Posted on behalf of Patricia O'Brien

Well Saturday morning 14th August 2010 started early at the time of 5.45 with several alarm clocks going off. Oh the temptation to press snooze was very strong. No I totally bounced out of the bed, bright and breezy rearing for road to race this triathlon somewhere in Mullingar, near it or somewhere yonder. Yea I am lying about the bright and breezy-was like a bear questioning –why the hell I do this to myself.

So anyways after feeding myself, twas time to hit the road with my trusted co pilot Aoife Nash (Nash is in another club which will remain nameless but sure we won’t hold that against her). A few stops were made along the way double checking that we had the small essentials like helmets, bike shoes, TI card blah blah-you know the crap you know that has been packed the night before but just in case fairies have sneaked into the car and robbed them in the middle of the night. So with the help of Nash’s sat nav we arrived to Liliput Adventure Center on time to catch registration. We saw a few of the Ennis Tri heads as we arrived-Mir, Moe and Paddy. The day was turning out to be a dry one but a bit overcast. The setting for this tri was nice-lake just off parklands and nice country roads.
The first problem was encountered in the registration area with a battle to fit into the small T shirt, then the battle to take it off and exchange it for a medium-mental note to self-lay off the pick n mix.

So after several call from stewards to get ourselves up towards the transition area we were given the race briefing and we were herded toward Lough Ennell. The start was made by the firing of some cannon guns (or something like that-my details are a bit sketchy here about the cannons things as I was too busy trying to keep my head above water in the lake) and off 265 triatletes went to swim the 1500meter course. The swim was grand in a calm enough lake but lots of kicking and elbowing and the usual that happens as we try to battle through the swim circuit. Paddy completing his swim in just over 21 mins and Mir, Moe and myself in the 26/27 min mark.
So onto the bike for 2 laps of a so-called flat bike course (I’d call it undulating). Not sure how my team mates were getting on at this stage until Moe whizzed passed me after a few miles of lap 1-he made it look easy-no bother at all to him. There was a bit of a head wind in spots but nothing major really. So anyways after lots and lots of people passing me on the bike it was time to spin back into T2.

Dumped bike, runners off and outta T2. I met fellow Ennis man Oisin McGrath as I headed out of T2-apparently he raced some of this tri cos he was doing an advert for a Garmin watch-cool gig, nice one Oisin. The run course was around the parkland on an out and back run loop. I got to see my 3 fellow teammates all looking strong at this stage as I struggled to give them the thumbs up sign-wasn’t feeling the love too much myself today even though it was a nice setting around the woods. Really glad to get the finish line-can’t remember much about the run really due to oxygen debt.

PB’s got on the day by Moe, Mir and myself (I think) and big congrats to Paddy on his excellent 14th place finish-congrats to all and well done to midlands tri for holding a well-organised race (see our results below). Special mention to co-pilot Nash too for setting a PB. Men’s race won by Conor Murphy in a time of 1.55.28 and women’s by Aoife Lynch in a time of 2.15.20. We all had a bit of a chat afterwards and a burger was had sitting on a bale of straw.

The early start to the day and exertions of the race was rewarded with savage chips and pizza with Nash in Gort on the way home-the diet of pure athletes. Maybe another reason for the earlier struggle with the small T-shirt!!.

Good luck to all in the next few weeks in the last few races of this season.
Cool, laters.
Trisha

Results

Pos	Name	bib	swim	T1	Cycle	T2	Run	Total
1	Conor Murphy	  154	0:16:43	0:00:42	1:04:00	0:00:40	0:33:23	1:55:29
2	Colin Bolger	  320	0:17:00	0:00:47	1:05:21	0:00:33	0:35:06	1:58:48
3	Kevin Keane	  172	0:20:22	0:00:49	1:05:42	0:00:32	0:35:15	2:02:41
14	Patrick Quinn	  208	0:21:48	0:00:57	1:08:14	0:00:32	0:37:06	2:08:37
30	Aoife Lynch	  304	0:21:10	0:00:53	1:12:39	0:00:33	0:40:06	2:15:21
34	Bronagh Ni Bhriain 35	0:24:18	0:00:57	1:10:31	0:00:34	0:40:45	2:17:05
41	Ailbhe Carroll	  280	0:19:01	0:00:51	1:13:53	0:00:34	0:43:52	2:18:10
64	Maurice McCartan   19	0:26:56	0:01:10	1:12:52	0:00:49	0:40:26	2:22:14
105	Patricia O'Brien   46	0:26:44	0:01:01	1:16:36	0:00:43	0:41:46	2:26:50
131	Miriam Byrne	  152	0:27:11	0:01:16	1:17:03	0:00:54	0:43:57	2:30:21