Race Report: Roth 2014

By Paul O’Donovan

We’re hurtling through a cornfield at 5am, Rainer our driver telling Erin in the boot to keep the head down, police checkpoint ahead. The Ghostbusters theme blares on the Radio, we decide this is the theme for the day, a long day, Roth 2014.

Rainer skids into a 180, doors flung open, Ailenn, Linda, Erin, Ryan and I are hurled out of the car, right at the swim start.

Transition is huge. There are 3500 like minded fools doing this, and another 500 relay teams. I go to my bike, it’s been giving me trouble all year. I eye it up, I don’t like it, it doesn’t like me, but we’re stuck with each other for the day, no different to the endless hours spent cycling through the winter.
I get everything setup, then it’s off to the other piranhas. It feels like a home race, we could be in Kilkee or Athy as we all stand around slagging each other and the group from Fingal beside us, awful looking suits on them. This is different though, hot air balloons rise above our heads, opera music blasts out of the speakers and there are 40,000 people here to watch us.

Wetsuit on, into my start wave with John Staunton and Barry Mc. I go through my race plan in my head, and get into the water.
The swim is usually my favourite part if the race and The Roth swim in the canal is perfect, nice water temp, it’s straight and there’s a great big canon to get you going. I found it hard to get a decent draft, but enjoyed the swim, it felt a bit long, some of the lads clocked it at 4.1k. You exit the water to lots if cheering, grab your bag and head into the tent where a volunteer basically dresses you, these big races are awesome!

I run out of T1 with the bike and I’m off. Flying…Yahoo’ing, whistling, cheering until I almost fly off the road at the first corner, I barely keep the rubber side down and knocked over some lads camera. Bleeding bike trying to buckaroo me. I’m clearly over excited here and try to calm down and get into a rhythm.
The first lap goes great, there’s support in all of the small towns and the solar berg brought a tear to the eye, amazing. Things start to go a bit haywire on the 2nd lap. The temperature had risen, I start to feel sick on the bike. I’ve been drinking lots energy drink, I’d say I emptied about 7 bottles of that and water during the cycle. On the second climb up greiding I’m gagging and wretching over my tribars. I seen a good few people puking on the bike so I guess it’s normal in the heat. Aileen said not to “catastrophise” it if it happens. I couldnt stomach bars or gels but ate what I could, as I knew I’d suffer more later if I emptied out. There was lots of support from piranha and other Irish clubs. I seen Frank punctured at the side of the road and gave him a dig out. Later on I seen Steven moody stopped, waiting for a wheel, he waved me on, I thought this was his race over and was feeling terrible for him, we were training together all year, I knew how much work had gone into this. Shite.

The cycle got more and more uncomfortable but the second trip up solar berg lifted the spirits, then it was a steady spin back into Roth and T2.

T2 was jammers and this time I had no helper, had to dress myself, disgusted! I thought once I got the legs turning over on the run I’d start to feel better. After about 2k I knew I was in trouble, I still felt like shit. I knew I just had to knuckle down, I started a long countdown from 40k. My strategy was to stop at every 2nd (every 4k) aid station and have a gel and some water. This went out the window at aid station 1, one because they didn’t have the gels I used in training, but mostly because I was fookin dying. Instead of gel I had some melon and bread in an attempt to settle my stomach.
So on I trudged, aiming to just get from one aid station to the next, going through each one like a drunk at a buffet.

At 10k I heard a familiar voice, singing… “I love you baby, and if it’s quite alright I need you baby…” It was Moody! Back in the race, and he was flying, he gave some words if encouragement and was off, still singing and high 5’ing the crowd. This eased the pain and I decided I’d try and enjoy this as much as he was. On and on I went, at about 30k the stomach settled down and I could run a bit. The last 12-15k were painful but now I was enjoying myself. I soaked in the atmosphere and ran for the finish. I seen Niamh along the finishing chute, there were hugs and tears as I crossed the line.

It was some day, an amazing experience. Racing for that distance really tests you physically and emotionally. A lot of piranhas, including myself were disappointed with their times but conditions were tough out there and for most if us it was our first ironman. I think we a realised this the next day when we met up, we traded our war stories, but concluded we had all achieved something amazing just by finishing. We were 28 heros, the Roth 2014 28, piranha did Roth.

I’d like to thank Niamh, my long suffering wife for supporting me in this journey for the last 10 months, patience of a saint. Various bike shops for continually accepting my credit credit card, Tadhg Cronin and crew for getting me to and over the line, piranha TC and all of the Roth crew for all of the support and advice. That’s it for IM for a couple of years at least, it’s only my second tri season, think I’ll concentrate on shorter races for a while!

5 days later a text comes in from Paul:

“So on holidays by alp d’huez…Triathlon alp d’huez festival is on for next 3 days 🙂
I honestly didn’t know this, Niamh going mad. There’s an im distance tomorrow and a standard on Tuesday. Tri nerds everywhere. When I realised all this I went and put on my Roth finisher t-shirt, people keep coming up and shaking my hand, awesome. I’m having a look out for a wetsuit for splash and dash Wednesday!!”