Beast of the East [Race Report]

Wow..What a week..the highs and the lows!! the toilet trips..;-).. Without wanting to bore you with the details, I was motoring well at the start of the week.. Myself and Rob were keeping things short and fast. But After Wednesday’s diner ( salmon) I wasnt too good.. Basically me and the toilet made good buddies until Friday. This threw my race at ‘Beast’ into jeopardy…Me being me I still wanted to race and it was a case of doing everything I could to get to the line. I had zero energy from the lack of food. I couldn’t eat and all I wanted to do was sleep. I came round on Saturday but even then I wasn’t too hot. Still I wanted to race, I avoided talking to rob all week because I knew he’d say, leave it!!.. But a text saying go for it on Saturday evening was just the little shove I needed.. With Saturday the only day since Wednesday I was eating properly I was worried about the race. I knew what lay ahead..Hills on hills and then some more!! I said it before, you put yourself on the line to compete and not give excuses. I wasn’t prepared to do that. So Saturday was a day of get your shit together cause we’ve a race on Sunday!..I woke Sunday feeling the best I had all week.. ( not hard) with my tuba wear filled with turkey breast, quinoa, almond nut butter and coconut oil I started to load on the way to the race.. Pat picked me up at 5am &

got us there before anyone had arrived.. We had all the midgets to ourselves!!! The race I was competing in was the beast of the east. A race I did and won 2 years previous. I’ll start off by saying it’s the toughest, best run/organised race on the circuit. From the marshals to the spread of grub after it was faultless. Hats off wicklow Tri!SWIM..We arrived very early, and the race is staged on a camping area with lough dan the venue for the first discipline. The swim seemed long.. Or maybe I was slow but I just wasn’t at it. I just wanted out  of the water. I got a shout of “6 minutes” on exit.. Lovely!!! I knew who was up front and figured it was going to be a tough day. I didn’t make things easy on myself because inside the first 5 km I was off the bike TWICE scurrying across the road looking for my bottle that came out. With my set up for my bottle  I should of anticipated

the rough road and ordinarily I would of kept going but because of the lack of fuel in the days previous it would of been suicide to go without it. I had an extra scoop of everything in it!!BIKEI knuckled down into a pace that I felt tough. The beast is a race were the watch doesn’t come into the equation. It’s you versus the hills and ‘you ain’t beating me today’.. I was in 3 rd  place around 15 km and still had a bit of catching to do. At the turnaround 1st and 2nd had big time on me and I knew or felt it would be a foot race if I could close the gap. Even then I wasn’t confident because biking was one thing to perform under-par but running!!.Just as you got into a rhythm another hill arrived on the horizon. Before transition I was in 2nd and to my surprise I could see 1st at the crest of the final climb. Apparently its called ‘For fucks sakes hill’..  I put in a big effort and got to the back of 1st.. Myself and 1st (Bjorn) ran out together. This is what worried me, I knew the course but I dint know how my legs were. I figured I’d run with Bjorn for a while and if I had it in the legs I’d push on.. Again, all the fancy gps watches are good for nothing in this race..

RUNPacing is not an option. Mentally this race try’s you, it  and asks how much can you hurt, how muc

On entry into the finishing area I think I took everyone by suprise and they didnt realise the finishers were coming. I had to give Pat a ‘Hey boy’ shout as he was playing with his new iphone!!.. DADS + iphone

s = Questions(and more Questions)I got to the line 1st and a good day at the office was had. After looking at the splits I had nearly 7 minutes to make up on the bike.. With my couple of stops its a miracle i did!!..
Next up is Tristar Estonia 111. The race consists of 1km swim, 100km bike and 10km run. Im really looking forward to it. Alot of focus has been put towards it. Myself and Pat fly out on the 4th with the race on the 8th. Rob is also flying out so it will be good to hook up and prepare well.

BMC