IM – 9: Velentia Island Triathlon

I did my first competitive triathlon of the year this week – Velentia Island Sprint down in Kerry. I plan to do one  competitive triathlon of each length this summer – Sprint, Olympic (Tri-Athy on Saturday 5th June), Half Ironman UK on June 20th and IronMan Switzerland in July. This was the sprint.

Everyone got the ferry from the island to the main land and the swim went from there back to the island. I was in the second wave. Someone blew an air-horn in the crowd about two minutes before the first wave was about to start and a rather large false start ensued.

I completed the swim in 13:42. When the second wave started, I was towards the front. It took me a while to settle as there was a lot of jostling and it was a tight pack for much of the section – elbows and feet flying everyone. I was happy enough with 13 minutes.

The cycle went well also (38:15). It began with a climb for about 3km before leveling off for a lap of the island, with some incredible views. I was passing a lot of people from the first wave of 250 and I had a good battle with a triathlete from Pirhanha tri club. These are great to push you on. I had one bottle filled with zym caffinated isotonic, and it worked quite well although it’s quite carb heavy so I was craving water by the end.

I had good transitions but unfortunately, despite resting a lot during the week, the injury I picked up during the Kildare HM came back almost as soon as I started running. It’s tendonitis in the right leg owing to stiffness in the hip, ITB and calf. It slowed my run a good bit – 23:13. I’ll be working on this a lot next week.

I finished in 1:16:16. In 126th place out of about 520. On Sunday, we went for a really enjoyable cycle around the island, part of the Ring of Kerry and Lumanagh hill. In weather as good as that, there’s nowhere better than Kerry.

 

After the race; myself, Vinny and Kevin.

I didn’t run at all this week before Saturday to let the tendonitis clear. I tapered on Friday before the race. This resulted in quite a low weekly total:

Most importantly, I took some learnings from Velentia for Switzerland:

• The bottle on the bike was warm by the time I got to the cycle. For Zurich, have an ice pack to keep them cool.
• Bring water as well as isotonic on the bike.
• Put good sun cream on my whole arm if I’ll be wearing a sleeveless top.. Which I didn’t for Velentia resulting in some humorous looking sunburn.
• Bring a hat.

It’s all a learning experience. 9 weeks to go.