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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