed to get an hours training on the bike the day before on the race course on Saturday, but it wasn’t as good as the training I had done the previous two Saturdays with William O’Kane when we conquered most of the hills in the Sperrins with 57 and 75 miles respectively. William is aiming for his first Ironman and I have no doubt that he will make it and he will experience the once in a life time exhilaration of finishing a race such as this which we targeted many, many, months ago. The one we are going to is in the Czech Republic on the 21st June. As you know the 21st June is the longest day of the year and if my back is anything to go by I may well need all the extra hours I can get! The cut off time for any Ironman race is 17 hours. We start at 7.00 a.m. and I would love to finish by mid-night. I will probably be finishing in the dark and once again my daughter Hannah will have a long sit near the finish line probably with a torch looking for her old man! The swimming is going ok , both William and I finished the 5K swimathon in 1 hr. 34 mins. and I have had a few 5 hr. bike rides under my belt which is good for the morale but the key session for an Ironman is a 4 to 5 hr bike ride and then a 1 hr. run known as a brick session. Due to my injury I haven’t actually managed any brick sessions at all…..
My Coach Adrian Devine, and a fellow member of the Triangle Triathlon Club has managed to tailor a coaching programme for me which takes account of the fact that some nights I am at two or three different meetings. We have our monster swim every Tuesday, a time trial on the bike on Wednesday with RVCC and then I try to get the big stuff in at the week end.
Maybe I should seek sponsorship from Brufen, that well known pain killer! That would go down well in my race day nutrition! The race website tells us that the nutrition and the run section of the course includes beer and potatoes so maybe booze, spuds and drugs will get me to the finish line.
Less than 5 weeks to go and my back seizes up when I try to tie my shoe laces, oh bother it’s going to be a tense 35 days…
There was also a novice race which had two Reading Counsellors both participating and they were having a battle to see who would be the first Counsellor home. Labour beat Conservative by 5 minutes, as I said, that’s probably the only victory Labour will get this year…. The Novice race also featured several triathletes who had taken part in the first British Triathlon 25 years ago which was also in Readingn - due to take part but couldn’t do so was Dr. Sarah Springman, President of the British Triathlon Federation. Sarah was winning European titles in triathlon before many of the participants in the elite races were born! It made the both of us feel very old….
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