BUCS - British Universities Sprint Tri Championships

1st May 2011

First triathlon of the season at the Universities Sprint Triathlon Championships which were organised at the St. Mary's School grounds down in Calne. Distances were 750m pool swim, followed by 25km cycling and 5km of running. The race was a time trial format with waves, so the race started at 11.30 am with the first wave and they had waves up till 4pm. In each wave you had 4 swimmers in each lane swimming at the same time with 10sec starting intervals. This turned out to be quite challenging at times.

I started off the 750m at a good tempo and felt good all the way. The swimmers in my lane were much slower so I was lapping them and this made me wonder if I guess my current 750m time as it seemed that my allocated wave was a bit slower than I expected. Out of the water in 10.43 on my watch made me realise that, 'crap.. should have got in a faster wave,' this was a something that effected my performance throughout the whole race.

A quick transition saw me out on the bike course in a few seconds. I caught a couple of guys in the first 3km of the bike ride and that was it, a lonely 25km Time Trial in some really strong winds. It took me some time to get into my pace and the wind was not helping much. I was praying to go round a corner and have the wind behind me but that didn't happen until half way, after that it was all about turning a big gear and trying to get my average speed up to a respectable figure.

After another good transition I went out on the run trying to do my best to keep a strong pace going. Unfortunately after about 1km I went the wrong way as that part of the course wasn't marked well and I lost quite a bit of time which showed in my 19,36 split time. I still kept pushing the pace until the end to finish with a time of 1hr 14mins 10sec for 29th overall out of 280 participants. My initial target was a top 20 which unfortunately I didn't manage to achieve but it was a better result than my Duathlon Championships in November so I can go back to my training with that in mind and work hard for the next races.

I would firstly like to thank Louie and John for making the weekend so special for taking care of us (Johanna and myself). Also a special thank-you goes Bill and Pam for their constant help and support without which I would be doing very little, and Johanna's support!!

RESULTS

Dermot

BUCS - British Universities Duathlon Championships

Sunday 21st November 2010

It's been a while since my last blog update. Now I have moved to the UK to do my MSc. Exercise Physiology at Loughborough University. The last couple of months have been quite hard to adapt back to the student life and get back to the books to study, but now am finding my rhythm.

About three weeks ago I took part in the Bosworth Duathlon where I finished 9th overall. Not such a good result considering I have won that event two years ago but a good effort to find my race fitness in preparation for the Univeristies Duathlon Championships. I have managed to train consistentaly in the following weeks averaging 10hrs a week of training. Certainly not my usual load of training but what do you expect when you are doing a Masters??? Not easy to find the time with all the reading you have to do!!!

We left Loughborough University at 8.30am, and it took us 2.5hrs to get to destination. The race consisted of 2Miles run, 10Miles bike, and 2Miles Run on a racing track at Chippenham - a flat course. Our start was due at 2.15pm. Johanna, who was racing for Chester University started at 2pm. This was her first multi sport race in the UK so we were both very excited. We started the first 2Mile run at speeds I have never experienced before. I haven't raced so short for quite a while and this was a big shock to the system. I finished the first run in 11.21, not a bad time considering the limited training I have been doing. On the bike I was expecting much better then the 23.42 split I produced. Unfortunately my bike seat went down and I couldn't push the pace as I wished, but still I managed to recover a few places. I finished my last 2mile run in 11.40 for a total time of 48.22. Overall I came 36th out of 250 starters. Johanna had a very good race. She finished 35th out of 75 starters with a time of 59mins 30sec.

As the first official race of the 2010 - 2011 season it was a reasonably good results. Hopefully I will manage to log in some good hours of training to push my performance to another level.

Back soon!

Dermot