This year Frank convinced me to join him in training for a sprint triathlon. I agreed and last weekend was my first (fingalsprint.3dtri.com). It was tough – real tough. I’m not a strong swimmer and I was punished severally in the swim – somehow I was placed in the fast group and ended up being the very very last person in the pool (funny when you look back on it).

I then ran out and after numerous failed attempts managed to get changed (at one stage I had my head and my arm out my head hole on my shirt). I jumped on my bike and cycled as hard as I ever have all the way from the NAC to Kilbride (near where I live) and back. Then it was attempting to change again and with adrenaline racing through me, it wasn’t easy.

After the 20km bike is the 5km run and it is the weirdest feeling ever, to run after pushing yourself on the bike – it’s like floating on air but really really slowly and it took about 1km before I managed to get anything like a reasonable pace going.

The official results are not out yet but I’m very chuffed with finishing and especially finishing the swim (I’d never done the 750m before with the pool in 50m mode). Frank got his time and it was a whopping 9 minutes or so faster than his time last year – well done dude (watch out next year – maybe I’ll be able to dress myself properly by then).

I don’t know how people do Iron Man competitions and the like, my hat goes off to them. Awesome stuff.

We’ve got another one @ Lake Garadice in a couple of weeks so it’s back training tonight. After that it’s all about the Dublin marathon. ps. The photos are courtesy of my mum who waited at the bike turning point for both myself and Frank.

I’ll update later with my official times.

Official Times

Overall Position 133  / 269
Swim 0:20:42    (236th)
Swim to Bike transition 01:28
Bike 0:40:07    (134th)
Bike to Run transition 0:00:54
Run 0:20:12    (41st)
Total time 1:23:23

Woohoo!!!!