|
|
|
|||
|
Bala Half Ironman – A
Legend is Born Click here
for all the pics Doug’s View Myself
Philip Pat Seamus my two daughters Nicole and Jamie and pat’s daughter shined
and niece Siobhan all headed for Wales via the 8.05 ferry from Dublin port on
6th June. After
all the dieting and watching what we were eating, the 1st thing we
done was went to the restaurant and had a fry with the true Irish attitude of
‘feck it were on our holidays’. We
left the ferry at around 11.30 am and with the help of Suzy sat nav headed
for Bala in snowdonia. The
scenery driving across the mountains was breathtaking and I think we were all
thinking the same thing ‘o shit’I hope the cycle isn’t up these mountains. We
arrived in bala at the Plas coch hotel at around 1.30 and the weather had
been hit and miss on the drive across. We checked into the room which were
big enough but nothing special. I think we were the first athletes to arrive
in bala. After
familiarizing ourselves with bala which probably took all of 20 minutes we
decided to drive the cycle route, which consisted of hill’s hill’s and more
hill’s(this is what I thought at the time but I’ve been to iron man France
in nice to cheer on Gerry Dorothy and Joe, and have now concluded that
bala was flat)while we were comparing the whole route to the sleeve bloom Pat
found the whole thing boring and went to sleep. So
Friday morning Seamus Philip and my self arranged to go for a cycle after
breakfast. So trying to take the healthy opt my self and Philip had some
cereal when down came Seamus Like a walking advertisement for the lake side
wheelers and ordered a fry. It
was later that day when every one else started to arrive, Aidan and Mary ,
Brian and Caroline, Brian and Kathleen, Yvonne and P.J and family, every one
else arrived Saturday, Sharon and Jean flew into Liverpool and myself and
Philip drove up and picked them up, Paul and Vera, Nikki and Bridget, Paula
and Freddie, Anthony, Liam, Connor and Breda Mc Donald arrived and everyone
was starting to get pre race jitters. With
loads of talk of early nights and what to eat and what not to eat, I was
afraid to make a comment in case Brian Boyle was listening and I said the wrong
thing, the night before I had said I was going to put on cycle shorts when i
got out of the water, and I got a good hand slapping and a lecture on wasting
time in transition….ouch. So
I did what I said I was going to do and headed to bed early when Gerry
Dorothy and Dave Fagan arrived, thankfully Nicole was around with the video
camera and caught all Gerry’s cheeky comments on video (to be shown at a
later date). So
race day and there was the gathering of the troops for breakfast not a fry to
be seen today ohh no it was all porridge and alpen and all things healthy. Transition
was pretty straight forward numbered rails and very tight for space. The
race started in 3 waves with my self Philip and Brian in wave 1, Seamus Aidan
Paul in wave 2, and Nikki Anthony Deidra Caroline Vera Yvonne in wave 3. Of
coarse the swim was made more comfortable for Vera with her own personal boat
(Pat’s kayak).Everyone got trough the swim fine and then it was the dreaded
bike route, which didn’t turn out to be too bad for most of us apart from
Brian who got a puncture within the first half hour but got it fixed and
under way in no time. It was just before the turn around of the bike when
Philip passed me because I had to stop and take leak and it was a long leak
so he got a good heads up on me. Then it was the run, the run in the race
briefing was described as undulating I looked up this word in the dictionary
and it said fecking hilly. The run was a 6.5 mile climb and from the first
hill I seen a lot of people struggle and walking, it was a cruel run that had
very little flats on it, I had intended on running all of the run but I found
the last 3 up hills coming back a real killer and had to walk up them, but
was still happy to finish in well under the 6hr mark. All in all this was a
brilliant week end away the race itself is tough and we were very lucky with
the weather, had it of been windy the bike times would have been a lot
longer, and from what we were told earlier the lake had 3 ft waves in it 3 or
4 weeks prior to our race due to bad weather. I think the fact there was so
many from the club there made it such a good weekend. And the fact the
supporting team got out on the bike coarse to cheer us on when we needed it.
The down sides were the goody bag was crap, there was no meal after it unless
you bought it, and the water at the finish line tasted like it came out of
the lake. All results can be found at http://www.wrecsamtri.org.uk/High5/RaceResults2008/Bala%20Results%202008%20v05.htm Oh
yea and philip beat me cause he didn't take a toilet break,1 nil to philip. |
||||
|
|
||||
