Waterford Triathlon, 18 June 2011

Report by Peter Munn

For our 5th overseas trip there were 10 hardy souls travelling to the scenic Irish village of Dunmore East. The hard core of Me, Karen, Alex, Ian, Dave and Ellie were joined by newbies Steve and Cathy and Jonathan and Alison.

 

Friday morning brought a very rainy scene as we made our way to Fishguard and with bikes safely strapped down we all just about made the roughish crossing in one piece, although it took a couple of swift Guiness’s to settle my stomach. We all settled in tidy like  and we just managed to squeeze in a pleasant meal and a beverage or two.

 

Race day brought an overcast day with a few showers throughout, but not as overcast as myself who had been feeling rough since after Thursday’s swim TT. I’d tried the resting and drinking through the illness theory but alas I made the executive decision not to race. I was gutted but all others agreed, ‘great we got someone to hand flag, dragon to at end’ and suddenly I was awash with horn, clackers and hooters.

 

The start was delayed an hour as there was a problem setting up buoys. It was a fantastic spectacle to see the first wave of 225 under 40 men set off followed by all others. Cath was watching with me too and it wasn’t too long before she was cheering on her fellow relay team member Alison who had a strong swim and good run up to tag her hubby John who was on the bike leg. Mind you I thought the hugs and kisses at change over probably cost Jon at least 3 minutes!!

 

Ian had a superb swim 7th out of the water and continued to race strongly, but Dave caught him on the bike. Dave said he had a poor run 29 something. I wish I could perform that poorly that consistently!

Al had a good race putting in 3 solid legs. Ellie for once did not challenge for medals, such was the strength of the field, but still raced strongly. Steve was going well until early in the run when going up the major hill in run, it is a km long and calf went half way up. Karen as per usual was steady eddie with her strong run bringing her up the field to finish 2nd F50, earning herself 25 euros which in the current exchange rate equated to 6.75 pints. Bargain.

 

As for the relay team, they all performed admirably with Alison strong on the swim, Jon beating his (or Alison’s) predicted time by 6 mins and Cathy running well, epitomised by her screaming past a fellow runner coming up the finishing straight to much cheering, hootering, clackering.

 

That night brought more drinking, eating, merriment with Sunday a mix of leisurely bike, walk, food, drink and chilling.

A very pleasant crossing occurred with arrival back home at 0100 hrs.

There were 440 starters.

 

Results for Club members:

Pos	Name	Swim	Bike	Run	Total
32	David Astins	15.30	36.29	29.59	1.24.05
66	Ian Cooper	14.58	38.19	31.18	1.27.29
125	Ellie Jones	16.32	41.26	31.42	1.32.05
128	Alex Ilyat	18.32	38.05	33.14	1.32.14
175	Steve Pryke	18.34	38.58	35.19	1.35.43
265	Karen Munn	20.10	43.22	35.55	1.42.43
381	Relay team	19.14	53.14	43.17	1.58.13