Race Report - Valentia Island Tri
Got down Friday night late enough, storm weather in full flow, absolutely lashing down, wind howling, and rough sea. We had been promised a sunny day on Sat, felt unlikely and questioning whether the swim would go ahead. But the night was good to us and the race kicked off with settled conditions and the sun behind clouds - swim on
I hadn’t thought about timing too much in advance but had in mind a 17km swim, 40 min cycle (average 25kph), 26 min run plus transitions so 83mins plus transitions, say 1.30 all in, and beating the buddies the real target!
The ferry across to the pier to start the swim was good craic and sunny, I got in and positioned myself on the left and to the front of the middle group to try avoid last years feck up where I drifted heavily right. The water temp was noticeably colder than it had been so got acclimatised, countdown from 5, and off we went. All of the usual belting and jostling at the beginning but I got a decent start and settled in to the swim with a smaller group on my right, kept a nice pace going and relied on them for spotting. It all tightened up again as we rounded the buoy into the harbour, headed for the ramp and felt I’d had a decent swim.
Headed in to the transition area and 1 of the buddies was there ready to leave, another had been and gone.. to be expected they are really strong swimmers. Everything was soaked from the rain shower that came down during the swim. Fired on the gear and shot off on the bike. The course is 4km climbing, and then 16km nett downhill looping around the perimeter of the island passing Skellig Michael and the blaskets just off shore.. stunning stuff. I climbed well and felt I had the energy to keep the hammer down then, caught one friend at about 10km. I knew I was clipping along came around the back of the island at 16km, into a head wind and out on my own. The last 4km was tough going to keep the pace up but I kept ploughing on mad to find a cyclist I could tuck in with but they never materialised. Back into the transition knowing I had been quick but also feeing like I had pushed it too hard on the bike, and there’s the bloody run up the mountain to come!
Bike gear off, runners on and as I exit the transition the bloody winner passes me into the final straight! The first 1km was hell, all uphill, blowing hard and trying to get the legs going. There’s a slight respite in the climb around there and I started to settle down. Kept plugging uphill and just after 2km the second buddy appears up ahead. I reeled him in and passed about 50m before the half way cone and the end of the climbing. He sat on my shoulder so I kept a nice pace going for the first km down and passed the last friend coming towards me at that point so I knew I was def out in front. I figured I needed to lose the one behind me so it wouldn’t be a shootout at the end so picked the pace up for the 4th km. Down to 1km, struggling now but kept at the pace, one last push down the hill to the pier, right into the finishing straight and delighted to cross the line for 1:23:xx. Great local support there
The final breakdown of my times was a 17 min swim, 36 min cycle averaging 33kph, and the run in 24.52. Delighted with those, I checked last years time and bizzarely there is only 4 seconds of a difference!
