Triangle Triathlon

The Highs and Lows of Top Class Sport

2009-11-03T02:49:00.001-08:00

If there was any justice in the world whatsoever, the back pages of all of the province wide dailies i.e. the Newsletter, the Irish News and the Belfast Telegraph, would have photos of a beaming Wendy Houvenagle, a girl from Maghera who conquered the Track Cycling World at the week end by winning the Individual Pursuit and the Team Pursuit in the World Cup race in Manchester – and setting a new World record in the process.

Of course we don’t live in a just world, which is why we normally have wall to wall coverage of three different ways of kicking a bit of pigs bladder up and down a muddy field i.e. Rugby, Soccer and Gaelic.

Wendy’s achievements are just phenomenal. Those of us who were privileged to meet her when she was a guest of Limavady Sports Council in March realised that this was the young lady who came to track cycling relatively late in life and yet she has won an Olympic Silver medal, she is the reigning World Team Pursuit Champion and she has now won the first World Cup race of the season in style. This quiet lass from Maghera, although living in Cornwall and training in Manchester and married to a Dutchman, hasn’t lost her local accent or been swayed by the fact that she regularly has gold and silver medals put around her neck. She is still the same quiet unassuming modest girl, who left Upperlands a decade ago to qualify as a dentist and join the RAF and has been flying high to follow her dreams. She has combined the best of both worlds – a top class career as a dentist (now obviously put on hold until after the 2012 Olympics) which she can go back to later on when she retires from World class sport. In the meantime she has the opportunity of living out her dream.

All in all, it was a brilliant three day Meet for the entire British Track Cycling Team with Sir Chris Hoy dominating his events and Victoria Pendleton gaining another gold and every other gold medal (10 out of 17 different events) was won by a cyclist wrapped up in a (very tight) red, white and blue lycra skin suit. Nearly as note worthy was the performance of Heather Wilson, a local cyclist who won a point in the 80 lap event which is definitely not for the faint hearted. Heather had won her heat and qualified for the final and finished 14th overall which was just tremendous.

The bikes that these cyclists use would be very unfamiliar to most of us because:-

(a) They have no brakes,
(b) They have only one gear
(c) They are as light as your little finger and
(d) If you stop pedalling you will actually be thrown off as they are “fixed gear”.

The British Cycling team leave nothing to chance. Under the expert leadership of Dave Brailsford (whom the Aussies tried to poach after the last Olympics by offering to double his salary), the team utilises the professionalism and knowledge of many experts including Chris Boardman (yellow jersey wearer in several Tours de France and a visitor to Limavady 7 or 8 years ago) and even employs a psychiatrist (Dr. Steve Peters) so that athletes can talk through any issue which concerns them.

What can local sporting people learn from a team like the BCF Track Team which has a huge budget and access to an unlimited pool of knowledge and resources? Well, it starts with professionalism and preparation. Owen Kearney has transformed Limavady United into a team capable of challenging for honours on a shoe string budget. Limavady Ladies Hockey Club have shown that with a proper astroturf surface beneath their feet that their skills can be honed and they can shine on match day.

It’s not easy for local sports to compete when the armchair sports fan has a choice of Sky, Espn, Setanta etc. showing top class sport as it sometimes make watching our local teams a difficult proposition. But if we realise that we can’t all be world class, but that it’s better to try and not succeed, than not try at all, then we can put in an effort that is at least honest. There is nothing that I love better than a solo training session where I just give it heaps on the bike or while running and I end up with my hands on my knees after a lung bursting effort knowing that I couldn’t possibly have given 1% more. It’s a wonderful feeling you can’t buy it off the internet, you can’t achieve it by reading about it in a magazine. You can’t do it by fantasying about it, you’ve got to get out there despite our lousy weather and “Just Do It”.

I tried very hard to take a week off training and boy did it prove difficult. I enjoyed however attending my local athletic clubs handicap’s race in the Springwell Forest organised funnily enough by the Springwell Running Club. There were athletes from Ballymena, Ballycastle, and the Glens competing in a four way club event, but it was great for me to see that at least three of the first finishers were triathletes from the Triangle Triathlon Club, Colin Loughery, Anne Paul and Alison Rankin. We swim and bike as well, so it shouldn’t be an even contest when matched against pure runners but Colin and Anne just ran away from their respective fields. I was on the mountain bike supposedly doing a marshalling job and to make sure that the runners didn’t take a wrong turn, but it was a much as I could do to try and stay ahead of Colin! He was running like a ‘Man on Fire’ and he left the rest of the field in his wake on the 5 mile hilly course.

In the Women’s race it was great to see another slip of a lass from Maghera i.e. Anne Paul, come home with a smile on her face in first place because I am quite sure there was no smile on her normally sunny face three weeks ago when she crossed the line at the Hawaii Ironman in a time 3 hours slower than expected due to the disastrously inappropriate timing of the return of a very painful leg and back injury. Many would have thrown in the metaphorical white towel, but women from Maghera, as Wendy Houvenagle also exemplifies, know better than that. They just put their head down and they fight their way through the bad times. Wanting to stop with every pedal stroke of the last 60 miles of the 112 mile bike and then wanting to stop for each pain jarring foot strike during the marathon, Anne thought about the only thing that mattered at that time – the finish line. She made it in an industrious display of Guts even when there was no Glory so that she could call herself a Kona Ironman finisher. Anne shares many qualities with her near neighbours Wendy i.e. resilience, endurance, determination, courage and an ability to see it through. Their finish lines may have been 12,000 miles apart but they both knew the importance of them. Wendy got to her finish line ahead of her opponents in a televised prestigious World Championship event and Anne made it to her finish line in a televised prestigious World Championship event. The results may have been widely different but the end feeling of joy and relief was the same whether you were standing in a Velodrome in Manchester – or beside the Pacific Ocean drenched in sweat and humidity. My hat goes off to both of these sporting warriors who are a first class example to the rest of us to get off the sofa and to get out that back door and to break down some barriers of our own.

I had a very quiet sporting week but I was able to watch Limavady Grammar School take on a high fancied Regent House side in a brave display at the school Rugby pitches last Saturday morning. Decimated by Swine flu and injuries, the team dug deep to make sure that these city slickers from the big smoke weren’t just in Limavady to give their country cousins a kicking. LGS refused to read the script and put in a very brave performance which gives them hope for the future that David occasionally can beat Goliath.

My sporting weekend was further enhanced by the Red Devils beating Blackburn 2 - 0 despite us not playing very well – however the joy of this victory was tempered by the defeat of Ulster down in Thomond Park in Munster to knock us off the top spot in the Magners League. About 12 years ago when I was President of Triathlon Ireland I made a point of travelling to every major club in the country and one of my trips was to Limerick where it coincided with my former Rugby Club, Ballymena, playing Shannon in a ferocious encounter. I used to get a call to play for Ballymena 5th XV late on a Friday night, when funnily enough the next day we had an away trip to Newry. My Rugby days ended however when my increasing myopia was matched by an equally dodgy appreciation of mathematical skills. I remember leaving a filthy pitch at Eaton Park and said to our skipper “Well that wasn’t too bad – a 12 all draw”. He looked at me as if I had completely lost my marbles and he hissed “We lost 13 – 12!” Oops, is it any wonder I wanted to take on three sports where you could wear prescription lenses and also where you didn’t need to be able to count!

All in all it was a fairly good sporting weekend for British sporting stars. The newly crowned World Champion Jenson Button finished on the Grand Prix podium in Abu Dhabi. Ross Fisher won the World Match Play golf tournament and Wendy and her mates trounced the rest of the cycling world. My heart however went out the Queen of long distance running, Paula Radcliffe who in her first marathon in a year finished in unfamiliar position i.e. 4th. I have always been a big fan of Paula’s ever since she replied to a letter sent by then 10 year old daughter Hannah for a project which Hannah was doing at the time. It was the only marathon outside the last two Olympic Games which Paula has failed to win. At least however, like Anne, she finished and didn’t quit. Unlike Wendy she didn’t have a gold medal put around her neck on the finish line. Paula, like Anne, will be back as you don’t count out champions on one bad race. While form may be temporary, class is permanent.

We can’t all be World Class Champions like Wendy or Paula, but what we can do is to train diligently and to race occasionally. I ended my week with my own version of sporting torture – 10 x 1 kilometre in under 1 minutes 30 seconds on the gym bike with 1 minute recovery. I managed to succeed in 9 of them but failed for some reason on rep number two, so it’s back to the drawing board. There is no point in completing several of the kilometres in 1 minute 20 if I slip to 1:32 in one of them – consistency of excellence is the watch world for any wannabe world champion and also for an old bloke who is desperately seeking a new goal and at present who is as clueless as Rafa Benitez was at Fulham was last Saturday...

After the bike ride I went on to the running machine and put it up to its maximum incline of 15 to duplicate walking up the side of the mountain to try to get ready for my latest sporting project – but that, dear reader, is another tale for another day......

MY BEST DAY ON THE BIKE

2009-08-18T02:39:00.001-07:00

Guest Posting By Gary Kendall

I’ve been riding a bike for a long time now and am a committed cyclist. I have raced mountain bikes, ridden road races, timetrials and have done a few sportives including the Etape. Whilst never troubling the finish marshals on a regular basis I have enjoyed some brilliant cycling. However I had not anticipated how my best day on the bike would occur.

This summer my wife, Kay, entered the Alpe D’Huez Long Course Triathlon and, of course, I was only too happy to accompany her and have a holiday in the Alps (as long as I could bring my bike). We asked our kids if they wanted to come and, as they have spent many hours bored at mum and dad’s various races, we expected they would prefer to stay with (and be spoilt by) Granny. However our 12 year old son, Ailbhe, said he wanted to come and bring his bike. He said that he wanted to climb Alpe D’Huez. As we like to encourage his cycling we agreed that he could bring his bike but I thought he would soon dispense with the idea of cycling the Alpe once he actually saw it for real.

Once we had arrived in France and I had cycled (read struggled) up the Alpe I was certain that the climb was too much for Ailbhe and I decided I should gently try to dissuade him from attempting it. As the days went by Ailbhe resisted my view and kept saying that he was going to climb the Alpe. By the end of our holiday my wife backed him up saying he should be allowed to give it a go. My fear was that it would be too much for him, he might have to give up ,exhausted, and that this would shatter his confidence in his ability and put him off cycling for good. I was outnumbered and so relented to his wishes.

Ailbhe, Kay and I went to the bottom of the climb to Alpe D’Huez early in the morning to ensure temperatures would not be too hot during his ‘attempt’. The start of this climb is always bad, but from a cold, standing start the first few ramps are a real shock to the system and, at the second bend, Ailbhe said he didn’t think he could do it. However, despite my misgivings, I now urged him to ride the first 4 of the 21 bends to let his body warm up and to try to find a rhythm (although he seemed to be confirming my worst fears at this point). It seemed to work – off he went with his mum and dad wittering in his ear. We had brief stops at many of the bends but gradually I saw a transformation in Ailbhe as he counted down the bends and progressed up the Alpe. Whilst physically he was becoming more and more tired, he was gaining more and more resolve as he counted down the bends and his determination to climb the whole way to the top increased. We were being passed by many other riders but they all looked on in admiration at the small boy who was taking on such a severe challenge.

We had counted down the bends and finally reached the last four. There are two routes to the top of the Alpe from this point; the direct route they use in the Tour De France stage finishes is the more difficult so Kay suggested to Ailbhe that we could take the easier route. His response was immediate “I haven’t cycled all the way up here to take the easy route now”. Any remaining doubts I had were dispelled in that instant. This boy was going to make it to the top and he duly set off again and dug deep into his reserves of determination. As we reached the top and rode into the town of Alp D’Huez some of the French riders who had passed us on the climb were sitting in a café and greeted Ailbhe with cries of ‘Bravo, Bravo’. To me that moment was perfection – my son’s sense of achievement shone in his smile and my sense of pride was immeasurable. Without doubt my best day on a bike.

Gary Kendall, Bann Wheelers Cycling Club, N. Ireland

IRONMAN X - KALMAR SWEDEN

2009-08-11T05:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday 1st August 2009 - RACE DAY

Fed up waiting for the alarm to go off, so I arose before 5.00 p.m. and surprised myself by being able to eat. I had a long hot lingering shower and cleaned my teeth knowing this was as good as I am going to feel all day. Took my Cannondale and my bike and run bags down to transition.
It was a glorious morning with the sun up over the Baltic and the flags (including my very own) fluttering prettily. My bike was deposited at rack number 328 just beside the only tree in transition. This was great news because when I eventually hope to stagger out of the sea befuddled with cold I wouldn’t have to look for my bike just a big tree. There was the usual air of nervous laughter and apprehension beside the bike racks, it may have been in Swedish and Danish but I could still relate to it. Glad I had checked in before the advertised opening time of 5.45 a.m. since 15 mins. later the place was like Paddy’s market. Back at the house discovered Sharon throwing up, not good for her and not good for me (I selfishly thought, because if I get the same bug it will be curtains for me). Was this Zorbas last forlorn fling?? Got the kids out of bed, they all got up surprisingly without complaint. At 6.30 a.m. Hannah asked “Daddy are you not putting your wet suit on? (as Hannah is an old hand at this lark). I replied “Hannah, as soon as I put it on, I know it’s race day and I’m trying to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible. I sighed and changed reluctantly from polyester into lycra and rubber and we wandered 300 steps down to the shore. There were athletes in the sea already. Patrick asked “Daddy are you not going in there to warm up to?” I replied, “Don’t be ridiculous son, I am going to be on the batter for the next 14 to 16 hours, one thing I don’t need is a warm up”.

Disappointed there was no pumping rock music out to get us all charged up or a National Anthem being played, I will always remember the Stars and Stripes being played at the Lake Placid race by several thousand Yanks at 6.58 a.m. on race day a few years ago. Awesome sight, awesome sound.

But I was now in Sweden and it was time to gird the loins. Bang on time the hooter sounded and the dread of the wait was over. It was now Show Time, waded in past the rocks and started swimming. I don’t know if you are claustrophobic, but if you are, the last placed you want to be is in a crowd of 600 people all trying to turn left at the first buoy which had been placed a suicidal 150 metres from the shore. It’s just as well I like my fellow man as it was very cosy shall we say. Got a few thumps on the head from people who I didn’t even know very well. It was still crowded twenty minutes later when I swear the bloke behind me was trying to mate with me. I wouldn’t have minded but I hadn’t even shaved! Mind you I had shaved the legs the night before – you know what it’s like girls, when you have a hot date, well I had a date with Destiny and I didn’t intend to let her down.

After about twenty minutes I looked up and saw the sun glistening n the Baltic and a crowd of thousands of spectators on the Beach and on the walls of the harbour. I felt very privileged to be here. At one stage there was a bloke to my left veering right and a bloke on my right veering left. I ended up being the Irish meat in an other wise Scandinavian sandwich. Looked up and spotted swim hat number 669 and which as I didn’t see a higher number all day was obviously the number of entrants. We turned right behind a wave breaker wall, five minutes later I was on the Beach where I grabbed the mike from the MC and brought greetings from Ireland to the crowd and especially from Limavady and the Roe Valley and told them I would love to sing a verse or two of Danny Boy if I wasn’t quite so busy. Hannah later said she doesn’t now even need to stay at home to be embarrassed by her father. Miraculously saw the family on the front row of the crowd waving and cheering and hollering – love you guys! Five minutes later my world was turning upside down, I suddenly felt like throwing up in the water, swam on, same feeling, not good. I know that in every Ironman race there are good times and not so good times. You have just got to (to use that old Ulster expression) “Thoul It” and keep on keeping on. The feeling seemed to pass.

Despite the reputed 19 degrees centigrade my finger tips were getting numb. I tried not to look too closely at the jelly fish who thankfully seemed more scared of us that we of them. Hit the shore in a slow 1 hr. 20 but felt I had swum well, so I blame the choppy conditions and my crap sense of direction.

Again met up with the best support team in the business and headed up into T1. I wasn’t impressed with the very small changing tent which didn’t have any benches in it so I decided to do all my changing beside the tree aided only by a towel. It took me back to my childhood days on Castlerock Beach. By the time it took me however to get my compression socks on over wet and sandy feet several days seemed to pass. Saw blood seeping from a toe which I had obviously dashed on one of the rocks whilst emerging from the deep. My erstwhile sock was a fetching shade of red. No matter, it was onwards and upwards. Gratified to see at least some bikes in transition area so I wasn’t last. Felt cold for the first few K but that’s to be expected. In my mind’s eye I had broken the race down into 12 sections. Two sections of the swim, 6 on the bike (out to the turn on each lap of three and then back i.e. 6) and ditto for the run. I had done 2/14ths and it was a case of just being very patient. About 100 guys and girls passed me on the first 30 K of the bike but I have long since discovered that you only have a certain amount of energy and I would rather conserve mine to get to the ultimate finish line than look good for the first 150K then blow up.

Planned to drink about 6 litres on the bike and did so. The race Doctor did warn us the day before at the briefing that he confidently predicted to see about 10% of us the next day. Although he was a very nice man I resolved not to meet him in his formal capacity. The bike course was rolling i.e. fast. The road surface was super and I am sorry to go on about this again but I have competed in countries all over the world and invariably the quality of surface on our roads in Northern Ireland is extremely poor. What are the DRD doing with all of the road tax money we give them? At times our road resemble a Silk Cut cigarette – not enough tar.

Started to eat. The secret to an Ironman Finish is nutrition and your stomach. You can swim, bike run all you like, but if you don’t eat right and drink right, you will crash and burn. I ate a fabulous roll, the first of three which Sharon had kindly made me. Whilst everyone else was tucking into power bars and go faster liquids, I was tucking into a salad and salami bap – nice! It was mostly into the wind out to the turn but we got the benefit of it on the way back. Tried not to breathe too hard because after I made it to the first turn after 30 K there was still 11/14ths of my race left. 2 hrs. 10 after leaving T1 I was at my very own race Headquarters i.e our house which was on the bike course – bliss! It was great for me to be able to relax knowing the family could escape the madness of a 15 hr day in the sun and come back here and chill. I changed my shirt to a sleeveless number because I thought I might as well work on my tan all day. “How are you”, Sharon inquired, I replied “So good it’s practically illegal, but I didn’t know there were blokes from Dungiven living here - near the turn the road is completely covered in doughnut marks – Horse her on Sir!” Grabbed a quick cup of coffee and set off once more. On the second lap when I thought everything was going very smoothly I was awoken from my reverie when a black cat shot out of a ditch one metre in front of my front wheel. That wouldn’t have looked so good on the back of “L’Equipe”, “PJ’s world record attempted sabotaged by world’s only unlucky black cat”. When the heart rate settled down it was back to business.

I had been slightly concerned that I had to beat the cut off time of 9 hrs 30 mins. for the first and second disciplines. Whilst I was not going to into the red zone I wasn’t hanging about either. Stepped off for a pee at the side of the road ( i know this is too much information) but this was a good thing. Apart from the 30 sec. relief (ouch!) it meant everything was still working as it should. If you stop being able to go during an Ironman race you are in big trouble as that means you are dehydrated and if you are dehydrated you are either going to slow down or stop.

After 74 miles I was back at base camp where the kids whooped and hollered as if it was me who was leading the race and not the pre race favourite wearing number 1, Ted As whom Patrick christened Father Ted Arse for the rest of the week end. As a fellow Father Ted fan this kept me chuckling for many a kilometre I can tell you.

Back on the road I was passed by a slim athletic blonde whom I swore was Alison Rankin. Was I hallucinating already so early in the day? I was becoming bone and bum tired at this stage so I started to sing to myself for distraction. Ah Paulo, “ I’ll even wash your clothes, just give me some Candy before I go...” Thankfully there was no one around to hear my efforts. The Swedish word for speed bump is “Farthinder” by the way. It’s amazing what you will think about during a 7 hour bike ride. I knew that if I got back before 3.30 I would have posted a sub 7 hour bike ride which would look well on the CV, so that’s what I did. Called for the last time at the house with another long list of demands i.e. tooth brush and a face cloth. It’s amazing how revived you feel after a cold wet flannel under the oxters. I was tempted to run the last 50 metres into T2 without my bike, just to give the organisers a bit of a logistical night mare – the Irish man has finished his bike ride but he has no bike? I thought I would play it by the rules for a change and I racked my bike where once again the Castlerock technique did its stuff. Ten minutes before the winner had already crossed the line – and it wasn’t even Father Ted! He had led all day for over 8 hours to be overtaken 2K from the finish. Can you imagine how tired he would feel the next day? The victor of course feels no pain.

Decided to jog (no, not run) for as much as I could at the start. I knew that I would now finish the race which was a big relief. I was wearing my special 2XU finisher shirt and knew that I would shortly earn the right to frame it after I finished. Although happy that I was going to finish I soon began to rearrange my mental goal posts. I was conscious of the fact that my first ever Ironman finish nearly 19 years previously was 13 hours 31 mins. If I ran a sub 5 hour marathon I would beat that time. But hang on Peter you had struggled to run London in April in 4 hrs. 14 mins. and now you wanted to drop only 44 mins. and that was after a 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike ride. Can you be serious? Well I am nothing if not optimistic so off I plodded into the Swedish sun. There were three laps of 14K each and after the first lap you get a red wrist band and after the second you get a green band. I looked at a lot of wrists enviously. That bloke over there was 9 miles ahead, that bloke over there was 18 miles ahead, I tried not to feel demoralised, dispirited or down beat (and failed miserably).

One of the novel items of food being handed out at the aid station was crisps and pickles, decided to avoid the latter on grounds of good taste and the former in case I choked to death. Meanwhile each foot stroke in the sun was painful, the sun was beating down, everything hurt. During the swim you look at your watch once at the end of the first lap, an the bike you look at it via your computer maybe 10 or 20 times. During the run you literally at it 100’s of time calculating how fast you have to go to meet your next target.

The run in an Ironman is just all pain, every step, every stride, every plod. My feet felt as if I was running over hot coals. My race belt which contained a water bottle, and lots of sweets, started to slip of my hips because I was losing so much weight with all the sweating. Your world is just full of pain, nothing else. There are no happy places to be found in 42K of toil, tears and sweat.

However I had 6 vague targets in my head for this race.

1. To finish and that was obviously the most important.
2. To beat the cut off time of 15 hours. If I was there in 15:01, I would not have my official photo taken!
3. To beat my worst ever time of 14:51 in Austria
4. To beat 14 hours.
5. To beat last year’s time of 13:45 in the Czech Republic.
6. To beat my first ever time of 13:31.

The first three goals were in the bag and soon the 4th would be too – that just left 5 and 6. I have discovered however that an Ironman is not just about the numbers on the race clock on the finish line, it’s about the journey and I wanted to enjoy this journey, my last one. My nineteen year long trip was soon to be over and I wanted to savour it.

Having said that the competitive streak in me kicked in and I forced myself remorselessly on. I phoned Sharon and gave her my latest demand. I would kill for an ice cream. So at the start of lap 2, I was the only bloke on the entire course enjoying a Swedish ice cream. I am quite sure that if I had demanded only black
M & M’s Sharons’s resourcefulness would have found them as well. Thankfully Sharon stomach was back to normal so it was all good.

I promised myself all sorts of treats in the next few weeks if my body would only allow me to wring out a sub 5 hour marathon out of my reluctant frame.

Unfailingly polite and exceedingly courteous, the Swedish race crew and marshals did all they could to encourage you to the Finish Line. I know that every single bone and muscle in my body was on fire at this stage, except my calves thanks to the compression socks. Resolved that if I ever did another long race I would wrap my entire body in a compression sock. Mind you, you might end up looking a bit like Tuttenkamun but at least I would be pain free!

I worked out that if I pushed my way to the half point i.e. the turn around on lap 2 for a certain time, I would have 2 hours 40 for the last 21K. That sounded feasible, it may not sound like much but my body was on the very limit. I knew that under those socks of mine there was a mass of blisters and blood, of tortured muscle and aching limbs. I could no longer eat, I was trying very hard just to keep some liquid down. I felt like throwing up but you just remind yourself that it’s a case of mind over matter i.e. “I don’t mind if my body doesn’t matter” and you plough on – for God and Ulster etc.

Soon it looked as if I had enough time saved to possibly beat last year’s time so five objects out of six were achieved. What about the last one however? Could I beat 13:31 by “sprinting” 8 minute kilometres – should I beat 13:31, would it be better perhaps if I didn’t? What was I trying to prove anyway?

Tried to remember what this pain was like so that I would never be foolish enough to ever do an 11th. This pain was real and it was all consuming. During the swim and the bike, you can allow your mind to drift but during the marathon, I could think of nothing except of how much pain I was in. My world was composed of undiluted unadulterated pure pain. On the way back after the turn on the third lap I saw some runners who had on only a red wrist band i.e. they were 9 miles behind me, the poor souls! I was reduced to jogging three minutes and walking two minutes. How come the two minutes seemed to pass in a flash but the three minutes seemed like purgatory? My feet were seemingly on top of a barbeque. I was heading for Destiny on the Finish Line where I knew that the best family and support crew in the world would be patiently waiting.

Eventually I phoned Sharon and told her to go get those new Ironman X dog tags ready. Despite the gloom of dusk I was still wearing my sun glasses. I did what all riders do in the Tour de France when they are about to win a break-away stage, I pulled up the zip of my shirt and tried to look composed for the all important finish line shot. I heard the MC’s voice booming across the loud speakers then I saw my kids.

I stopped and wept, not with tears of joy, but with tears of relief. The journey was almost over, but then Hannah quickly reminded me “Daddy, you still have got 100 metres to go, you haven’t finished yet!” We grabbed hands and my children pulled and hauled me down those last immortal steps. I never wanted this feeling to end.

We crossed the line, the official photographer did his stuff, I then put my ten fingers in the air. Lance may have won 7 tours but I have been lucky 10 times out of 10 starts on my Ironman journey and I wouldn’t have swapped places with even Lance. I was given a finishers plaque and a tee-shirt. The Jack Family all looked great on the Finish Line but then one family member decided to cramp up, big style. I steadied myself near a wall, we lingered for a while trying to savour this never to be repeated moment. Patrick grabbed my bike out of transition and we counted down the 136 paces home for hot sweet tea and even hotter shower and an even colder Carlsberg but not before my body decided it was pay back time and it went into a completely uncontrollable spasm of shivering where I was both on fire and seemingly as cold as ice at the same time. Hannah tore off the legendary compression socks, there were four cuts and a mass of congealed blood, there were enough blisters to cover a cow field but this was just paying the bill i.e. if you do the crime, you pay the time. You pay to play and this was a price well worth paying. Those sores will heal, those blisters will fade, the bruised soles of my feet will recover. When the pain disappears, the pride will still be there.

I would like to finish by giving my thanks.

1. To my bike – you are never going to finish an Ironman without a comfortable reliable bike and I am fortunate enough to have one (thanks to Colin).
2. To my body which I owe big time. Despite the injuries and the niggles, the chest infection the week before and the stomach trouble the day before, it came good when it mattered. I now owe it some down time.
3. To my club mates in the Triangle Triathlon Club with whom I train every week for their support and particularly to my fellow Ironman finishers. We now have more Ironmen and women in our club than any other club in Ireland.
4. Most of all to my family who have stuck with me in this mad project through thick and thin. I couldn’t have made it without you guys and for that I am eternally grateful. You are SIMPLY THE BEST.

Eighteen years, three hundred and forty eight days and three minutes after I started my Ironman quest the journey for me is finally over. I will be for others to carry on and re-write the Irish record books. I will be the first to congratulate whoever makes 11 finishes. I have endured and sometimes even enjoyed every single stroke, spin an stride along the way.

I can look back with a life time of pride and realised how lucky and privileged I have been. I would not have missed it for all the world. In short, I would describe the race in just six words, “Swim chopy, Bike windy, Run hot” but it wouldn’t have seemed as much fun, would it?

Now, I have got a bike and wet suit for sale – Any offers?

IRONMAN X -72 hours to go

2009-08-11T03:04:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 29th July – 72 Hours to go.

They say that travel broadens the mind. Well my mind must have been fairly broad before I laid my head down in a hostel in Copenhagen twelve hours after setting off. First we made it to Belfast City Airport; we then boarded a quiet flight to Stanstead. I had envisaged hours of queues there with English holiday makers fighting to escape the country but we proceeded through check in and airport security and we even had an hour free. We then felt we had the time to have a meal and of course 60 mins. became 75 and we were standing on the transit train for what seemed an eternity where I could only remember the words on a sign at check in, “If you’re late we won’t wait”. When the train eventually arrived I sprinted up two flights of escalators and down a long corridor to discover that the Easy jet flight was as late as we were... When I thought about it, this was the first “exercise” I had had in a week. I was a sweaty and hyperventilating mess clutching my knees to keep me upright and that was after approximately 400 metres of running. Seventy two hours to go and I needed a trip via Lourdes on the way to Kalmar...

Still ..... at least Hannah Jack had the joy of treating herself (out of Daddy’s wallet of course) to a new bikni. How can something that tiny cost so much I felt like asking, but thought better of it. As long as we later had the weather for Hannah to enjoy her bikini – and me my mankini.......

I therefore spent the entire flight to Copenhagen chatting to a very useful Danish woman who told me there was no need to get a taxi from the airport, just take the metro instead and then it was a 10 min. stroll. Why oh why Lord do I ever listen to people who have no idea what they are talking about? First the metro waited for ages before leaving, then we had to change trains, when we eventually got to the station we had to man handle 5 suit cases, 5 rucksacks and a bike bag that weighed a ton up two flights of stairs only to discover at the top a sparkling new lift. I looked at a map of CPH in the same way that Don Quixote had looked at a map of Mexico when he arrived on shore and said confidently “Right we will just go straight down here then left.....” By this stage the suit cases seemed to be full of rocks and everyone we asked had never heard of our hostel and of course it was at the very far end of one of the longest streets in Denmark’s capital. When we arrived at check in there was a sheen of sweat on my head which looked as if I had just done an Ironman, except when you do an Ironman you don’t usually end up with calluses on your hands.

Thursday 30th July - 48 Hours to go.

Four hours later I was awake, finding sleep an impossible pursuit so I sneaked out and went to enjoy the streets of CPH particularly the world famous Tivoli Gardens. I saw a poster advertising a Danish group called “The Four Jacks”. If the Five Limavady Jacks turned up we would give them a run for their money but I then saw a poster for a concert the following Friday by Aqua (of Barbie Girl fame) and made a mental note to spend the last day of our holiday singing along to the tune of “We’re a Barbie Girl – in a Barbie World”. That seemed to make about just as much sense as the rest of this trip would make.... Had a fascinating discussion at the breakfast table with a girl from Malaysia who seemed to be the only person in the Danish Capital to have had her bike stolen - there are thousands of cyclists in CPH and in fact the first poster we saw when we spilled out of the airport was a huge one of Andy Schleke who had just finished second in the Tour de France. What are the chances of a cyclist being centre stage back home? Anyway this girl just said the Danish just leave their bikes anywhere and everywhere and no one nicks them – except for hers!

We struggled to the bus station and boarded an incredibly comfortable coach to take us from Denmark to Sweden over the superb Oresund Bridge built by both governments to boost trade. All it seemed to do however was to allow the Danes to go to Sweden where it was much cheaper to commute back to work as the Danish Kroner is 50% stronger than the Swedish version.

We arrived in Malmo and luckily enough in a town of two hundred thousand people our car hire place was 200 metres away from the station. Soon afterwards I was the proud driver of a Toyota Hi Ace which was the size of a truck i.e. it was able to hold my mankini and everything else.

I stared at the map from behind the driver’s wheel regretting the fact that I never mastered orienteering and set off, at least we can control our own destiny. 100 metres later we were lost! Only a joke! The roads were great but the weather wasn’t. It was 300 k to Kalmar on the E22, which would be no problem apart from the fact that the wipers had to be on double speed to cope with the deluge of rain that was being flung at us. When I looked at the trees by the side of the road they were bent double with the wind. If conditions were like that on Saturday it would make for a very long day.

Arrived in Kalmar and eventually found our little house which was a quaint 17th century residence. Pretty as a post card but also incredibly central and handy to all proceedings.. If you looked out the front door and spat you could perhaps have hit the finish line. I later measured it and the good news was that if I ever reached the finish line Patrick Jack had only 136 metres to haul/oxter the prostrate figure of his sobbing father back home where the only three things that matter to an Ironman finisher were all located on the ground floor – a loo, a shower and a fridge....

We had a fabulous meal out in a Greek Restaurant called Zobas, of course. I proceeded to stuff my face. The last time I had stomach trouble from food poisoning was in Athens at the Olympics in 2004 after a dodgy Mousaka but surely lightning couldn’t strike twice? I strolled around the pretty town square and went home knowing that this was the most important night’s sleep of the athletic year, i.e. two nights before the race as it is assumed that you don’t not sleep the night before the race. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow, woke at 4.15 a.m. unfortunately which was 3.15 BST time. Thankfully got back to sleep.

Friday 31st July – race day - 24 hours.

I have only done two Ironmen before which were in the sea, Holland and Benone and of course in the sea you are completely at the mercy of the elements. Thought I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day worrying about the water temperatures so I decided to take the plunge, and I got suited and booted and walked the 136 metres to the finish line and another 100 metres to the swim start line. A few guys were doing exactly the same thing and I talked to an athlete from Gothenburg who of course was called Peter. We lingered on the shore line but then got on with it. There were a lot of sea grass underneath the water but the temperature was gratifyingly ok. We were told it was 19 degrees centigrade so swam 10 minutes and felt good. My chest was not heaving like a steam train and I felt no desire to look for my inhalers. I made my way back to the house trying to convince myself I was fit and ready and raring to go. Took out the bike (I had pleased myself the night before by being able to assemble it and get the saddle, pedals and the tri bars all pointing in the right direction) for a twenty minute spin. I saw the stadium where Kalmar FC play. They had won the Swedish Championship last year for the very first time, not bad for a wee town of 60,000 people taking on the might of Stockholm etc. Went out for a 10 minute run and felt ok. One hour later went to register did so, sat down and instantly felt stomach cramps. It was like someone sticking a knife in my gut. Maybe it would pass, I thought optimistically, no it didn’t. Went home, lay on the bed in the foetal position and put a pillow over my head and wondered what could possibly go wrong next. I tried to work out what I had eaten or drunk which could possibly could have contributed to this bout of Montezuma’s revenge, it had to be Zorba, didn’t it? Fell asleep, woke up, still felt bad. Not good.

Went to the pre race briefing with Hannah and Patrick, there was a separate briefing for English speakers. This included the Israelis the Spanish, the French, the Italians and even one bloke from Cardiff Tri Club and two Scots sitting in front of me. Of course we all knew Richard Pearson from Triathlon Scotland, small world etc. Then there was the ubiquitous Yank who was so pleased he was the only American in the race so he could call himself the American Champion, with the Stars and Stripes fluttering proudly in the breeze, I told him my flag was up there as well – just for me, a nice feeling but to justify the flag the only Irish competitor had to actually finish. Crawled back after the briefing and went back to bed where I dreamt of being called Lazarus as I would need a revival of epic proportions tomorrow if I was able to make the start line, let alone the finish line. The irony of course was that the day before an Ironman race you should be eating for Ireland. I didn’t feel like eating anything, so I just sipped water and dozed and prayed.

At registration I had previously posed in a very special shirt which I am sure no one else had, i.e. a shirt from my very first ironman in Almere, Holland, I wanted to link the two events symbolically in my mind. Unbelievably the shirt was still in one piece and even more unbelievably it still fitted me. That race was not without its tribulations. Fog delayed the start of the swim, I had five punctures on the bike and had to rely on a sub 4 hour marathon to beat the cut off time. On my second Ironman I was on antibiotics in Wolverhampton in England; the third one was in Scotland and involved getting lost in the Highlands on the run with only sheep for company; the fourth one in Benone which ended up with me in an oxygen mask; the fifth was a PB in Roth Germany; the sixth one involved still suffering from jet lag at Idaho USA; the seventh one was Austria where I couldn’t stand up due to a back injury and had my slowest ever time; the eighth one was the heat of Lake Placid; the ninth one was the Czech Republic the previous year where I had the joy of Hannah and William O’Kane with me but that race also included my leg going into a huge muscle spasm after the finish. Now I was confronting my tenth and last – with a lingering chest infection, a dodgy stomach and a rising tide of apprehension in my gut. I already had my finishers shirt printed – was I tempting fate?

Read on next week to see if PJ makes it to the Nirvana of the Finish Line – only in the Roe Valley Sentinel.

COUNT DOWN TO IRONMAN X – Diary of a Hypochondriac

2009-08-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

Sunday 19th July – 13 days to to.

Woke up in Athlone, knackered from commentating for twelve hours the day before. Is this the ideal preparation for my last Ironman due to take place on the 1st August? On race day you have to be 100% fit, 100% healthy and 100% focused. You have to be prepared to face the difficulties and trauma that will be flung at you during the 2.4 mile sea swim, 112 mile bike ride and 26.2 mile “run”. I put quotes around the word run because, believe me, I will be performing lots of forward motion during the last discipline of a very long day, but to call it running might be a bit strong. There will be a lot of that dreadful word “jogging”. Runners hate it when they are asked by lay people, “Were you just out for a wee jog?” and you feel like replying “well actually I have just done 10 K in 48 mins. and got my pulse to 85% of its max on hilly sections and for the rest of the time my heart rate was working in zone three i.e. between 130 and140 beats a minute and I finished practically comatose but hey sure I enjoyed my ‘jog’.

As well as jogging in Kalmar in South East Sweden on the 1st August I will be stumbling, walking, perambulating, staggering and yes, even crawling, to the only goal that matters – the Finish Line. However to get to the finish line I have to get to the start line and to get to the start line I have to actually get from (a) Ruskey Lodge Limavady to (b) Kalmar.

I came across a wonderful three week pre race training plan known as a taper (where one is meant to decrease the volume but not the intensity) but nowhere in the great master plan is there any reference to the biggest bug bearer an athlete faces – TRAVEL! It just says rest two days before the race and then train on the day before the competition in all three disciplines.

Well actually Travel can be really debilitating especially the modern version which tends to include Ryanair and Easyjets’ version of “Customer Care” In our case we get a taxi from the house to Belfast City Airport (as my bike simply will not fit in to a normal sized car), then we fly to Stanstead then a very quick turn-a-round to Copenhagen then we pick up the hire car then negotiate a map to find our base for the night at a Youth Hostel, (the Danish version of youth must differ from our own!) then the next day a 5 hr drive to Kalmar to meet the people to whom we are evicting for three days (it’s really very kind of them particularly as the house is only 100 metres away from the race start). I remember travelling to an Ironman race years ago the day before and I was still knackered from the travel on the start line, not good. In another race in America I went through three flights and 5 different time zones and was still suffering from jet lag when the starter’s hooter went. In an ideal world you get to the race start 36 or 38 hours before race day. If you are there too long before the race you tend to freak out a bit and you keep bumping into people who tell you that the course is tough, the weather forecast is bad, the waves are 10ft high etc. You just got to get in the zone and think positive thoughts and talk to positive people – I don’t want to hear about Problems, I just want to talk about Solutions! Anyway all of these thoughts were coming to the fore as I tried to stay awake on the drive home from Athlone. The only way I could manage it was to crank up Paulo Nuttini to indulge in that relatively new sport of “car dancing”. To do so, you put the roof on the Saab down and turn it into a disco, thankfully there was no one out from the Noise Abatement Society....

I knew that I needed some exercise so I took Roxy for a quick run (no not a jog!) round the Roe Valley Country Park wearing my new kit which I will be wearing on race day (you never experiment on race day with anything new). I had this special cool max 2XU top printed with my name, the name of my beloved club (The Triangle Triathlon Club) and a list of my 10 Ironman finishes with the dates on the back of the shirt. I know I have only done 9 but the shirt is going to look so cool on the finish line (I hope I am not jinxing myself before race day). It must have looked really strange running round the Country Park on Sunday which was a busy as a Supermarket with lots of people who knew me saying to themselves – “why has he got his name on his shirt – is that in case he forgets it?” Anyway I enjoyed the physicality of doing something after too much standing and too much talking into a microphone the day before...

Monday 20th July – 12 days to go

I felt hammered all day. The week end was starting to have an effect. Isn’t it strange it catches up two days later, not just one? So why then did I go for a savage session in the gym? I ended up doing 48 bench presses of 32 kilos, 48 lateral pull downs of 40 kilos, 48 tricep dips, 48 dumb bell curls of 10K’s 48 ab crunches and 48 squats of 17K’s then three Planks of 1 minute each, 48 leg raises from the ground, 100 straight ab crunches on the Swedish ball, two by 80 side ab crunches (straight) some chin ups then a 10k as hard as I could go on the bike (15 mins. 15 in case you are interested) At the time it all felt great but later I started to feel a general malaise.

Tuesday 21st July – 11 days to go

Woke up with a familiar tickle in my throat that I tried to put down to pre-race paranoia. The forecast was vile but hey why would I let nature get in the way of my intended training plan? I headed to Benone to see Jason Bell who was to take photographs of a looney in a wet suit holding a bike in the air. Jason looked a sketch with a plastic bag over his head and also his camera as he tried to fend off the 50 mile an hour winds and driving horizontal rain. As I was already in my wet suit, I thought I might as well go into the water. Bad mistake as I can honestly say the sea beat me. It chewed me up and spat me out. The waves were not only enormous but unpredictable and I couldn’t get to the other side of them to find calmer water anywhere. I prayed that race day in the Baltic Sea would not be like this.... Dragged myself to the shore with my spirits so low that I decided to head out on the bike for the loop i.e. Benone – Downhill – Coleraine – Mountain Road ( If you are in a car you can call it a hill, but if you are on a bike believe me it’s a mountain) then the town I love so well (no, Limavady!) and then back to Benone. The weather actually lightened up a wee bit but it is always discouraging when the cars coming towards you have their headlights on in the middle of the day as it is so dark. Legs felt a bit tight so I strapped the bike to bike rack and headed to the pool to get a wee swim somewhere where the waves weren’t quite as big. Mind you if you ever swim next to Gully McLaughlin it can be just like the stormiest sea you have ever seen! As good luck would have it I got there when the guys were just about to start a 5 x 500 metre set starting every 10 mins. (we averaged about 8 mins. 40 for each set of 20 lengths). I really shouldn’t have done that....

Wednesday 22nd July – 10 days to go

The vaguely familiar throat tickle was now a very familiar roughness where I felt I had been smoking 40 Woodbine a day for 40 years but decided Roxy really needed some exercise so we went to the Roe Valley Country Park. As soon as I started running I felt like merely jogging and when I started jogging I felt like a wally. I was devoid of inspiration, I felt bereft of hope, I needed something that simply wasn’t there in the system. Now here was a strange sight – a bloke in knee high (ok, compression) socks and running kit and he is walking.... Hoped I wouldn’t bump into anybody I knew. I just felt dispirited and without any energy or conviction whatsoever. I really hoped I wasn’t going to feel like this on race day. I crept home for an early night licking my wounds wondering why my body was deciding to let me down now after being so good to me after the last 8 months, then I looked back at the last three weeks training and probably found out why I was feeling this way. Week 1 was 14 hours plus, week 2 was 10 hours plus and week three was were I had really gone for broke on two different runs and had achieved two PB’s. Many people say that race conditions make you go harder but I am able to push myself to the absolute Pepsi, sorry Max, solo. I don’t the presence of anybody – or any other competition to enable me to go into the red zone and beyond. So why did I decide to push myself over the limit in two pointless exercises when really the only thing that counts is the 1st August and not what happens 10 days before?? The only sensible decision I made this week was not to take up Colin Loughery’s very kind offer of me joining up for the “two up” 10 mile time trial with the Roe Valley Cycling Club. I would have been trying to hang on for dear life onto Colin’s back wheel for a painful 26 or 27 mins. and meanwhile Colin wouldn’t have been getting a proper work out at all as he would have to wait for me. By this stage the damage had been done, I was starting to feel achy and a bit asthmatic which is an old childhood condition which I generally suffer from only once a year. This was not a good time to try and dig out the inhaler. I mean what happens if I was to win the ironman in Sweden, be drug tested and then barred as I was using an asthma inhaler which wasn’t on my list of prescribed medicines?! Just kidding folks, the only person that I am racing against is me and also for the right to wear that damned special shirt! I have had the shirt printed so I have got to earn the right to wear it. The other very special thing I am looking forward to on the finish line is a set of solid silver Ironman X dog tags which my long suffering wife Sharon will (hopefully) place around my neck on the finish line at about 22:00 hours on the 1st August 09 - I just hope she doesn’t use them to strangle me with if I ever breathe the possibility of doing Ironman XI !

Thursday 23rd July – 9 days to go

Felt really crap all day. I was like a car engine which didn’t have enough oil in it. I was running too hot and was about to seize up. I watched the time trial stage 18 of the world’s greatest race, the Tour De France where my hero Lance Armstrong finished 12th, but still moved into the top three overall. I am still devastated from two of the saddest sights I have ever seen in sport. On Monday Lance bowed his head on the finish line to the inevitable (i.e. age) when he lost 2 minutes in a crucial mountain stage and even worse was the day before when Tom Watson, the 59 year old, missed an 8 ft putt for the Open on the 72nd hole. He not only missed winning the Open, he missed perpetual glory in what would have been the greatest sports story of the year without doubt. I was with “these old guys” in spirit and I felt their crushing defeats personally. Is that why my spirits were so low and I felt so demoralised?

I didn’t train today at all but I couldn’t resist 20 straight chin ups late at night on the bar which I have specially constructed outside my gym. It’s the best £15.00’s worth of kit you are ever going to buy. Just start slowly with it and before you know you will be able to build up to a pyramid totalling 100 before you can even say the words “Arnold Swartzenager” or “whey protein” but will any of this help me make it to Nirvana i.e. the finish line? I was going to need a few miracles and maybe a trip to the asthma clinic before we jet off to an uncertain future in unchartered waters.
Now where had I put that Swedish dictionary and what was the Swedish for “Help, I have no energy and can’t fight my out of a paper bag but I have got 140.6 miles of swimming and running ahead of me...” At least I know the German for “Where is the Hospital?” but I don’t know if speaking German would go down all that well with their Northern Scandinavian near neighbours.......

Friday 24th July – 8 days to go

Woke up feeling lousy and just got lousier all day. Felt, clammy, sweaty, pulse too high, short of breath, felt I was either at altitude or in a hypoxic tent. My taper plan said that today I was to be doing 30 mins. of swimming including 10 x 100 metres, 75 mins. of biking including 3 x 10 mins. hard and 15 mins. running at race pace. Instead, climbing up the stairs of the office felt like climbing Everest. My new prescription goggles arrived. At least this is some good news. My current ones fog up every 5 mins. and in the Baltic Sea I want to see where I am going in case I head for Lithunia. If you stop to get them cleared, you get swum over by about 300 guys who really don’t care if they push you under.

Looked at the race web site - there are now 598 competitors including new entrants from Spain, Israel, Germany etc. Thankfully I am still the only competitor from Triathlon Ireland. I should have tried out the new goggles, (as you never experiment on race day) but just went for a sauna instead which was very pleasant. It opened up the airways a little bit but at the end of the day unless there is massive global warming in the next 8 days the temperature of a sauna will not be the same as in Sweden during the race... I reluctantly left the sauna and went to the treatment room of the Health Centre where I asked which of my two inhalers was for what. Was the blue one for prevention and the red one for a cure? Or was it vice versa. If I whack to much of the wrong one in me I could end up hyperventilating with my pulse going through the roof. I received guidance from the ever patient Thelma who has a great way with patients (ouch!) even hypochondriac ones. Early night dreaming of storm tossed Baltic Seas.

Saturday 24th – 7 days to go

According to the taper I was meant to have a 45 min. swim and a 45 min. run instead took Roxy for a long walk in the sun kissed Roe Valley Country Park. When you stand at the weir with just a canine companion under the shadow of O’Cahan’s Rock your panorama consists of trees and rocks and water that will be there long after you depart this mortal field. It gives you a sense of timelessness and wonder. You realise how insignificant your problems really are. You realise also in the words of Bono, “It’s a Beautiful Day” and also in the words of the actor Jimmy Stewart “It’s a Wonderful Life”. How did people get through a normal day, particularly a Saturday without being able to train? I felt like a back packer who had lost his back pack. I felt like Fred Astaire without Ginger Rogers. I felt like Man. United without Sir Alex. There was something missing, I couldn’t train so I thought I would do some gardening. Of course the lawnmower then broke down for the first time in 10 years, so I thought I would do some strimming, so the strimmer broke down for the first time ever. My equipment was falling to pieces just like my body! I hoped this was not a prescient sign....

Every cloud however has a silver lining as I was then able to watch the penultimate and vital stage of the Tour De France in the legendary and famed Mont Ventoux. To show you hard it is, 7,000 amateurs did the same stage (known as L’etape) last Monday. One really good cyclist wrote about it in the Times. He did the first 148 K in 5hrs. 28 mins. and felt great, it took him however 4 hours for the next 22 K which was all uphill. He thought he was dying in the middle and the top of the climb. He was parched and hallucinating, he fell off his bike at one stage and went to try and find water and came back hoping his bike was stolen ... To show what the Tour takes out of pro-cyclist, - one competitor a few years ago when he finally reached Paris slept for a solid 40 hours. It is the most riveting sport to watch when you see the physical and psychological struggle, but what doesn’t kills you, cures you, so the field of 156 (40 guys having already crashed or got sick or just given up since the start) hit the slopes of Ventoux with all of the star names at the front. There was a fascinating battle of endurance chess played out on the slopes under the boiling sun. One of my heroes is Lance Armstrong, the 7 time winner who had retired for 3 ½ years and then came back to promote his Live Strong Cancer Campaign. Stephen Roche summed it all up on Euro Sport on Sunday “I thought Lance would talk about doing the Tour and then pull out particularly after he broke his collar bone. He had the perfect opportunity to escape, instead of that he finished top 10 in the Giro D’Italia (the Italian version of the Tour De France) and he hit the start line fired up and ready to roll. At the age of 37 he was about to finish on the podium, i.e. top three which is unbelievable”. I desperately wanted Lance to retain his third position on General Classification but I also wanted Bradley Wiggins, the British Olympic treble gold medallist to finish high up as well. Bradley is a star he has lost 6 Kilos, kept his power and proved he can climb with the best of them. He put himself through hell and back. I was extremely impressed how he dealt with the pain, he simply repeated this mantra to himself “One more minute, one more minute..” With his thighs on fire and his heart trying to go through his chest, the group in front kept leaving Bradley for dead but he clawed his way back like a rock climber up a vertical slope. His main competition for fourth spot was ahead but Bradley had to finish within 27 secs. to retain his lead, he did so with three seconds to spare and as he crossed the line you could see that he was completely spent, exhausted and couldn’t pedal one more stroke. That’s what I love about this sport of ours. If Bradley Wiggins can do then I can do it on Saturday, mind you I am going to be out for twice as long as the bike riders and instead of repeating “one more minute” I am going to have to repeat, “one more hour.... one more hour....” Meanwhile I headed to Castlerock for a quiet night in the caravan dosed up with antibiotics (which my GP had kindly prescribed that very morning) two types of inhaler, Covonia (who needs Carlsberg when you have a cough medicine with a kick like a mule?). Throat lozenges, pain killers and anything else I could lay my hands one. I didn’t need good luck in 7 days time, I need a miracle....

Sunday 26th – 6 days to go

According to my taper I was meant to have a 45 min. bike ride instead I woke up with a throat that felt as if a red hot poker was down it.. I felt as if I had been shouting for several hours the night before. Thankfully I was on my own and didn’t have to talk to anybody. It’s just as well Roxy likes the strong and silent type...

At least I had another stage of the Tour to look forward to when Mark Cavendish (who was front and back page news all over Europe but who was relegated to page 57 in our national papers) won the most prestigious stage of the entire race i.e. the Champs D’Elysses. Mark is just a Pocket Rocket, a Human Dynamo, he is the Manx Missile with Attitude. He thinks he is the greatest – and I agree with him. He should be BBC Sports personality of the year, doubtless it will go to some overpaid motor racing driver or footballer....

Did some weeding, whilst if not good for the cardio vascular system at least it was therapeutic. Then the Jack family settled down to watch the only decent hours telly of the entire week, “On Thin Ice”, where James Cracknell (double Olympic gold medallist) Ben Fogle (TV presenter and survivor of the Marathon Des Sables and also who has rowed across the Atlantic with Cracknell) and new comer Dr. Ed Coates fought the way to the South Pole when they finished second despite frost bite and extreme exhaustion (skiing 16 to 18 hours a day non stop) for a month. Why do people do this? Well I can relate to the “Why” if not the “How”. It’s because we want to push ourselves to the limit because if we want to redefine what is possible merely for ourselves; and also because you are a long time dead. At least afterwards we have the memories, the photos – and also the finishers t-shirt – to last a life time.

Monday 28th July – “No Limits”

I have decided this will be my motto and mantra for the race. I will do whatever it takes, and do whatever is necessary to get to the finish line. I will not be held back by the normal limitations imposed by physical or psychological well being. I will push myself through barriers. The only brake on my ambition will be my physical health which will hopefully have been knocked back into shape by the antibiotics. Cracknell and Fogle and Coates refuse to accept limits when they battled cold and fatigue, Armstrong and Wiggins refused to accept limits when they toiled in the heat of the Alps and the Pyrenees. They are all members of a very small club namely, “No Limits”. I have to jump start my confidence and ramp up my own vision of what could be achieved on Saturday but first I had to get to the start line. Thanks to the internet we are now booked on most conceivable methods of transport known to Wo/man, i.e. taxi, car, bus, plane etc. but the only method not yet booked is a camel ride...

I will be inspired on Saturday by my family (who will thankfully be able to stay in bed until 6.00 a.m. on race day as the house is only 100 metres away from the start and I can waddle down to transition area several hours before them) and by my Club mates especially the Magherafelt Mafia, seven of whom completed Ironman Nice a few weeks ago. Seven finishers out of seven starters is a fantastic achievement. They should be given the freedom of the Borough if you ask me. There will be times in the race when I would rather be anywhere else in the world but when that finish line is in sight and when Hannah Patrick and Mark hold my hands and drag me the last few steps I wouldn’t even swap places with Cracknell or Cavendish......

Success on the Shannon- Athlone

2009-08-10T03:51:00.000-07:00

As you may know, wannabe Ironman athletes are always very uptight and apprehensive a few weeks before a race and sometimes it’s a very good idea to be distracted from your training..... It was therefore my privilege and pleasure to be asked to attend the biggest Triathlon ever seen in Ireland. Last Saturday I was in Athlone on the Shannon between Munster and Leinster. The event is called Tri-Athlone and four years ago it had around 400 participants. This year it had 2,400 in the age group races for the Irish Sprint Title as well Olympic Race and also the Irish Army Championships. It also featured the ITU European Cup Race and the venue has already been selected to host the 2010 European Championships.

It is no wonder that the entire week end is called a TriFest. I wasn’t however in a Festival frame of mind by the time I had battled my way down on Friday taking over 4 ½ hours for the 150 mile journey. Everybody who had a motorised method of transport appeared to be on the same road as myself. I eventually staggered into a jam packed heaving Athlone(there were 12,000 visitors in the town for the week end of Triathlon activities – can you imagine how many tourist dollars that brings to the region!) and persuaded the girl at the desk to let me into the sacrosanct area otherwise known as “the hotel car park”. The first of many gigs over the week end had already started in a specially erected marquee while 5 minutes later I was at the elite athletes briefing where the ITU Technical Delegate told them in no uncertain terms what was expected of them the next day.

The field was a mixture of Spanish, French, Australian, Austrian, Cypriot, Dutch Belgian, GBR etc. and I have seen more fat on a butcher’s dog. If the athletes had turned sideways I am sure they would have disappeared. They redefine the word gaunt but they would be ready to rumble in the morning.

The first person I bumped into, irony of ironies when I was illegally parked 30 mins. before outside the hotel was my cousin Martin Bodie originally from Coleraine, now Manchester. I hadn’t see Martin for ten years until last November at a Triathlon Road Show in London now Athlone – Martin we really should meet up somewhere normal like Limavady or Coleraine ok?”

Martin and I shared some food and a pint while looking forward to the morning. Martin is Manager of Sports Tours International and had some clients over to do the race and to check it out for next year’s big event. It would have been foolish of him not to do the race himself! Incidentally if you want to do next year’s race when they expect 5,000 age groupers you better book accommodation now as a bed in Athlone next July is going to be as rare as a trophy in the Manchester City Committee room.

I tossed and turned for a few hours but at 8.00 a.m. I was on the banks of Ireland’s largest river. I stood on a specially constructed beautiful blue pontoon which jutted 75 metres from the bank into the river. In front of me I had about 2,000 spectators and 1,000 wet suit clad athletes (who were getting ready for the first of 4 or 5 waves of 200 swimmers heats). I had a microphone in my hand and I felt as lucky as a lotto ticket winner. My new best friend Ken had me wired for sound and we were ramped and amped and ready to rock and roll. All I had to do was talk about the sport I love passionately for the next 12 hours – what could be easier?

The race organiser had to change the swim start and move it 750 metres up stream as the current in the river was about 5 or 6 metres per second – poor swimmers like me would not actually be able to swim upstream. We would simply float down stream like a cork.

Every wave had a different coloured swim cap to give our time keepers a vague idea of who was meant to be where and at what time. In addition every athlete had a champion timing chip on their left ankle which would record their swim time, their transition time, their bike time, their run time and overall finish time – not bad for a device which weighs about 50 grams. Every competitor was also wearing a black wet suit and identical coloured swim hat – a commentator’s nightmare!

We got the crowd activated and animated and the competitors received huge rounds of applause. For all of them this was the biggest stage in which they had ever competed and they were loving it. Some of them would talk to me as they ran down the pontoon while trying to get rid of their wet suits. Some of them however were in the zone and didn’t want to talk to me. The transition area was a thing of beauty. It was in the middle of Athlone Army Barracks. I had checked it out the night before and it was a wonderful sight for me as a race organiser to see transition racks laid out for nearly 2,500 bikes – and knowing I wasn’t responsible for any of it!

One of the local organisers, Derek Nugent, who is a soldier had persuaded his superiors that it really was a good idea for the parade ground to be turned into a Triathlon junkies dream and the whole place looked magnificent. To me this was like Wimbledon, Croke Park and Wembley. At last our sport was receiving the stage it so richly deserved. All we needed later in the day after the age group races was for some local success in the elite races.

In the past we have been the most accommodating and gracious of hosts. We put on great races, we give free entries to International athletes, we pick them up from the airport, give them free hotel rooms and invite them to race us, then they proceed to stuff our athletes, they take the prize money and they go straight to the airport on their way home. So could we do anything about it this year? Well hopes were high for our latest star in the making i.e. Aileen Morrison from Derry. She has a full time coach, she trains 35 hours a week and she lives the life of an ascetic monk,
(sorry, professional triathlete). In the men’s race we had my young friend Gavin Noble from Enniskillen (ironically which is now the Headquarters of Waterways Ireland, one of the race’s main sponsors) now based in Stirling Scotland as we still don’t have a 50 metre pool here). Gavin won this race in 2006 and 2007 but was beaten by two French guys last year who worked him over on the bike. Also in the race we had a very talented mix of Spanish and Aussies and we had David Graham the Irish Duathlon Champion who was stepping up to the mark and was taking part in his first pro race.

At 2.55 p.m. after I did a quick live radio interview for Midlands 103 FM (who were supporting the TriFest all week end and who were a superb co-sponsor). I called forward the number one ranked athlete in the field i.e. Aileen, who had placed 13th in the European Championships in Holland two weeks previously, 25th in the ITU World Cup race in South Korea and 24th in the World Cup race on the steps of the White House in downtown Washington DC – not a bad set of results for a girl whose parents still had never seen her race until last Saturday! Well Mr. & Mrs Morrison were to be very proud of their young green clad girl who was first out of the water and who worked in a pack of three on the bike with an Australian athlete and a French athlete. Aileen hit the front at the start of the run but there was something awfully efficient about the little Australian dynamo, Felicity Sheedy- Ryan, who soon passed Aileen and who stayed a tantalising 100 metres ahead of her for the rest of the race. I could see from the effort on Aileen’s face that she was on the absolute rivet; she had given it 100%. She finished with a silver medal and should be very pleased with her effort. Aileen was allowed 24 hours off training by her coach and on Monday went off to High altitude in St. Moritz before coming down to sea level for the ITU cup race in London on the 15th August before going to the World Championships in Brisbane on the gold coast.

She is sure clocking up lots of air miles –all part of the far from glamorous life of an elite triahtlete for whom travel is not a pleasure just a pain (just ask our own Anne Paul who has travelled extensively all over the world, lugging a bike box that is practically bigger than her!).

The race finished in the middle of the town so I then dashed the 500 metres back to the pontoon with my trusty Lieutenant Ken whose job was to keep me on air, sane and upright for 12 hours. Ten minutes later Ken put the classical fanfare intro on over the loud speakers, the athletes were called onto the pontoon, the starters flags were raised, the technical delegate from Spain called them to their marks, and and raised the horn, said “Ready.... Go!” and 38 swimmers dived into the Shannon to start their 2 hour race. Unfortunately our Gavin thought the start procedure was the same for an ITU World Cup race and he went before the B of the Bang and was therefore held after the swim in transition one for a penalty of 15 secs. Meanwhile the two French guys who finished 1 – 2 last year went off the front and the pack behind seemed strangely lethargic. We did have the pleasure however during the race of the athletes clambering onto the pontoon and then doing a fantastic swallow dive back into the Shannon and the crowd lapped it up.

I had the joy of interviewing lots of people during the day including two army Commandants, coaches, Mary O’Rourke TD (from one of the Ireland’s most famous political families) but my good friend Richard Archibald, the double Olympian, didn’t want to talk to me and told me to go and interview somebody important! Richard there weren’t many double Olympians in the audience!

Meanwhile in the bike section something strange was happened. An unheralded Irish athlete called Brian Keane from Cork rode from the back (as he wasn’t a great swimmer) passed one pack, went straight off the front of it, up to the main peloton, had a quick word with Gavin and then dragged the main pack up to the French two some who looked at him as if he had an engine on his bike, Brian then proceeded to ride off the front of this pack with only one Austrian keeping him company. Apparently Brian was a part of the Sean Kelly cycling Academy – but could he stay out there? Meanwhile Gavin, who unlike the rest of us knew what was going on, sat at the front of the peloton covering any brakes and discouraging anyone from going to chase down the shooting star up the road. I got one of the marshals to take a time gap and it just proceeded to grow and grow until he came back into Transition 2 with a 90 second lead but would it be enough? By this stage the crowd of thousands on the Bridge and in front of the Castle and lining Grace Road, were on tenter hooks. Could we really be about to leave behind a history of mediocrity and sock it to the rest of the world here us on home soil and get on top of the podium? Brian took off at the start of the 10K as if it was only 100 metres, my heart wanted him to win but my head said he would blow up and be passed by about 30 athletes who had paced their race better. Well if I was to wait for Cork’s latest super star to blow up I would still be waiting! The commentator was moved to shout out at the crowd “Where were you when the Berlin Wall came down? Where were you when Ray Houghton’s goal beat Italy in World Cup ’92? Where were you when history was made when Brian Keane hammered the rest of a stellar field and won an ITU European Cup race in Athlone?” I am surprised you couldn’t hear the roars of the crowd up in the North West. Brian Keane was lifted by the crowd and seemed to be floating on air as he left the rest of the field for dead. Meanwhile Gavin whose tactics had done so much to lay down the foundation stone of Brian’s victory was engaged in a mortal struggle with three Spanish and one French athlete and was to lose out on a podium place by a matter of a few painful – and expensive - seconds.

Ken and I raced up to the finish line and I exhorted the crowd to lean over the railings and to use their hands to get the equivalent of a drum roll going for our victor. When I had reminded them Cork had produced one super star Roy Keane and now we had another they broke into a chant of “Kean-O, Kean-O......”

I have been so lucky in my life to have been present at a lot of top class sporting events but this atmosphere, this energy, this love between crowd and athlete was just.... awesome. The hairs on the back of ones neck were up and we brought the house down. I had earlier allowed RTE do the first interviews with the first three women but I couldn’t hold myself back this time so I brought Brian back down the finish funnel back down to his delirious adoring public – if you could bottle that feeling and sell it you would be a very wealthy entrepreneur.

Brian was really cool and calm and confident and far from overawed by the whole occasion. This really impressed me, he believes he can actually get better, he is 28 and only started serious training last October – Mamma Mia there is hope for the rest of us yet!

Later I interviewed Chris Jones the Triathlon Ireland high performance coach who admitted that he suspected this might happen. Now Brian, you are a marked man and the rest of the Triathlon world know about you. You might need different tactics next time.

We then had the platform party, the fanfare, the procession, the flowers, the medals the anthems, the champagne. It was just a great finale to a great week end. Me and my team Ken Paul, and Thomas all embraced and I got the crowd to thank Hugh McAtamney Race Director, Liam Heavin, Chairman Waterways Triathlon and John Casey Water Safety Leader and also Derek Nugent, they linked arms and they took the applause they so richly deserved. I of course missed the ultimate trick I should have introduced them as the “FAB FOUR”. We all looked and felt absolutely shattered and shell shocked. I could at least stumble back to the hotel for a shower and a beer and some hot food, the other guys had to go and get the course taken down. Two hours later we were all in the heaving Bar and the sports news came on the TV. We looked up at the screen, first there was the Golf, from the Open, then the Tour de France, then – Tri-Athlone!

We saw Aileen on the podium in 2nd place, then they showed Brian crossing the line to win the whole event. We raised our pints and fists in the air and roared as one, in unison. Our sport was for once out of the back waters and onto the back pages – now all we have to do is keep it there.

OOPs I did it again

2009-03-05T06:46:00.000-08:00

Whilst Brittany and I both probably share a panchant for gym slips, I don’t think that the pony tail popstress is keen on getting hypothermia on a bike! - Twice! It had all started so promisingly several hours earlier when I set out on the usual Coleraine, Castlerock, Benone circular route. I had Paddy Jack’s IPod (as my own had died a death) and despite confirming that Rap is indeed crap, I was motoring on rightly until the clouds turned ominously white when I was on the Seacoast Road. The clouds then started to dispense rain, then sleet, then snow, - not again! You try to work harder to keep yourself warmer but there was nothing I could do with my hands. This all seemed so eerily familiar. Soon the ground was completely white and I thought that road bike tyres don’t have an enormous amount of stopping power at the best of times never mind in the slithering slipping conditions. When I eventually made it home the Ringsend Road was like winter wonderland and young Mark saw his Dad in front of the sink, turning on the hot tap, with me being confronted with the choice between Agony and Ecstasy. The Ecstasy would be when my hands eventually resumed a human like temperature, the Agony would be putting my hands under the tap..... Oh! Hobson’s choice....

Thirty minutes later it had all seemed like just a bad dream but I am not quite sure if it’s ideal training for a hot summer Ironman.....

Anyway, here are the tips from The Healthy For Men magazine to help boost your immune system. As you know most of us don’t get over training injuries, we come down with coughs and colds and flu’s. Try this to insure that you don’t succumb.

1. Take plenty of Vitamin C. If your immune system is low you would be far better taking a good immune enhancing multi vitamin and mineral supplement.

2. Don’t under estimate the importance of a good night’s sleep. If you are having trouble nodding off, try camomile or fennel tea before bed or try valerian or a few drops of lavender oil on your pillow.

3. A cuppa i.e. even with honey and a few slices of ginger in hot water. This drink works like a mini detox – no need to go to that expensive Spa!

4. Love your gut, keep your gut healthy by limiting alcohol and sugary fatty foods and cut out wheat and yeast if you know you have an intolerance to it. Also get rid of stress as it can also damage the gut.

5. Use some system boosters like Echinacea and Astragalus while golden seal is also recommended to ease a sore throat.

6. Meditate, this also boosts your immunity. People who have two months of meditation training produce more antibodies in response to a flu vaccine than those who didn’t meditate.

7. Work well. If you are ill, don’t work! To speed up your recovery cut down on caffeine eat fresh unprocessed foods.

8. Drink lots of water.

9. Top up your zinc as this helps produce T cells that help to fight off infection.

10. Feel soup-er, chicken soup really does work, it’s easy on the digestion and boosts the immune system.

Once you are healthy you might want to consider some training on the Concept II. Sometimes it’s great to get another sport as well as Swim, Bike and Run. The classic distance is 2K and one indoor rowing Coach recommends that if you want to get a good 2K time then you want to sharpen your speed with shorter interval sessions including the classic 8 x 500 metres with 3 mins. rest between each one. Also recommended is 6 x 45 seconds with a minute’s rest between each one. It will build fitness endurance and power and there are two types of category available – heavyweight and lightweight, with lightweight being 75 Kgs. and under for men and 61.5 Kgs and under for woman.

Hands up those of you who like the Concept II or have one at home or do you use one regularly?

After being caught out in the snow again yesterday I was wishing I was on a Concept II...

Good luck with the training and don’t forget your Club’s Mountain Bike race on Saturday 7th March at 11.00a.m. and entries are being taken in the Cam from 10.30 a.m. Entry is £5.00 with all proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Relief and there will be some spot prizes...

3 modern reasons to be cheerful:

2009-01-29T02:37:00.001-08:00

What with the Credit Crunch biting and the inclement weather closing in, it would be easy to be a bit down. The late great Ian Dury had a wonderful song called “Reasons to be Cheerful” Part 3.

Let’s think of 3 modern reasons to be cheerful:

1. Findings published this week in the BMC Endocrine Disorders, show that sprinting for just 30 seconds at a time on a regular basis could improve health by increasing the bodies metabolism – in other words when I go to try Adrians 3K swim session next Tuesday I’ll be able to quote Professor Timnons from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh who says that high intensity exercise such as sprinting or pedalling intensely can help prevent weight gain, heart disease and diabetes. A study followed 16 young men who sprinted on bikes as fast as they could. Each workout was for 4 30 second sprints and this depletes more sugar from muscles forcing them to replace it with stores from the blood. That’s it then, no more 3 hour bike sessions for me. All I need is 4 x 30 seconds...........

2. According to the front page of the County Derry Post, Wendy Houvenaghel is delighted to be pictured beside our very own Simpson McGrath and Wendy can’t wait to cycle with Simpson on Sunday 5th April in a 55 mile run leaving God’s own country i.e. Maghera and going to Portstewart and back. For one £10 you too can ride with an Olympic Silver Medalist. All proceeds are to Wendy’s 2012 fund. Their website is www.carn-wheelers.co.uk. Simpson, you don’t know how pleased I am that, on behalf of Limavady Sports Council, we’re paying to bring Wendy and her husband over for our dinner on Friday 3rd April............... so that she can go out on the bike with you on Sunday! This is yet another cunning plan by the Magherafelt Mafia!

3. After all that 30 second sprinting, you should wind down listening to Bruce Springsteen’s latest “Working on a Dream”. It’s nearly as good as Magic and it’s reminiscent of his last opis i.e. Magic and nearly as good as the Rising. Believe it or not all three albums were produced by Brendan O’Brien, so as well as being an award winning cyclist and duathlete Brendan in his spare time has found time to produce Bruce’s last three albums. What a star. I must remember to ask him about it as I’ll be running with him, along with Roxy of course, this afternoon..............

From Benign at Benone to The Baltic at Binevenagh

2009-01-27T02:44:00.000-08:00

As my frozen fingers fumbled with the FM dial on the car stereo, I heard the Scottish chanteuse Annie Lennox’s’ “Why” wafting over the airwaves; it was a question that not only needed asking, it was a question that needed answering. Why, oh why, was I in the state that I was in? Mike Jagger and his fellow Stones gave the world “Jumping Jack Flash” – well, this Jack certainly wasn’t flash but he sure was jumping. I was so cold even in the car that it was as if I was suffering from St. Vitus Dance. I wasn’t remotely in control of my limbs, my teeth were chattering uncontrollably and my body was convulsing with the cold. I tried to stay in control of the vehicle but even that was difficult. At least, my befuddled brain cells recalled; I was no longer on a bike in weather conditions which resembled a lethal combination of the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Why? Annie, Why, is it because I should or because I think I should? Is it because I can? - Or because I think I can?

It had all seemed more different more than two hours earlier when I met up with Alistair and Colin at Colin’s house. I told Colin I wanted a few hours of suffering. He smilingly replied that at least he could guarantee me that much. We hammered out to Station Road, Ballykelly where we then started the Myroe sea wall path. This bulwark against nature has only been breached once in the last 50 years and has ensured that many more acres of arable land are available for Limavady. The sea wall, from my selfish point of view, also provided mile after mile of shelter from the biting sea wind. The path ended and we then had to lift the bikes over a fence onto the railway track and waddle on our cleats and our SPDS onto the safety of the second part of the sea wall path. The other beautiful aspect of this path from my point of view was the fact that it was as flat as a pancake. Hills will find out the non cyclist i.e. me, but I can bluff as well as the next guy on the flat, particularly when I am on somebody’s back wheel. Alistair and I however would have needed an engine to stay on the tail of Colin who as Bruce Springsteen once regailed us, was a “Man on Fire”. Another railway line slowed Colin down enough for us to catch him and we soon bunny hoped across the railway tracks (30 secs. later a train came – no children, don’t try this one at home).

I put on a rain jacket, I am not sure why as it wasn’t raining, it was snowing. Big fat flakes of white stuff gently descended upon us as I thought that the prospect of climbing to the top of Binevenagh (today’s goal) was not an appealing one so I decided to chicken out and turn at Swans Bridge but Colin said we wouldn’t be gracing the top of Limavady’s finest mountain with our presence but we would take an easier “option”. I am all for the word “Easy” and quicker than you could say “Get out of Jail for free card”, I quickly volunteered my services to join the back of the Colin – Ali express. We turned right on to the Duncrun Road, then after a few miles of mostly up we were about to turn right – and even higher still. When Colin warned you about a hill that’s coming up you know that the word “Pain” is going to be a frequent visitor to your lungs and legs over the next 30 mins. or so. Colin warned me that I would have to be in the granny gear and that I would have to do some”Dancing” – at last, I thought, something I was good at! Well I am not sure if the pain that descended upon my addled brain could best be described as being “Waltzed” or “Fox trotted” but very shortly, I certainly felt I had been “Tangoed....” I was in the granny gear watching my two mates climb out of sight. The road started as grey tarmac, then it became slushy with the snow, then it became white, all white with the only signs of life on this dead alpine like world being the tyre tracks of the two preceding bikes. I was tempted to fall into the ditch to the right but thought I would never be found.... It was so steep that the front wheel threatened to lift up and throw me off backwards.... Through the thick snow, my eyes just about picked out a buzzard circling above the foot hills of Binevenagh, seemingly keeping a beady eye on this florescent lump far beneath him, a mass that was not quite lifeless but was moving so slowly it seemed only a matter of time before the ditch would claim him.

Every lung bursting frozen minute was followed by another lung bursting frozen minute, suddenly I couldn’t see the guys at all, but I could see their tracks in the snow turning right at the top of the road into the Ballycarton Forest i.e. downhill all the way! Paul McCartney gave us the immortal lines a few years ago “All my troubles Lord, will soon be over” - was relief in sight? Ah now, things were about to get worse, much worse..... The guys bumped (nearly literally) into two blokes who were going in the opposite direction and they seemed to be climbing up to the equivalent of the Matterhorn i.e. the top of the Bishops Road, and even they were questioning their sanity. I had long since lost the power of speech or rational thought, so I ploughed on and started to plunge downwards. If I thought I had been cold previously, I soon discovered that whilst I had been merely in the fridge, I was now in the freezer – and the lid was shut. Going downhill in the cold means you don’t get the chance to pedal, not pedalling means you get colder still.... Every atom in my body was chilled to the marrow; every piece of me was ice blue including my fingers which meant I couldn’t change gear either up or down, big ring or little ring. I was, as Stealers Wheel sang three decades ago “Stuck in the Middle”. Colin and Alistair swooped past and said something, I was on another planet and merely grunted my reply, and although I was still pedalling I heard myself hyperventilating with the cold. The Native Inuit of Northern Canada had thirteen words for the word snow, I had only one word for it and it certainly wasn’t printable in a family newspaper. My core was reacting to the shock by making me breathe hard. The cycling was comparatively effortless but my pulse was at about150. I thought fleetingly of Ben Fogle and James Cracknell, two of my heroes, who had just completed a 45 day trek to Antarctica. How did they face being so cold every day with no respite in sight? I tried to focus on the prospect of hot soup, hot coffee, hot chocolate (no, not the group) to keep me from falling down a ravine and being finally picked off by that buzzard.... I forced my legs to work on the few up-hill sections, albeit I was in the wrong gear. We came to a halt at the bottom of Ballycarton, where I thought my hands were going to drop off. Normally you can put your gloved hand in your mouth and blow on them but as my gloves were covered in muck and all sorts of crud, that wasn’t an option. I fell off my bike and stumbled about the place like a drunk on a raft in the middle of a storm tossed sea, I couldn’t function. Between hyperthermia and hyperventilating I was in a complete mess.

Colin saw how bad I was and told me that we were going to nail it on the way home for the last five or six miles in an effort to get some warmth back into the system which was on the verge of completely shutting down..... Once on the Aghanloo Road, we formed a flying ‘V’ formation where I tried to work hard to get the blood flowing, but the icy wind of the mountain didn’t give me the X-factor, it just gave me a minus wind chill factor instead. I knew this road – and the Ballycarton Forest paths – like the back of my hand but I suddenly didn’t recognise most of the road. It was as if I was a Martian seeing it for the first time, I was beyond cold. Soon the Edenmore Road and Colin’s house loomed on the horizon. I knew however that before things got better they would get a lot worse. I have been in the sea and out on the bike in shockingly cold conditions enough to know that when your body is frozen to the core the warming up is not as easy as it sounds. I staggered to the sink and lay my helmeted head on the kitchen work top then began the agonising job of pulling the gloves off my hands with my teeth as there was no ways my fingers could perform this necessary operation.. Somehow my molars managed to accomplish this dextrous task and I then had to put my icy white hands into the rapidly warming waters under the tap..... Dear reader, I will spare you the unspeakable agonies of the next 10 minutes as my digits tried to cope with a rapid change of temperature but suffice to say I nearly blacked out with the pain. I will merely try and attempt to persuade you that the moisture on my cheek was either beads of sweat or snow which had melted..... Colin had the shower on and was about to throw me under it clothes and all, when I fumbled out the necessary words to make it known that perhaps some hot coffee might do the trick. Ella already had it made. I am sure it was quite a sight watching a guy twitching and jerking as he tried to drink three cups of scalding coffee at once as I simply could not keep my body still. I looked round at the trail of devastation I had left on their kitchen floor, mud, slush, bits of clothes and helmet abandoned as if an air raid siren had just sounded.... black coffee had never tasted as good, nor was it ever as necessary... Alistair lent me a dry warm top and I stumbled out to the car, trying to express my gratitude in the words of “The Frey”, as it had been an abject example of “How to save a life”.... Thankfully the rest of the family weren’t there to see the patriarch stumble in through the back door past a startled – but very warm looking – dog under the hottest shower this side of a Radox ad. I was still numb to the core and it took hours for my finger tips to join the rest of my body in an ice free zone, why, Annie, why, I hear you implore? Normally I would reply that every major expedition that involves a lot of suffering is a big stepping stone on the path to the finish line of Ironman X and therefore is worth it, but I found it hard to justify this savage onslaught on my system.

Gloria Gaynor may have boasted “I Will Survive”; I had barely done so. I resolved one thing however, as I practically lay on top of a roaring coal fire several hours later, my next few training sessions would be in a nice, warm, dry, Gym.....

A Day when Change is Gonna Come

2009-01-20T07:59:00.000-08:00

Today is a momentous day, a day, as Bruce Springsteen would sing, for the Rising, a day when Change is Gonna Come.

It’s the 20th January, it’s Inauguration day, a day to savour, a day to celebrate, a moment to remember.

Barack talks of the AUDACITY OF HOPE. What is your HOPE today? - To get better as an athlete, to improve as an administrator, a referee, a coach, a race organiser?

Barack’s inauguration speech was written by 27 year old Jon Favreau in a Star Bucks. Where’s your best work or training done?

Barack’s term is for 4 years. Where are you going to be in 4 years? Will you be seeking re-election? Or will you have been defeated in the primaries or at your parties nomination? Barack has a blank sheet in front of him, you have a training diary. Barack is already filling in his goals for the next 1,460 days. They say the first 100 days of any Presidency will define it. What will be your achievements in the next 100 days? Will you have contributed anything to your club? Will you have become a more professional organised disciplined athlete?

Barack’s campaign started as a whisper in Springfield and it carried across the Cornfields of Iowa..... He gave us his vision at the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston “There ‘s not a Liberal America and a Conservative America. There’s the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. There is not a black America and a white America and a Latino America and an Asian America. There is a United States of America”.

We have 50 members in our club, each with different backgrounds, ages, locations, abilities and a completely different set of aspirations.

Let us remember on today of all days that we are the Triangle Triathlon Club, we are one Club, we are united.

Let today – the 20th January every year - be our Inauguration day. Let today be the day when we celebrate together, console each other for our losses and commit ourselves to our mutual future bound together in the Red and Black, that is, .......

The Triangle Triathlon Club.

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF....... Ouch!

2008-12-09T12:26:00.001-08:00

After 8 weeks of no Cardio work due to a lingering chest infection, I thought it was time to stop being a wimp and get away from the weights in the Gym and go and train outside in the fresh air where the real athletes strut their stuff.

On Saturday Roxy and I ran round a quiet Country Park in the sunshine on the crackling sparkling ice where the squirrels and the birds were foraging for survival. The future stars of the Springwell Running Club were being trained by Bill Deehan, Kenny Bacon and Columb Knowles and there were a few desultory walkers braving the cold. If I am to achieve my aim of completing Ironman X sometime in 2009, the base miles had to be done and I had to start somewhere – what better place than in the mouth of Christmas!

The next morning I decided to check out the course for the inaugural Hill Climb on January the 10th. I have advertised it as a 1K challenge where riders and runners start off together every 30 seconds because I want to see who is quicker – two wheels or two feet. The proposed course is really steep and the heart rate will be at max right from the word go. Not having a quantity surveyors measuring wheel with me, I thought I would pace it out. 1,000 steps later I was at the top of the vertiginous hill panting from the effort – and that was just after walking it! There is plenty of space up the hill for spectators to come and cheer, Tour de France style as the athletes suffer on the Challenge. The Tour de France always attract the biggest crowds on the Alpine slopes because the spectators see their favourite riders struggle and suffer only centimetres away from them – and because the riders are doing about 10 miles an hour, not 25 or 30. As I surveyed the white view from the top of the forest I ruminated on some daft events I have helped to organise in the past.....

About twenty years ago we had a very unusual mile race on the Castlerock Road, in Coleraine. We had over 100 runners, all of whom were guaranteed a personal best for a mile – as it was all down-hill! I remember being in the driver’s seat of my trusty Vauxhall Cavalier when we said “Ready, Steady, Go!” and a hoard of athletes started to rapidly approach the back windscreen. There was only one problem, I had left the hand brake on and we weren’t going anywhere!

I managed to release it in the nick of time otherwise some of Northern Ireland’s best milers would have ended up in my back seat... Three minutes and 35 seconds later Davy Wilson of Annadale Striders crossed the line, one of several to beat the coveted 4 minute mark that day. Several years later I helped to organise a very strange event on the Bishops Road, with the Triangle Triathlon Club. This is the same climb that the Roe Valley Cycling Club use to host their season ending hill climb. The athletes looked a bit puzzled when I explained the format – they would run up 2.4 miles of Bishops Road, then run down with their quads being hammered by the steep descent, then bike up to the top – it certainly was a duathlon with a difference! Funnily enough no one was too keen to repeat the experience 12 months later.

Anyway I hope that the runners of Springwell, Pegasus and City of Derry etc. and the bikers of RVCC and Derry Wheelers will enjoy the novel event on January 10th. There is a £25.00 prize for quickest male and female runner and male and female biker. It takes me back to infamous hill in the Ironman in Roth in Southern Germany which I tackled a few years ago. Many people had told me about it, but nothing could prepare you for the blast that was to come. After the 3.8K canal swim and at about 70K on the bike the 2,500 athletes were confronted with this mother of a hill – it just went up – and then kept going up. There were 30,000 spectators on both sides of the hill alone and everyone of them seemed to have a bugle or a klaxon or a cow horn, (we were close to Switzerland after all) or a whistle or a drum and they wanted you to know that whilst they couldn’t necessarily play any of the instruments in tune by god they could make a racket with it! You felt really inspired and despite being knackered there was no way you were going to get off an walk, no siree, you were going to show them that Marco Pantani and Lance Armstrong were mere amateurs when it came to the particulars of hill climbing. It was out of the saddle with the heart rate going through the roof, clicking down through the gears until you made it to the top by which stage you are absolutely shattered and you have two thirds of the race still to go! I was already looking forward to the next lap to face it all again but when I eventually made it several hours later, the leaders had long gone, the 30,000 crowd had evaporated like the Chelsea crowd at Stamford Bridge when the Blues lose and I was faced with a few desultory cheers and bugle blows....

On January 10 at the Hill Climb in the Springwell Forest (three miles up the Ringsend Road, coming out of Limavady and it’s the trail that links you to the main Limavady Coleraine Road) we want lots of spectators to join in the fun. Bring a musical instrument even if you can’t play it and make the athletes feel special. All proceeds are for the Rotary Foundation Charity and my fellow Rotarians will be there making hot soup and rolls for all contestants concerned. Will I be doing it? Hey, somebody has to hold the stop watch!!

The day after my first tentative foray back into the joys of forest running I thought I would go out on the bike. The road bike didn’t seem too attractive – too much spray being thrown up by passing cars - so I plumped for my trusty Giant Terrago. Mountain biking is so much fun I am surprised that the government hasn’t taxed it yet. You get stuck into a forest (and we are blessed with at least five on our own doorstep) away from the traffic and it’s just you and nature head to head. The Cam Forest (just 2 miles from Ringsend) has long been a favourite of mine. We host the Wo/Man –v- Bike –v- Horse spectacular in it two weeks before Christmas every year (this Sunday at 12.00 noon if you are interested) and I have done a serious amount of long slow distance Ironman training in there on its rough but navigable paths and tracks. The beauty of it is you just don’t see other human beings in it. It looks so bleak from the road yet it reveals its splendours like a luminous diamond inside a lump of black coal once you make the effort. There is circuit of about 6 miles long, stay on the main path and it will bring you back to where you started. There are also lots of other interesting cul-de-sacs –there are also some suicidal descents (including one where I crashed big time just after 17 year old Hannah Jack was born. I learnt from that experience brakes don’t necessarily work if you are in mid air at the time)

There is always the sound of trickling water nearby. There are quiet nymph like glades for the wood sprites; I remember seeing a fox there years ago. I don’t know who was more startled, me, the fox or my dog. There are windmills at the top of Rigged Hill. If you stand underneath it’s as close as most of us are going to get to the - whump noise of a ceiling fan in a red lit sultry Saigon night in the 70’s Vietnam movies; there are technical passages where one is advised to take care but it doesn’t include any of the real kamikaze stuff beloved by the downhill fraternity in Ballycarton. There is one cute little stream to charge through at speed. There is a mini lake which is used as a fire break; all of these magnificent features cared for by the Department of Forestry – and all of them under utilised by a population not yet aware of the myriad of delights contained therein.

It helps when you are preparing for a mountain bike ride in an Irish winter to not be in a hurry. I put on the necessary gear – a thermal shirt, a thermal jacket, a pair of Coolmax shorts and Ironman bib tights, a pair of cycling shoes and overshoes; a helmet; a skull cap; a bandana for the throat and neck; and of course a pair of thick gloves and also I slipped into my back pocket the modern pre requisite without which no solo self respecting biking afficianado could possibly be seen without – the IPod. Young Patrick had recently de-junked my old stuff off it and he had loaded it up with his ‘old man’s’ favourites i.e. three albums from Snow Patrol; and one from Ray Lamontagne and he had stuck on his own Killers for me (too bland to be considered the world’s coolest band I fear). The bike was transported to the playground (known as the Cam Forest) on the bike rack and it was taken off with tremulous hands as I contemplated the fun that lay ahead. Once I had safely negotiated the horse steps into the Cam, Gary Lightbody was in full flow as “Run” was cascading through my skullcandies into my aural lobes and I was underway. I hadn’t ridden in about 8 weeks and I was like a kid in a sweet shop. I powered up through the gears and was up out of the saddle, hey I might as well look good for the first few hundred yards anyway! The white bright snowy stuff of the morning was still there but I had listened to the weather forecasters and had been assured that it had turned to slush. Run segued into “I love the city tonight” when something strange started to happen.

I looked down and saw my bike at a 45 degree angle, strange I thought, what’s it that shape for? The world, which I had been looking at a perfectly normal angle, seemed to be going upside down. I looked down searching for clues and found nice shiny hard ice.... Something was about to happen and it looked as if it was going to involve a World of Pain.... I felt like a surfer who had just lost his board and he was facing a wipe out. I felt like a parachutist who had forgotten to take his parachute. I felt like an equestrian expert whose horse had decided he didn’t particularly like the look of the fence in front of him..... Crash! Bang! Wallop!

I was staring at a tree, not the top of a tree, not the middle of a tree but the bottom of a tree. I felt my heart rate shoot up about an extra 70 beats a minute and I heard someone gasping for breath in staccato fashion and then realised it was me. I waited for the pain to come in waves and wasn’t disappointed. I also waited for that familiar adrenaline to be pumped through the body to come to the rescue to mask the pain. I wondered if anything didn’t hurt, knowing that would be a bad sign, I wriggled my tomb encased feet and hands to see if they moved. If I was incapable of movement, at least I hoped I would be a fit looking – if frozen corpse the next day when eventually found in the middle of nowhere. I sat up to inspect the damage and survey the wreckage. My right elbow and hip hurt like buggary but that pain was a good pain, it meant nothing was numb or broken. I then did what I normally do when confronted with peril – I laughed. I laughed at my own idiocy in refusing to believe that the white stuff on the ground may have been alright to run on but not to bike over. I had laughed earlier in the year in different situations of hazard – in the heat of Malta, miles from nowhere on a far from perfect hire bike; in the furnace of the Czech Republic during the 180K bike section of the Ironman and then the white hot heat of Rhodes when I punctured two hot and sweaty hours from home. The time I was laughing not only in the heat but in the ice and the snow fields. I thought, as I lay in a heap, Tangled Up In Blue, underneath my grey Giant Teraggo that I had been stupid – but I had largely got away with it.

I thought how attractive Tanya Young’s Spinning Session was in Aghanloo (great music, great lights with Tanya exhorting you to go faster in an atmosphere reminiscent of a night club when even I couldn’t fall off from a static spinning bike) I thought of my own torture device namely the turbo trainer in my gym at home were you saw the fruits of your labour i.e. your sweat on the floor after a 1hr. session. I thought of all of the safe alternatives to mountain biking in the wild – and I laughed my head off. I gingerly got to my feet, checked the bike to see that it was ok and remount it (hey, you fall off your horse, you get back on the horse) and pedal somewhat slowly back to the entrance gates. I felt I had brought forward my replacement hip operation with S. Simpson FRCS (orthopaedic surgeon to the Celebs and Rock stars) a few years but didn’t really want to risk falling off again and wrecking the other hip (maybe not such a bad idea after all, I could get two for the price of one). More forest adventure was out of the question so it was back on to the main road for some boring but fairly safe black tarmac for an hour. Snow Patrol alternatively soothed and energised me as my right hip began to throb. It began to burn so hot I could have fried an egg on it; it felt as though I had put a whole tub of deep heat on it; it throbbed like the vein in Rafael Benitez’s temple when Liverpool failed to score; it ached like an Irish pig exporter’s headache.

When I made it home I inspected the damage – some blood, some welts and bruises and as Squeeze once famously sung, “A Nasty Little Rash”, but thankfully my Coolmax shorts were in one piece, hey, cuts and bruises heal but replacement shorts aren’t such a good idea in the credit crunch. It looks like my chances of catching Lance in next year’s tour of Ireland in August may have receded but I got in some vital training for the Wo/Man –v- Bike -v- Horse except I felt like borrowing a horse as I was convinced four legs might be safer on ice than two wheels.

The Von Trapp Family may have been singing as they crested the hills of Austria but I was merely listening to Europe’s finest when I was confounded by the hills in the Cam. At least there was a similar happy ending for both the Von Trapps and myself – we all made it home in one piece and we lived to fight another day – as long now as I don’t have to put the Sound of Music onto my IPod....

Award Ceremonies

2008-12-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

Some people think that the Oscars or the Grammies or the Q Annual Bash are the world’s most important award ceremonies. I would beg to differ. The most important award ceremonies are, of course, connected with sport!

So, last Saturday I was a guest at the British Triathlon Federation Annual Prize Giving at Loughborough in the East Midlands. I had helped them out with spots of commentary at their races during the year in England, Scotland and Wales. Last year I had to sing for my super and do MC but this year I could relax and drink in the atmosphere..... I had to also keep quiet, difficult, I know.

I have been at a few Awards doo’s over the last few decades, a highlight of which (of course!) is Limavady’s annual Bean Feast. This year it is on April the 3rd at the Drummond Hotel in Ballykelly with the guest of honour being UK’s Track Cycling Olympic Silver medallist Wendy Houvenaghal. (There are some tickets still available!)
A few years ago young Patrick Jack and I were at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year in Birmingham. It was the first time the event had been held outside London.
Whilst it was a good night, I shall always remember the patronising attitude of Adrian Chiles while interviewing the Cycling Super Star, Nicole Cooke, then World Champion. It was quite obvious that Chiles – and the BBC – didn’t give a monkeys’ about cycling. This year the supremely talented Ms. Cooke jump started the UK’s record Olympic medal with a superb victory in appalling conditions in the roads of Beijing. She was the catalyst for what was to follow. The fact that she followed it up with yet another victory in the World Championships in Itlay in September with another superb tactical race of controlled aggression, will of course be conveniently ignored when it comes to this year’s ceremony on December the 14th (sorry BBC, I can’t make it, I will be organising the Wo/Man-v- Bike-v- Horse competition in the Cam Forest the same week-end). Incidentally the prize in 2006 was won by a horse – or was it Princess Zara instead?! - who narrowly beat our own Darren Clarke.

This year will be won by Lewis Hamilton who beat about 5 other blokes in the Formula 1 World Championship in fairly good cars. Lewis of course had the Worlds quickest car namely a McClaren Mercedes. Chris Hoy will probably get second for his three golds (despite having no engine on his bike) and golden girl Rebecca Adlington will come third (despite having to supply her own horse power in the pool).

Meanwhile back in East Midlands my £50.00 BMI Baby flight landed at 12.00 noon. Looking at a map a few weeks previously I quickly realised that you could catch a bus from the Airport direct to either Leicester or Nottingham or Birmingham or Stoke or Coventry to watch a footie match. I plumped for Derby County (mainly because the were at home!) I hadn’t bothered to buy a ticket of course and hoped there would be a few left. I met some young blokes wearing their Rams black and white scarves and followed them off the bus when we alighted on the outskirts of the town. Derby used to play at the Baseball Ground (so called 100 years previously when they actually played the American sport inside) but now they play at a super dooper new stadium called Pride Park, it is a 33,000 seater and regularly attracts crowds of 30,000 making it the best attended stadium in the Championship. I ran over to the box office at 2 .56 p.m. and was about to purchase a ticket when this venerable gentlemen asked me if I wanted a ticket. I had been similarly lucky when outside Manchester City’s ramshackle stadium (you can tell I am a United fan!) in August 2002 when I was over to commentate for the BBC at the Commonwealth Games. I ended up getting a first class view for a tenner from a season ticket holder who wanted to go to the bar instead! Six years later this bloke wasn’t going to miss the action but I asked him why he had a spare (and he replied “When we were coming back from the Leeds game on Tuesday night, my mate Ian died of a heart attack and I have this ticket, Still, we won 2 – 1” he cheerfully replied. “Would his widow mind if I took his ticket?”. “Not at all son, you follow me”. So three minutes later I am sitting beside my new benefactor Norman in the front row beside the pitch adjacent to the goal. It had the best view in the entire stadium! My middle name is Lucky, but you knew that anyway. This got me thinking on my usual trip to to Old Trafford where the view is the same an eagle has of an unsuspecting dormouse (except when Harry Lynas got me tickets on the touch line for a match which was ironically against Derby County).

I asked Uncle Norman how long he had supported his local team. He sucked in his false teeth, leant on his walking stick and replied “Since 1939, we played Villa, then they declared War and there were no more matches that season”. I am not quite sure if Adolf Hitler knew just how bad the consequences of marching on Poland would actually be. Never mind the blitz kreig what about the effect on the Baseball ground faithful instead? I asked Norman what was the best match he had ever seen in 69 years of supporting his team.

“It were eight years ago when we beat the scum of Old Trafford 3-1” through gritted teeth, I asked him who scored, “Paulo Wauchope with a brace and Sturridge with the other”. This guy knew his stuff!

His mate beside him was equally devasted to hear of the Rams favourite supporter passing away a few weeks previously. “ I remember the day my Dad died... “He said to me unprompted. “We beat QPR away”. Ah well, behind every cloud there is a silver lining etc.

We i.e. Derby County went one up with a goal scored by an ex Notts Forest player. I am not quite sure how Kris Commons was allowed to wear the black and white of Derby having exchanged the red and white of Forest. Every Derby County fan I spoke to hated Forest with a passion. The two clubs had played each other three weeks previously and ended up one all and the Derby County fans were seething. It was all the Refs fault of course that a goal had been disallowed. During the match I was at they even had a song about the Ref asking him if he was the same Man in Black from the Forest Match in disguise. On the Sunday morning my taxi driver was an avid Forest fan and looked at me with complete disgust when I told him I had been to Pride Park the day before. It’s not quite as bad as United -v- City, or Liverpool –v- Everton but it’s not far from it.

At half time buoyed by a pint and a Balti chicken pie I sat down beside my new mates as Derby started to really hammer Sheffield’s finest. Two more goals were scored including a left foot cracker from 30 yards just in front of me. Everyone erupted deliriously. It all made for a splendid afternoon. I waved good bye to my buddies and sprinted for the bus weaving past the disconsolate Sheffield Wednesday supporters. The Rams really had devoured the Owls.

Two hours later I emerged from my hotel room in the Hilton suitably booted and suited. It was downstairs for a champagne reception – somebody had to do it! What a drag it was to bump into some of the athletes that I had met at the Corus Series, oh look there is Helen Tucker from Bridgend, recently crowned World Champion in Vancouver in August with her new hubby Marc Jenkins (Olympian in 2004), there was Will Clarke (Beijing Olympian and well known for his moves on the dance floor), we were sharing the same table. There was Alistair Brownlee who led the men’s Olympic Triathlon up to the 7K mark and he was responsible for making the watching Princess Anne very excited indeed. There was somebody who just had to drink the pink champagne and drink in the views i.e. me. These people are my heroes I thought, not the overpaid prima donnas who won’t dream of kicking a foot ball for less than a 120 K a week. These people train 30 to 40 hours a week and if they were strapped to the National grid they could power several small villages with their watts output. These people are in the pool at 6.00 a.m. (like Rebecca Adlington). They are on their bikes at 11.00a.m. (like Chris Hoy) and they are on the running track, (like Kelly Holmes) at 3.00 p.m. They live breath and dream their sport, they are also very nice people. I bumped into Chrissie Wellington. I am sorry I am completely biased here but I believe she is quite simply the World’s finest distance athlete by a mile. In 2007 she won the toughest race of all the Hawaii Ironman on her first attempt. She swam, biked and ran 146 miles and make it look like an afternoon stroll down to Tescos.

This year she had all the pressure of trying to prove it wasn’t a fluke. She did three Ironman races in the build up to Hawaii and won them all. This year on the 11th October she was leading the race on the bike when disaster struck. She punctured, her CO2 canisters didn’t work and she sat on the edge of the lava field awaiting a miracle as 10 minutes came and went – as did her rivals who passed her. Eventually one competitor took pity on her and threw a life line – and a spare canister. She fired up the CO2 and got her tire inflated and running (or least turning). She then succeeded in overtaking
her rivals one by one and ended up with a substantial lead going in to T2. Could she run a marathon in the heat and humidity though? No problem, she ran a titanic 2 hours 59 mins. to win the race by 15 mins. What a star!

Despite this stellar performance Chrissie is as down to earth as they come. We compared notes on our respective sore throats. She said she hoped to still have a voice the next morning as she was due to appear live on Radio 5. We swapped shoes, hey I have worn an Ironman champion’shoe. It was a pity it was a high heel and not a running shoe, but anyway....

Later on when she was awarded the Long Distance Athlete of the year award we brought the house down for her.

The guest of honour was Simon Lessing MBE. If Triathlon Gods were rock stars, then Simon would have been the Bryan Ferry of the triple discipline sport. He was always fairly cool, quite aloof and sometimes didn’t look interested. But boy when it was show time he was imperious usually leading from start to finish. When the race started he went on the ‘B’ of ‘Bang’. He dominated his rivals at the Olympic Distance and won 5 world championships as well as 3 Long Course titles. He didn’t like the elite drafting system and felt that as a great swimmer he was being disadvantaged when his rivals were allowed to bike together to reel him back in. So he moved up ot he Ironman distance and won Lake Placid in New York in a course record of 8 hrs. 25 mins. and qualified for Hawaii – just like Anne Paul. It was the biggest regret of Simon’s career that he didn’t do better at Kona when he finished top 10 twice but never really threatened the podium.

I remember seeing him at the Olympics in Sydney when I was perched in front of the Opera House. There were 250,000 spectators that day and Simon finished a disappointing 9th. I was in Manchester in 2002 when he finished 4th in the Commonwealth Games, but when it came to the World Championships he had few rivals. Sometimes for him it wasn’t a case of “Alright on the Night”.

He gave a very self deprecatory speech when he looked back at his career. He left South Africa because of the apartheid regime and ended up representing GB, but raced in France to earn his livelihood. He was prepared to risk an uncertain future by living off his wits not knowing where his next pay cheque was coming from to pursue his dream. If he won, he was able to eat a three course meal. If he didn’t finish in the top three, it was a bowl of pasta and camping in a tent and catching the next train back to his base in the South of France. He said he made the classic mistake which I made, when speaking in France after winning a competition. The French word for champions is very close the French word for a vegetable so there is there is the real danger of saying as I had proudly declared to our French twins in Vigneux Sur Seine, “We are the Mushrooms!”

Simon was an entrepreneur and he knew he had to speculate to accumulate. Most of our society is averse to taking risks. His attitude was “If you have got a God given talent, then use it now and follow your dreams. If it doesn’t work out you can always get back to education and pursue a career later”. The former World Champion announced his retirement earlier this year and is now setting himself up as a top class Coach and is also putting together a project for Chief Executive Officer for Companies who want to participate in Olympic Distance and Ironman races. I was able to talk to Simon afterwards and he was very generous with his time and expertise.

There was so much left unsaid after the official ceremonies completed. We all felt it would be a splendid idea to retire to the bar to see how we could plot to become better athletes, better coaches, and better event organisers for the 2009 season. ...
It all seemed to make perfect sense at the time. If only, I could remember about the final action plan that we had drawn up! Oh well, I suppose I’ll have to back to next year’s Awards Ceremonies in Loughborough to sort it all out again.

I am hoping that the next Awards Ceremony I attend will be in the Drummond in April for Limavady Sports Council. One every six months is enough. I hope you will join me then to hear Wendy talking about her Olympic experience. I am quite sure that she will prove to be a champion speaker and person as she is as an Olympian medallist.

LAGER. AGA. SAGA. GAGA.

2008-12-09T08:43:00.000-08:00

The normal four stage progression of accepted adult ageing can be described in the above our words. But what about the bloke who looks after himself? What does he do if he is unable to train? Due to a nasty lingering chest infection I have been unable to swim, bike or run for the last 5 long weeks. It has brought it home to me just how much I enjoy training and challenging myself physically 5 or 6 times a week. I feel like an alcoholic who can’t find the booze. I feel like a drug addict who can’t get his next fix.

I have been incredibly healthy all year (apart from suspect back, which I am going to conveniently ignore). The wheels came off at the end of September, I had raced our Super Sprint Try-athlon at Benone Beach which gave me a real high. I had then launched into the Concept II Ergometer Rowing machine on the Monday night determined to beat 20 mins. for 5K (I made it with 9 secs. to spare). On the Tuesday I noticed my 100 metre swim reps in the pool fall apartalarmingly and I went out and got a good soaking on the mountain bike on the Wednesday and that was the start of the downfall.

Two courses of antibiotics and one chest x-ray later I still can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel – and if I could, it probably would be a train coming. I have fooled myself into believing that going to the gym and just pushing weights about doesn’t actually count as training because it’s not straining the cardiovascular system. I must confess that lifting weights can become incredibly addictive very quickly. I set myself (I have no idea why) the challenge of lifting and shifting 5 tonnes in a single session. I first found out that my max bench press was 80Kgs. not 85, not 82, not 81 but 80. I read that you should train at 30% of your max for lots and lots of reps. An ‘O’ Level in maths enabled me to work this out at 24 kgs. (except I then put 37 kgs on the bar but no matter). You then try to push that mother of a loaded bar into the air for 15 reps. then wait 30 secs. then do it again, then do it again, then do it again..... The 15 reps quickly became 10 as the arms began to burn. Apparently the exercise doesn’t actually do your muscles any good until you go to “failure” i.e. you can’t lift it one more time. I tried to explain to the very helpful Johnny Shirley, in the Roe Valley Leisure Gym that I just don’t “Do failure”. We always focus on not being defeated by anything but the principal behind the concept is that the muscle only learns when it has been tested and found wanting so that the next time it faces the same challenge, aided by rest, it is stronger and better prepared, so working on a lighter weight I began to remorselessly push that bar up and doing sets of ten until I had lifted 5 tonnes i.e. 5 x 1,000 kgs. I just about made the last set. OK I couldn’t actually lift a pen up off the desk the next day in the office but it was worth the feeling of satisfaction and that warm glow of accomplishment.

I have subsequently tried to become slightly more sophisticated in my lifting and varied the programme to incorporate John’s recommendations. Both Johnny and Willard are very good at creating an individual programme for you. Mine involves the seated row, ab crunches on the Swedish ball and on the rack, dumb bells from the waist to the chest and into the air, parallel dips on the bar etc. There is still so much to learn and so little time!

When I am in the gym I see my good friends, who are some of Limavady’s finest athletes doing their own stuff. There is man mountain Gully McLaughlin lifting weights the rest of us could just fantasise about. There is Colin Loughery getting obsessive about the Concept II and setting PB’s every week. There is Peter Cole banging out fast times on the running machine. It is inspiring and invigorating to see these guys in action and what can I do about it when I am still under the weather? Not very much at all.

Being unable to train does give you more time to ruminate, to reflect and to read – and to watch DVD’s. I have just finished the entire series 7 of the West Wing (best political drama out of the States ever) all 22 episodes in a week as the fictional politician Mat Santos became the first President from a minority background and at the same time I was watching the drama of the real USA elections unfolding. When a community organiser without any support from the South side of Chicago, a guy who describes himself as a “mutt”, is able to become the World’s top dog with the slogan of “Yes we Can”, it makes you reconsider what we can do as athletes. I was talking to someone during the week who did her first ever marathon – New York – and she finished in under 5 hours with little athletic background. I met Springwell’s four dashing damsels, Fran McFadden, Catherine Butcher and two girls doing their first ever marathon, Anne Bonnar and Ella Loughery and they are already talking about their next one! Whether it’s Barack Obama or these local girls it is an encouragement to us all to get out the back door and do Something Physical. Whether Change Is Going To Come according to Martin Luther King or “Yes We Can” we can all achieve extraordinary accomplishments.

Not being able to train makes one set oneself the daftest of challenges. I can tell you that my personal best for emptying a dish washer is now 4 mins. and 14 secs! OK some of the plates might have a few chips around the edges from being fired into the cupboard but hey, a PB is a PB!

Roxy my dog is looking knackered as I am walking her that much. I can’t run, but surely I can still walk? Then I remembered that I had a surgical procedure carried out on my foot and I couldn’t actually put my foot to the ground. They say trouble comes in droves, not just ones or twos! I might as well get all of my physical ailments out the way at the same time.

When I am out walking I realise what a beautiful countryside we have, whether it’s the swirling rapids and tumbling dappled browny yellow leaves in the autumnal County Park, or the strong fresh fir trees in the Cam Forest, we are surrounded by a welter of stunning vistas. I received inspiration for another athletic event when out last week in the bit of the Springwell Forest between the Ringsend Road and the Coleraine Limavady mountain road. There was a hill which just goes on and on. We do it in the 5 Forest Ride on mountain bikes and it takes me 8 mins. I have an idea for a mountain bike hill climb over the Christmas period. There will be a £50.00 first prize for first man and first woman and the riders will go off 1 min. apart. It is at least 1 kilometre of a lung bursting, leg busting, head pounding uphill sprint which will actually feel like a marathon. It goes up towards the sky with your front wheel practically lifting off the ground and when you think it’s nearly over there are a few corners left with yet another sting in the tail. Personally I can’t wait! Before that we have the legendary Wo/Man –v- Bike -v- Horse in the Cam Forest on Sunday the 15th December, a race which presages for me the start of the Christmas season. I hope, dear reader, that you are not going to train on Christmas day because like Daley Thompson – I am! I will be sneaking in an extra session hoping that my rivals aren’t.

Having a lot of time on your hands makes you read some trivial stuff. For instance I have just read that Manchester United and a few other top clubs have appointed a “Sleep Guru”. No honest, it’s not an April fool. They employ a specialist who advises players on how to sleep better (“Wayne, trust me you will sleep better if you turn the light off first”). The genius who dreamt (if you will pardon the pun) up this nice little earner is Nick Littlehales. The Club also has an expert on mattresses from California who advises the Theatre of Dreams’ finest on which type of mattress for the optimum rest. The importance of better quality and longer sleep is being increasingly recognised in sport. Studies at Stanford University in the USA recently showed swimmers and basket ball players reporting higher energy levels after their sleep patterns where improved. Nick encourages players to sleep naked in bed (healthier) and not to put the duvet over their head (unhealthy) which apparently 12% of the population do – the dust mites get into the respiratory system easier (dam! maybe that’s what happened me!). Arsenal’s former physio Gary Lewis, now in charge of the England players, has observed “The quality of sleep you have can be as important as your training in today’s world of top professional sport”.

Sharing the house with two teenagers who don’t actually believe in going to bed on the same day as they get up can prevent you from getting the requisite 8 hours. As a nation we now have 24/7 TV, the Internet, the computer thingy and the IPOD to give us various reasons to avoid rest. It makes me laugh when people tell me they don’t have the time to train, but they will find all the time in the world to catch up on the latest soaps. It has however given me a great idea, instead of training I could just practice sleeping! “Are you going to the Gym Pete?” “No, I am doing something even more beneficial – I am going to bed”. Hey, if I can’t swim, bike or run, I could perhaps give my battered system an opportunity of replenishing itself and recharging those batteries. I could be the new Sleep King!

I have just started the “Survival of the Fittest” by Dr. Mike Stroud, a guy who has been to the Arctic, the Antarctic and pushes himself beyond all recognised physical and mental limits. He ended up running 7 Marathons in 7 Continents in 7 Days. Even my good friends Robert Robb and Peter Ferris might baulk that one! He gives a fascinating insight into what can be achieved if your body is ready to push itself time and time again. I was talking to Peter during the week (311 marathons and counting) and he is training to take on both the Antarctic marathon and the 100 K Ultra Run at the bottom of the world 3 days later and thereby enter the Guinness Book of Records along with his good friend Wayne Pollock to be the first guys to finish those two races plus the Arctic Marathon in the same calendar year.

When asked about hitting the wall and the subsequent pain barriers, Peter’s answer was quite simple – “Ignore it, push through it and deal with the next pain barrier when you reach it and then keep pushing again”.

If Peter Ferris can run 10 marathons this year despite being knocked off his bike and if Barack Obama can aspire to win the highest office in the free world, then “YES WE CAN AND YES I CAN AND YES YOU CAN!

Just get out there friends and make your dreams a reality.
See you in the gym.

I will be the one under the Bench Press, thirsty for a Lager, Dreaming of an Aga, awaiting Saga, praying I never go Gaga.....

The Contentment of the Long Distance Bike Rider!

2008-09-26T04:09:00.000-07:00

When your Chiropractor sits you down, tells you to take a deep breath and then tells you that you are never going to be able to run on the roads again, what do you do? Well, after you have dried your tears of self pity, you try to see it as an opportunity, not a threat. You realise that you may have a dodgy L5 and several discs in your back that are far too close for comfort but you have two arms for swimming and two legs which can cope with sitting down – for instance on a bicycle seat!

Funnily enough I had emerged reasonably unscathed from Ironman IX at Moravia in the Czech Republic (226 kilometres of swimming biking and running in 13 hours and 45 mins.) but had been unravelled by the demands of a mere 10K race two weeks later. The back was rebelling, the natives were restless, the discs were far from gruntled etc. Even standing at the sink doing the dishes was too painful (honest dear!). So we came up with back strengthening exercises and more effort would be made to strengthen the core. One thousand sit ups, press ups and abb crunches a week put me in the right direction and rather than mope about I cast a wizened eye over the forthcoming possibilities. My good friend Sammy Moore the jeweller told me about the Lough Neagh Challenge. It was to consist of an 87 mile ride round the British Isles greatest under utilised tourist resource and with a bit of luck would be pancake flat because the last time I looked the roads round the Lough, if not quite at sea level, should at least be at Lough level.

I then fell, as I often do into bad company i.e. Richard Baker, Manager of Northern Newspaper Group, RB, being a rock climber had kept himself in great shape and loves the outdoor pursuits like the hills and surfing and had been riding a bike for only twelve months but had taken to it like the proverbial duck to water.

So as one door closed on marathon runs, another opened with marathon rides. After a 6.00 a.m. rise! there was an enormous crowd of 500 of us near Portadown who had assembled like a throng of hornets for a 9.00 a.m. start. It was dry, it was bright there was only one problem, the group seemed to think it was a 10 mile sprint, not an 87 mile slog. We took off like a scorched bat out of hell. As an Ironman Triathlete I was notoriously one paced (and that pace was slow) I was hanging onto Richard’s back wheel like a grateful leach.

One of the good things about these rides however was the social element. Built into every trip was one or more tea stops. This gives the rider an opportunity of stuffing themselves with cups of sweet tea and tray bakes and sandwiches while we of course try to convince ourselves that we had done something to deserve them. The first stop was at Ballyronan (well known to the Triathlon community for a huge race every August) and after we had foolishly joined the Apollo train we were drafting shamelessly of them but we thought it was good for the young ones to be giving it Dixie at the front of the chain gang while we gratefully accepted the hospitality in the same way that we accepted the food etc. – us, freeloaders??

Soon we were back on the road letting the Apollo train leave the station without us for the next trip to Antrim. This was a more restrained pace and 30 miles later we were sitting at a tent in Clotworthy House at a table making Desperate Dan looking as if he had merely a normal appetite... Now it was time for real men to stand up and be counted. The last 30 or so miles was to be into a block head wind. RB and I soon realised that a bunch of disparate souls that we were passing secretly wanted to be in a much more efficient machine so we corralled 12 or 14 guys and told them that we would be going faster but it would actually be easier for them. They looked a bit quizzical but when you have got Baker giving you orders you don’t say NO! Very soon we were organised in a military fashion and every 60 seconds there would be a huge booming voice shouting “Change!” and the bloke at the front right of the peloton would move up and over allowing the bloke on the slip stream to share the pain and the pleasure of driving the train and dealing with the head wind. We had some passengers who were reluctant to become bonafide train drivers but we were only doing it for their own good!

The miles rolled by. Ok the wheels fell off the train eventually but we made much more speedy progress than if we had been merely a band of one or twos. I wouldn’t say we were a Band of Brothers - more a band of second and third cousins but we got there. In fact Richard & I look disappointed as we suddenly found ourselves back at the start/finish after a mere 84 miles as opposed the promised 87. We were robbed! But I think we could cope... There were no showers but yet another cup of hot sweet tea – I think long distance cyclists could drink tea for Ireland! – and soon two smelly blokes were on the road back to civilisation.

Sammy Moore and Mervyn Marshall were hot on our heels. Incidentally we may not have been minded to walk down a traditional route near Portadown on the Garvaghy Road but we had no trouble cycling down it!

One week later RB and I and a bunch of the Coleraine cycling mafia found ourselves outside Belfast City Hall at another unearthly hour on a Sunday morning for the Finn McCool ‘100 Miler’ to Coleraine up the East Coast. This wheeze was Trevor Ringland’s idea to raise funds for the Sports Charity, Sparks. There were 50 or so bikers who obviously didn’t believe in taking the easy option. We were promised a flatish first 50 miles then...... well let’s just say we were also promised great views at the top of various hills after Cushendall. The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Tom Hartley is a keen cyclist and not only talks the talk but walks the walk. His bike was produced and unencumbered by his chain of office around his neck, he set off beside us. I quite like the sound of my dog tag swishing around and setting a rhythm for me but I don’t know if I could cope with the heavy burden, in every sense of the word, of a major heavy duty chain of office when I am about to do 20 miles an hour. The Lord Mayor much have known the weather forecast because after 8 miles he peeled off then it started to rain. Now, this wasn’t the soft gentle Irish rain of mythical legend, this was a heavy soaking solid sheet like rain and of course it was accompanied by a cold strong wind which battered us. There wasn’t much you could do about it though except grit your teeth. There was only one problem, how do you grit your teeth when they are already chattering?

There was a welcome tea stop at 20 miles North of Belfast but at £3.00 for a scone and coffee, I was glad I didn’t have to treat the family, just Mr Baker. The comfort of the cafe was somewhat diminished in the knowledge that as soon as we stepped out the door and threw a hesitant leg over a sopping soaked bike seat we were back in the land of the cold and wet, still, it was all character building stuff.

Thankfully there were no more crashes as we had one when we left Belfast. One cyclist slipped on oil, came down while I was at the front I then heard that dreadful combination of slipping and sliding then a big thud as a rider hit a deck. Before he had come to a halt, Trevor was on the mobile and had an ambulance from the nearby Whiteabbey Hospital removing him to a place of safety. Thankfully both were ok but it spooked the bunch.

We had a chance to wring out our socks and shirts at Cushendall Golf Club and a bowl of hot soup has never been more gratefully received. In fact two bowls later I was over staying my welcome so we headed out, back to reality. Soon the dreaded hills were no longer a future challenge they were with us, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

Baker and I soon got the troops mobilised and we paced ourselves up the first big climb trying to take it easy. We still wanted to know our own names at the top of the hill and there was another 45 odd miles to go, so it was a case of “After You Claude” on the hills. The pain in the legs and the lungs was tempered by the magnificent views we could just about discern through the driving rain. Why is Antrim’s East Coast not thronged with tourists? We go all over the world but there are very few places to compare it with the Antrim hills as we swooped under bridges and climbed over millennia old rock formations. As we got out of the saddle and hung on to the handle bars and as we weaved and swayed from side to side it was... just ... good.... to ..... be alive.

Eventually every hill was conquered, every bit of tarmac vanquished and we arrived, after an Allpe D Huez type hill on the other side of Ballycastle and after another climb near the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge a most welcome stop after 70 miles we felt the back of the challenge had been well and truly broken – the rain even stopped! We had perspired and now we were inspired by the promise of a hot shower and a chance to get off our wet togs. We assembled a bunch of privates and corporals and soon we were rocking and rolling past Dunluce Castle towards Portrush, then Portstewart and into Coleraine and the Ring Road.

Trevor had warned us that although we could see Nirvanna ie. Coleraine Rugby Club/The Finish Line we actually had to bike past it down the Dual Carriage Way and up the Mountsandal Road. I swear I head quiet sobbing behind me as we spurned the chance of an easy finish. Several quick kilometres later we were indeed basking in the adulation of well wishers at Coleraine Rugby Club where the changing rooms reminded me of the finest hotel room – luxury, luxury! They even had a bar selling alcohol. This was all very civilised, there was only one fly in the ointment. We had been promised ‘100 miles’ and my computer clock showed a mere 97! You wouldn’t have wanted me, dear reader to miss out on the promise of a Century Ride (as the Yanks would call it)so I went home, ate like a man who had last seen food the previous century and then strapped myself onto my torture device/turbo trainer, to do not three but 4 miles just to make sure I hit the magic 100. Hey, it was just an excuse for another hot shower!

I was then busy for the next two week ends commentating in Glasgow and Groomsport but Sunday the 1^st September saw young Baker and I again heading out of Coleraine, this time to Ballygally near Larne for the John Lindsay Torr Head Challenge. This was a mere 70 miler but had 4 Tour de France type climbs which would test man and machine alike. This event was organised expertly by Team Madigan with once again the proceeds going to charity. Over 150 of us pulled out beside the hotel (which I had helped David Patton reconstruct in the Summer of 1976 but that’s another story)and there were obviously several guys at the front who were quite anxious to make it to the first tea stop in record time. Rich and I were being pulled along at 23 miles an hour and the miles rolled by effortlessly. In a bunch it may be easier but you have to keep the hands on the break hoods in case there was a sudden braking movement up ahead. As they haven’t yet invented break lights for the back of bikes, you have to be extra vigilant. I saw my good friend Colin Loughery and Alistair Bratten near the front of the bunch and soon we had our own first stop of the day. I don’t know who invented the legend that is the tray bake but I didn’t want to appear churlish so I scoffed quite a few purely not to offend the industrious crew who were putting them on the table just as fast as we were despatching them. I then met up with my good friend John madden, Ireland’s leading veteran cyclist. Thankfully John was just out for a very slow spin of 70 miles and was recovering from an Awards Ceremony where he had triumphed the night before.

The T stop however was the end of the fun. Very shortly afterwards we were on the first of the major climbs of the day. As I heard my breath rasping I realised I was already in my granny gear (and my granny wasn’t even there to help me) and a new friend confided that he thought this road was “ill bred”. I replied that if this road was a child, it’s parents had certainly never walked up a wedding isle together. It was a real “hang on and hope” hill. Apparently lorries can’t get up it and if Torr Head is cut off by the snow in the winter they will have to fly in relief supplies by helicopter such as the steepness of the terrain.

One hill down, three to go.... On the second monster two riders in front had taken the easy option and dismounted. The smugness felt when passing them as they click clacked their way up the hill in their bike shoes was soon replaced by the gnawing envy that at least they voluntarily got off while I was faced with the mounting realisation that I could soon topple off. When your computer shows you are doing a mere three miles an hour and you’re maxed out with your heart rate going through the roof and when your front wheel is lifting off the ground, you know you are on a one on one fight for survival. The ignominy of the dismount is only averted by the anguish of the perpetual struggle.

Life is full of challenges however, if life was easy there would be no satisfaction in it. That philosophy means for me that for every sauna there is a needle cold shower to redress the balance. It keeps you from getting into the comfort zone, it keeps you focused, it keeps your feet on the ground – even if they are frozen. You enjoy the sunshine a little more if there is a bit of wind and rain before or after. Post Phoebus Nubilus is the Jack motto “After the clouds sunshine”. Well there wasn’t much prospect of the sunny disposition because while we made it up Heartbreak Hill Number 2 we could see, in the distance standing proudly like an erect guardsman the television mast overlooking Torr Head. You get a little concerned when you are told the top of the hill is “just up there beside the TV mast”. There is nowhere higher than a TV mast. You normally meet mountain goats and Kenyan athletes just before the summit; you expect to see Christopher Bonnington type figures with oxygen masks. Anyway eventually we hauled our sorry assess up and over the unclassifiable unrepeatable never want to see it again type road and I was told it is “All downhill”. Cyclists by sheer definition are optimistic people but they are also capable of telling great untruths. After a very fast downhill swoop (where I over cooked it on one corner and ended up on completely the wrong side of the road) we found ourselves at Hunter’s Pub in Finvoy where regrettably we merely had time to wipe the sweat of our fevered brows before we started the climb up to the vanishing lake. What was it with all this alleged downhill stuff? If allegations were made then bring me the alligators! We definitely going up hill for about 30 mins. However after an effortless and exhilarating three mile descent there was suddenly the delicious prospect of the finish line somewhere on down the jewel encrusted sunny coast. As we bombed through Carnlough I shouted to the Baker Man that we deserved an ice cream so we slammed on the anchors and treated ourselves to a ‘99’. I had read recently in “Peak Performance” that ice-cream was a high carb, high energy endurance food – honest! Fortified by the this knowledge, we were soon on the way back to Ballygally car park were we picked up a few stragglers along the way who were grateful for a tow in our slip-stream.

As we approached the Team Madigan Carvan for yet another cup of hot brew, the realisation dawned on me that my hat trick of long bike rides was about to end. The Tour of Lough Neagh was advertised as 87 miles, but in reality was only 84; the Finn McCool Challenge was meant to be 100 but was a mere 97; the Torr Head was promoted a 70 but was actually a mile short. Was I unfulfilled with only a 69. No, it was still immensely satisfying. The effort put in had been rewarded ten-fold. The pain was replaced with pleasure. I didn’t feel short changed. I felt no need to go the extra mile. I didn’t need to go the whole hog, 69 would suffice. I was content.

I had reached the finish line for 2008, Snow Patrol sing that “The Finish Line Is a Good Place to Start”. Will I be able to reach the start line, despite injury and infamy, in 2009?

My quest for a new non running form of challenge had opened up new vistas - the memory of those views around Lough Neagh and the Antrim Coast will live long in my memory. Running – who needs it? I had two wheels for consolation, 50 spokes for comfort, two pedals for pleasure. I enjoyed this triple challenge so much that I have decided that there will be one much closer to home next year. I think the Sperrins will prove equally satisfying. We will have quiet roads, steep climbs but will have the solace of a few tea stops along the way.

I am already looking forward to the Sperrin Super Sportive 100 K in 2009.

Dust off that bike in the garage, pump those tyres – as well as those abs – and see you on the road.

Injury Blues

2008-07-14T12:24:00.001-07:00

Last week I had the Post Ironman Blues, this week I just have the Injury Blues.
I foolishly decided to do a 10K and afterwards my back just exploded into spasm. I am now sitting at home with an ice pack on my lower back trying hard not to cough, sneeze or breathe to hard as everything hurts. It’s actually more comfortable to sleep on the floor than a bed, I should have known better.. I got through the Ironman on a wing and a prayer and was obviously inches away from a “DNF” instead of that I decided to ignore the ache and pains and drove on one of the worst roads in the country (not a single chance to overtake between Limavady and Strabane) to the Riversdale Leisure Centre for a High noon kick off.
I did my first K about 28 years ago. At that stage it was the limit of my ambition. A 10K is 6.2 miles. It’s the longest distance track race of the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games or the World Championships. It is 25 laps of the track, it is of course much more familiar as a road race distance. Every town should have one, it’s a classic distance. I was able to bluff a 5 mile race two years ago in 32 minutes, but a 10 K is a lot harder even though it ‘s only 1.2 miles longer. A 10 miler or half marathon might even be easier because your pace is a lot slower, but for a 10K you not only need endurance, but speed. Every second counts... The first time I did one I think I broke 50 mins. After a few years of consistent – and sensible training - I broke 40 mins. in Coleraine. I felt as good as Roger Bannister did when he broke 4 mins. for the mile. It was such a psychological as well as physical barrier.
A few years later after lots of three by 2000 metre laps at the trim trail outside Coleraine, I broke 36 mins. in Warrenpoint – admittedly the flattest course in the country! My Uncle and Aunt were over from New Zealand so I was obviously trying to show off! I then turned my attention to the 10 mile distance where the ultimate aim for a club runner is Sub 60. I had a 62, and then a 61 but never broke the magic barrier. My times then started to drift north, my training became less run specific and I forgot about the glorious pain and pleasure of track work outs and intervals.
There is nothing quite as painful as 400 metre repeats on a track, it is pure undisguised pain. We used to flog ourselves mercilessly at the cinder track on Rugby Avenue Coleraine every week. If you didn’t throw up after a training session you were damned close to it. The shower afterwards never felt as good.
Over the years I used various injuries – and the lack of a proper track in Limavady – to cut down on the interval work. Some guys, including Colin Loughery, have a 200 and 400 metre course marked out on the fairly quiet road up to the Radisson Hotel. There is no reason however why you can’t use any 400 metre stretch or loop. The Country Park is the best spot in the world to run but you need a circuit that brings you back near the start so you can have one minute of trying to suck air into your scorched lungs before you go again. It always helps if you train in a group. If people are of a different ability the you either give them different recovery periods or you make the faster guys go longer so that everyone starts – if not necessarily finishes – together. So about 10 years after my last serious track session I stood on the start line of the Strabane 10 K with about 200 others, some were runners, some obviously weren’t.
The race obviously incorporated a fun “walk” ( what’s ‘fun’ about spending two hours walking on busy roads is beyond me!). I jogged down to the start line with Karen Alexander of the Sperrin Club. Karen had won Round the Bridges in Limavady a few weeks before in 62 mins. She informed me that she had done the Newtownards Half Marathon the night before! Is it any wonder she felt tired? She said the 10K was too short for her. I felt that despite a years’ Ironman training in my legs the 10K was too long for me... Karen thought she would finish 4th - and she did. I bumped into the Jennings family on the start line. Two of them used to be members of the Triangle Triathlon Club. Sinead left Triathlon, took up rowing, became an International and made a World Championship final and just narrowly missed out on selection for the Olympics this year. Catriona, also a rower turned up – and won the race last Saturday. Hey, form is temporary, but class is permanent. It turns out they have got great genes – their father Billy cycled from Mallon to Mizen Head in under 24 hours – and you thought I was nuts!
Mind you, that ride is but a mere bagatelle compared to the legendary Race Across America. I caught an hour’s programme of it on Setanta the other night. This is a non-stop bike ride from the Pacific to the Atlantic. If you snooze you lose. If you sleep, you weep. The clock keeps on ticking. About 30 blokes set out from California and there were cut off times along the way. The English bloke the cameras were following hoped to break the British record but was gradually overcome with fatigue and injury. He changed his bike to a very low aero dynamic set up which only resulted him getting a very painful back, his neck then couldn’t support his head and the latter felt like following off his shoulders. His support crew built him this iron contraption that went over his back and raised his head up so that he could actually see the road. On and on he cycled, like the hunch back of Notre Dame, through state after state, from California, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, the Appelachian mountains on the way to New Jersey, cross deserts, up mountains, over bridges etc. he just kept making cut off times and no more. His crew thought that he had blown his chance of making a final cut off time. If you don’t beat 12 days 8 hours then you are not an official finisher, can you imagine how that would feel? He had been averaging 11-12 miles an hour. He had 180 miles left to go and he had to average 16 miles an hour. His crew didn’t think it was possible, but the cyclist thought otherwise. He was obviously inspired by the same motto that Hannah Jack thought up a few weeks ago for her old man – How much have you got left to give? – Nothing – How much are you still prepared to give? – Everything – the cyclist made it with 5 mins. to spare in Atlantic City. Sleep deprived, at his wits end, completely shattered and looking like the Count of Monte Cristo in the Ironmask, his crew picked him up as he fell off his bike, threw him into the Atlantic for a very welcome dip in the briney. You don’t have to be mad to complete long distance events, but it obviously helps as the bloke is now back in training for another crack at the Race Across America UK Record..... rather him than me!
There were no thoughts of feats of derring do as I stood on the start line and enjoyed the nervous banter of my fellow athletes. Everyone was pawing the ground waiting for Gerry Lynch to say ”Go”. I tried to tell my body to start sensibly but the mind of course thought that it knew better. I went through the first 3K in 12-45 and then proceeded to die a very painful slow and lingering “Death”. My body had been used to the Ironman shuffle pace, i.e. slow, slower, and slowest. As the 10K unfolded all of my injuries came back to haunt me, my hip, my hamstring, but primarily my back. I thought of my Chiropractor Paula Gallan and my physio Greg Kearney and of all their hard work and of what was left of my body. Two discs were rubbing together and I had an L5 which was compressed and didn’t remotely look like – or function like – an L5 should. I was sending signals down to my legs, - the general message was to put one foot in front of the other, the left leg seemed fine but the right leg seemed to be in a world of it’s own. My brain sent down the message but it kept getting a “Does not compute” response. For the last 5K I was taking my right leg for draggies – it was a somewhat reluctant participant in the proceedings. I certainly couldn’t do the hokey cokey, “You put your right leg in, you put your right let out.... “ etc. Thinking of pain however reminded me of my two club mates Ronnie”The Kidd” and Paul “Fletch” Fletcher who were sitting in Frankfurt whilst I was in Strabane. They were 16 hours away from their date with destiny, - the Ironman. Ronnie had got over his injuries and Paul had managed to combine training with running the 55 Degrees North Restaurant in Portrush. It turned out that Ronnie had a dream day and achieved a 10 hours 3 mins. finish - while Paul didn’t achieve the time he deserved. Paul decided to adopt a very low aero dynamic set up on the bike (why does this sound eerily familiar?), got back ache and suffered like a dog on the 112 mile bike and the subsequent marathon for a 12hr 17 finish. Paul finished, sore but at least he finished and has earned an invitation to the hottest dinner ticket in town – The Triangle Triathlon Club Inaugural Ironman and 70.3 finishers night out! The club this year has William O’Kane, Simpson McGrath, Artie O’Kane, Ronnie, Paul, all finishing the Ironman (with hopefully Conal Heatley to join them after this weeks’ Forestman in England) and with Kay Hack safely at the table after winning her age group at Wimbleball a few weeks ago in the toughest 70.3 in Europe and with Annie P to follow in Monaco and big Adrian to still have a crack at Ironman Uk in September and with the club hosting the Half Ireman Race in Groomsport (with an entry of 250) and with plenty of TTC members hoping to achieve a finish or even a PB this could be a busy dinner table!
What is a 70.3? Well it’s the new sexy name for Half Ironman and comprises the total distance of the swim; the bike ride and the run i.e. a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run – in metric terms it’s 113 K but it doesn’t sound quite as good.
Having said that, the 226K Brand for the Ironman distance is alive and well and is thriving all over the world for those of you who want to complete an Ironman distance in an event not officially sanctioned by the World Triathlon Corporation. Anne Paul has decided that the athlete with the fastest time based on a very complicated mathematical formula including age and good looks etc. will receive a coveted and much desired and totally splendiferous first prize.... an iron!..
On this will be engraved a winner’s name and time. I’ll obviously remove the cord and plug in case a bloke wins it as we wouldn’t know what to do with one of these new fangled domestic objects....
There will be a lot of competition for this debut prize and I think it’s going to take a very special performance to prevent Ronnie the “Kidd” from taking home an iron to a very bemused Mrs Kidd....
Meanwhile back in the foothills of Co. Tryone, the organisers had very helpfully decided to insert a 200 metre climb at the 5K mark, by this stage I was having to apologise to female athletes I was passing in case they thought they were being approached by a heavy breather and my chest was thumping like a well beaten 12th July drum. I was trying to grab down air like a drowning man and my limbs were hopelessly uncoordinated. A few guys looked round at the noise of my dog tags flapping up and down on my chest. It maybe annoyed them but it gave me a sense of rhythm – ok a very slow rhythm, but a rhythm none the less.
Eventually the kilometre signs crept past albeit very slowly – 6K, 7K and 8K. We were now back in the town.
Columb Knowles, my Springwell colleague and I both desperately tried to fool the other by pretending we weren’t really knackered until CK told me to “Go for It”. If it’s possible to go for it at a pace that would have disgraced a tortoise, then I went for it. The distance between 8 & 9 K seemed liked 2K not 1K. Now there was only 1,000 metres of pain between me and the finish line. My mind told my body again to forget about everything that was aching and put my head down. I originally had wanted to break 50 mins. but now I thought I could break 45 – and did so with 23 secs. to spare. My legs immediately turned to jelly and I felt like throwing up, but a finish line was never as welcome. That was harder than the Ironman for some reason, my body instantly decided that it was “Pay Back Time” and my back started to throb like an alcoholics hang over. It was time for a shower, cup of tea and a well deserved brufen.
It got worse over the next two or three days and Paula told me that I wasn’t even allowed to indulge in that most gentle of non weight bearing exercise, swimming, she expects me to do nothing! Gadszoots! This will not be easy, dear reader, but I will try hard, honest, I will try, try and try again. In fact my mother says I am very trying....
My Chiropractor gave me the bad news that I had just done my last ever road race, but Paula, can I do my 10th and last Ironman, please, please, please?

POST IRONMAN BLUES!

2008-06-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

Ryan (not Bryan!) Adams on “Gold” sang about the “Rescue Blues”. Well, I bet you he never had the Triathlon equivalent, the Post Ironman Blues. I can just imagine the first few lines;

“Well, I woke up this morning, with those Post Ironman blues.

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’s a weird feeling after an Ironman, it’s like a post Christmas hangover. You look forward to it so much, then suddenly it’s all over and you are like a junkie without a fix.

I have never smoked or gambled, so I have no need for Gamblers Anonymous. The only problem I have ever had with drink is spilling it, so again no need for Alcoholics Anonymous. In the same way there is a patch to cure nicotine addiction, is there one to cure addiction to Ironman? I suppose there is, it’s an Ironman tattoo. Every time you see it you remember the pain and you swear never to do another one.

I found out recently that there is an Ironman Help Line (telephone number 226-999). All calls of course would be completely confidential. I phoned the 0800 number and tentatively asked:

“Hello, is that the Post Ironman hotline?”

“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?”

“This is all completely confidential, isn’t it?

“It sure is, your secrets are safe with me. What did you say your name was?” “Well I’ll say it’s Peter”.

“Why’s that?” “Because it is”. I blurted out.

“Are you sitting comfortably?” he asked.

I looked at my workout bench longingly, but decided to stay put on the sofa. I held the phone with my sweaty fingers and decided to confess all.

“How bad is the problem?” “It’s normal to feel this way when you finish one Ironman”. I had to go for it and confess all. “Actually I have completed.... 9.” There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the phone. “9 son! This is serious, how long have you had the bug?”

“Since 1990”.

“Eighteen years..... “ “Have you tried drink or drugs?”

“Nothing can compare with the buzz I get on the finish line, that rush you get that builds up for months and gushes out as you approach the finish line, it’s just.... untouchable, irreplaceable.... you savour each finish line.... excuse me, while I wipe my mouth as I’m dribbling.........”

“No problem son, how have you de-toxed the week after? I presume your coach told you to do nothing?”

“Yes of course, but it would have been churlish not to turn up for a wee swim on the Tuesday night to receive the congratulations from my peers. Then on Wednesday the dog needed exercise so ....... I took her for a run..”

“Hold on son, you could have taken the dog for a walk......”

“Yeh, well it’s a fairly even contest, she has a dodgy left hip and her Vet tells her not to run and I have a dodgy right hip and my Doctor tells me not to run, so we are fairly evenly matched but it’s not all bad news”.

“Why’s that son?”

“Only one of us chases sticks”.

“Very funny son . How did the run feel?”

“Well about 5 ½ hrs shorter than the marathon last Saturday.”

“I’ll do the funnies son. You know what I mean”.

“Well it felt good as I put one foot in front of the other and gathered a bit of momentum. I just started to feel those endorphins being set free again..... It was just so liberating... I just wanted to run and run......”

“Oh dear, I see we have a problem here. Tell me are you the only person in your Club to complete this particular form of sadomasochism?”?

“No, no”, I confess,”we have more Ironman Triathletes in our club than any other in Ireland he same week end I completed Mariviaman, so did William” ( I decided not to tell him any surnames for the point of view of anonymity) “and the very next day Simpson and Artie did Nice and this week The Fletch and Ronnie the Kidd take on Ironman Frankfurt.”.

“Oh, dear”, I heard the voice on the other end of the line say,”I can see this is a serious addiction. Once you have alcoholics, sorry Ironmen, clustered together it’s harder than doing cold turkey, you have to get away from these people, they’re dangerous!”.

“No they are not”, I stammered. “Ok, they are a bit unhinged and a bit demented but they are nice people”.

“How many hours training were you doing in a week?” he demanded.

“Just 12, William was up to 18!” I blurted out.

“Don’t snitch!” he shouted. “Hey what’s that noise I hear in the background?” I said.

“Is that the sound of a turbo trainer ticking over?”, for once there was a spot of hesitation.

“Ah well no, well, possibly. Well I was just spinning!

“How many Ironmen did you do?” I demanded , as I felt the boot was now on the other foot”.

“Ten, he admitted...... a year”.

“Hold on, that makes me positively sane!. How did you do ten a year, you are not from the Czech Republic by any chance?. Cause I met blokes who were doing ten a year but didn’t want to shake hands with them in case I caught a contagious disease called Ironman-itis.......”

“How did you manage to break the cycle, if you excuse the pun?”

“Oh, quite simple, everything just gave up on me, muscles ligaments, bones, body, fatigue syndrome, ME, you name it, I have got it. You are surrounded by the paraphernalia of it. There is the magazines, like 220, there is the late night ITU shows on Sky and Setanta there is just no escape, Is there?

“No, there isn’t”, I agreed. “What about a solution, could I go back to maybe just running, or maybe a wee sprint Triathlon?”

“Look son, that’s like giving up whiskey and going back onto the shandy. You know it will just lead you back to the Ironman/whiskey, don’t you?

“Yes”, I admitted. “Then there is the gear, all those shirts and clothing with that very coveted Ironman logo on it. You can even get a golf bag with the logo on it. Maybe I could try giving up Ironman and taking up golf?”

“No son, you tried that and you ended up setting a record at Castlerock , of completing 18 holes in 31 mins. by running, without the clubs, flat out, didn’t you?”

“How did you know that, It’s like the secret police here!”

“Hey, I’ve got your file in front of me now; it looks like an incorrigible and classic case of a complete addiction to the Ironman. To stop drinking or smoking or gambling or Ironman you have to want to stop son, you know that don’t you?”

I nodded down the phone which wasn’t very smart, but he continued anyway.

“But can you stop at number nine?”

“Could I do just one more please?” I pleaded.

“Stop begging son, it’s not pretty”,

“But if I get to number ten, I will be the first ejit in Ireland to get to that number, then I promise I’d stop, honest”.

“Oh yeh, sure”, the voice on the other end sounded sarcastic, “then you’ll want number eleven, then you will want to get to the dozen, then the bakers dozen, then you wouldn’t want to stick on the ugly number thirteen, you would be shooting for twenty and making Peter Ferris look normal. Look, it will just be like back to square one, wouldn’t it? There might be a solution though”.

“Yes, what?”

“If you get to number ten, go for a tattoo and you can raise funds for charity by getting people to guess where you are going to put it!. It will be so painful, it will put you off, but hold on, I had forgotten you like pain, don’t you?”

“Yes”. I sheepishly admitted, “Without pain there can be no pleasure”.

“Oh dear, this case is the worst I have heard, still when the training and racing is over, you can get away from it, can’t you?”

“Ah..” I pause, “not exactly”.

“I go and watch other races and commentate on them in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, it’s just such a buzz!

“OK, here’s what we’ll do. Now I have your address, and I am going to send round the nurses with the tranquilliser gun, just one shot of adrenaline will be all that’s needed, agreed?”.

“Ok”, I replied”, just one last request, “Can she wear a tri suit?”

“I’ll certainly ask the male nurses to wear their tri suits if that’s what you want.... Now, I have to get back to my turbo, sorry, my tea. Now for this consultation there is the usual fee, just stay on line and give your Mastercard details to Triathletes Just Want to have Fun.com.”

“Ok, thanks”, I mumbled, as my sweaty hands were about to replace the receiver.

“One last question”, he barked, “any other training this week?”

“Well the DVD’s had to be returned to Xtravision, so I just biked in with them, but it was downhill, honest”.

“If it was, it wasn’t downhill home, was it?”

“No”, I had to confess, and decided not to admit that I had actually enjoyed the pain of the uphill journey more than the easy downhill trip, I thought some information has to stay private......

Ironman IX D-Day

2008-06-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

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 Eastern Europe with different weather and different roads etc.) How’s my knowledge of Czech road signs? Do we bike on the left or right (the last one’s quite an easy one for me – I just follow the 200 blokes in front!)

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!

When you train for an Ironman you do 99% of your running outdoors (with just the odd blast on a gym treadmill); you do about 80% of your bike training outdoors (with 20% on a turbo trainer and on the gym bike) but when you are training for the swim unbelievably you do 99% of your training indoors in a nice warm pool with lane ropes, a black line up the middle and a life guard two metres away. However, the swim on race day is not in a pool, its outside! –Mind you I do have an Austrian friend who has completed an indoor Ironman race in 11 hours - even I questioned the sanity of that particular project!

Sea swimming is just a fantastic liberation, it’s so refreshing and revitalising and reenergising. My first Ironman swim was in the sea of Holland in the fog and it was primeval; my second one was in the tepid lake in the English Midlands; my third one was in a sea at Benone, never has there been a calmer sea ever, it was like a mill pond, (as a race organiser I couldn’t have wished for a smoother circuit); my fourth one was in a dark deep Lough in Scotland (thankfully not Lough Ness!); My fifth one was in a canal in Germany; my sixth one was in a lake in Idaho; my seventh one was in an equally huge lake between Austria and Switzerland; and my eight one was in Mirror Lake near New York; and now I face three laps of smallish lake in the Czech Republic.

I have had some exciting outdoor swims in my time. I nearly drowned off Cottesloe Beach in Perth, Western Australia – a rip tide pulled me out and I stupidly struggled to fight to get back. I eventually was tossed by the surf like a beached whale onto terra-firma. I had been in the antipodes for my gap year – (in my day however, they didn’t call it a gap year, it was just a year of drinking too much beer). I had a crazy race against a tanker in the Black Sea off the Crimea. I aimed for a huge buoy about one kilometre off shore, but as I headed towards it there was also the small matter of a huge ocean going liner also heading for the same buoy. This liner was the same height as a skyscraper; it had big propellers and a bow wave which was like a tsunami. As I got closer to the buoy, the liner got closer. We were in a race, there was only one problem, the liner didn’t know that I was in the same race! Of course common sense would dictate that I should turn back, but what has common sense ever had to do with a triathlete! Thankfully for the sake of my then unborn children, I beat the tanker, got round the buoy first and sprinted back to the safety of the coast beating of a huge tidal wave in the process. On another occasion off Brittany, I gallantly swam to rescue a beach ball which was blown out to sea (it didn’t even belong to the Jack family!) Of course the further I swam out, the more the ball was blowing out to sea. The current was moving a lot quicker than I was capable of swimming. I didn’t even have a wet suit and after 15 minutes of furious swimming I suddenly felt vulnerable and very foolish and when I turned round, very far away from land. I decided to let the beach ball join the rest of the pollution in the ocean and try and conserve enough strength to make it back to the coast I have swum in the Pacific in a Californian Triathlon were everyone had the snazziest possible wet suit on (but couldn’t actually swim very well in it). I have enjoyed – or is that endured – the legendary West Bay swim in Portrush when thankfully the Triathlon World persuaded the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association to allow wet suits to join the bare backs. There is a weird sensation of being transported in a life boat out into the forbidding West Bay. Most people try very hard to get onto the life boat. We try very hard to leap off one! This is known as the wet start, and you jump in and go far beneath the surface and your heart races like a sprinter as you struggle to cope with the cold. You come to the surface unable to feel your head, your hands or your feet as they have been already been numbed into submission and you just pray for the starter to say “Go” so that you can reach the sanity of the Yacht Club for the most welcome bowl of hot soup you have ever had in your whole life. Why have I never had the wit to do an Ironman with a swim in the nice balmy waters of the Med? There is a crazy Ironman in the Baltic Sea believe it or not where the water temperature hovers about 8 degrees centigrade, they then ride a bike to the top of a mountain. No I am not tempted, and I will go for an easy swim for my last Ironman – Lanzarote or Hawaii??

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!

My training last week at last incorporated the infamous taper. Monday was the sea swim, Tuesday was a pool swim at lunch time including 5 by 100 metres on 1 min. 45 – when you are with the club you can swim quicker, but when you are on your own it’s really difficult. Wednesday saw no club time trial due to 3 meetings and as I had 30 mins. To spare I pushed myself to the max over a wee mountain bike course beside the house on the back roads and made it back with 21 very painful seconds to spare. Thursday was meant to be a rest day, what an irony! It was probably one of the busiest days of the week. It involved, interalia, taking my puppy Roxy to a Vet in Belfast (on the recommendation of the incomparable Michael Forgie). Roxy, reminds me of Roxy music; being a curious individual, I asked the other dog owners of the names of their dogs in the waiting room, the first one was Otis (which reminded me of the local band Otis and the Elevators); the next dog was Louis (which reminded me of the Kinks cover version of the 60’s song “Louis Louis”. We had the makings of a good musical trio when in walks the next dog. I tentatively asked his owner the name of his dog – yes – you’ve guessed it - “DJ”! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, you couldn’t make it up, and I just wanted to become the dogs’ agent for the worlds’ first canine musical quartet.... Three could howl and the other could spin the discs! The afternoon was comparatively simple looking after 50 angry lawyers and there was another meeting at night in Ballykelly followed by a trip to the country’s best physiotherapist, Gregory Kearney. Greg told me that my right hamstring was within a whisper of pulling and it felt as sharp as a knife. This is not the kind of thing you want to hear 9 days before your Ironman. Greg did a great job of beating my hamstrings and quads back into shape – if I ever make it to the finish line it will be because of people like Greg. I have a plan B however; if injury stops me from achieving my goal in June 21 I’ll either enter the Ironman in England or Europe or whatever. I will just have to finish number 9 in 2008!

Friday saw a grass run on my new favourite place i.e. Limavady Rugby club. Now I not only do my back strengthening and back stretching exercises but also now my quad exercises and now my hamstring exercises – it’s a wonder I have any time left to actually train! Saturday saw a sea swim and a cold bike in Castlerock, then a wee run on the beach i.e. a Sprint Triathlon, just short stuff but it’s good to practice the transition to get the body used to the transformation from a horizontal position to a praying mantis position.

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 Poland and hope that we still have two wheels and a recognizable frame to work with despite the best efforts of the airline.

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 Ulster and for Triathlon Ireland (ok, there’s no one else from the Triangle Triathlon Club, or Ulster or Triathlon Ireland in the race but it sounds better!). We will embrace on the finish line and we will plot our celebrations for the next day as you are usually too sore and sick to contemplate anything else other than a shower and lying down unconscious somewhere for 10 hours. We hope to have three beers in three different countries the day after the race to celebrate – well triathlon is a triple discipline sport after all!

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.

IRONMAN IX – This is tapering ??

2008-06-10T04:26:00.002-07:00

I talked to my coach, Adrian Devine during the week and told him of my ambition to match Sherpa Tenzing on the Saturday and wondered what fiendish torture he had lined up for me on the Sunday... It ended up being a three hour ride then a one hour run then later another hour’s ride. I know last week I thought I had begun my taper but instead I was due to do my longest week of the year, i.e. over 11 hours. The week hadn’t exactly gone to plan in any event.

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!

IRONMAN IX – It’s Lonely at the Top

2008-06-10T04:26:00.001-07:00

It’s exactly 14 days to go before my attempt at Ironman IX and I am standing on the top of Northern Ireland’s highest point – Slievedonard outside Newcastle, 852 meters above sea level. To the west lay the Drumlins and pretty hamlets of County Down, to the East lay mile after mile of beautiful blue ocean. There’s not a cloud in the sky.

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...

Patrick, Michael, Andrew, Adam, John, Mark and Adam I want you to know when the going gets tough on June the 21^st in Maravia, I will be thinking of your effort and your successful struggle to get to the finish line. Patrick, despite your sickness, you did what you had to do. You’ve done your bit now, relax and let me try to make it to my finish line.

IRONMAN IX - “Every Second Counts'

2008-06-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

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….

IRONMAN IX – “A Bridge Too Far?”

2008-06-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

As I pen these few words, there are 20 days to go before my attempt to conquer “Maraviaman”, the Czech Republic based Ironman distance race. William O’Kane and I from the Triangle Club are attempting to get to the finish line, William for the first time and me for the ninth time. Why did we decide to go there? Well, it’s somewhere different for a start. It’s also nice to do a race that isn’t run by the Ironman organisation for a change because although they are exceptionally well organised they do have a lot of hype and are fairly expensive. They also sell out within 24 hrs before e.g. to get to the start line at Lake Placid on July 27^th 2007 I had to enter the race on July 28^th 2006!

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 21^st. 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 21^st 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...

IRONMAN IX - “It’s the Final Countdown”

2008-06-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

As I pen these few words I am in Heathrow in a French Restaurant Terminal 1 (thankfully not Terminal 5) In 34 days time I will either have finished my 9^th Ironman or I will be, as the French would say, désole.

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 1^st 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 21^st June. As you know the 21^st 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….