Race Report: TriAthlone

By Matt Coughlan.

(Thanks also to TI Media Photographer Martin Jancek for his persmission to use his photos.)

This is the second year in which Athlone have held the ParaTri national championships – in fact its only the second time they’ve been held as it as part of the effort to promote para tri with Triathlon become part of the Para Olympics in Rio 2016. Fair play to the organisers for putting it on.

Michael has been involved in athletics for years and also took part in Paracycling on the track. He done a few triathlons with his partner Fionnula. However for Athlone, mixed teams aren’t allowed so he needed another male to pilot. Ideally then he needed someone as strong as or stronger on each of the disciplines so Micheal’s efforts on each of the 3 disciplines would be the limiting factors on results rather than anything the pilot would bring to the team.

When asked last year to do the pilot for Athlone I said no – mainly as I was in the middle of studing for some exams which finished the day before the race was taking place and I wouldn’t have time to get any training done. So I declined with regret and suggested a couple of names of people who would be suitable and who might be able to help. These didn’t work out and Micheal gave me a call and persauded me that we wouldn’t need to train much together. So I was signed up.

We met in westwood on a saturday and swam in a lane beside each other to get used to a homemade harness – we needed to be connected in the swim. But the main thing I was worried about was the bike. We did a spin from Westwood up to the top of howth. In many ways cycling a tandom isn’t that much different – but being a pilot means I’m completely in charge of breaking, cornering, avoiding traffic etc so any issues we have would be my fault!

So the day itself didn’t pass without some drama. Swim went grand but just out of the tranisition as we went to accelerate, the chain broke! The thing to remember though is if you are going to break your chain make sure to do it outside a bike shop. Yes that’s right. There was a bike shop 50m up the road and the lads were out having a look at the race. We trotted up the road, explained the story and 3-4 minutes later we were on our way. Phew. We pushed hard out to the turnout and passed the main competition and had about a 1 minute on them getting back to T2. Knowing Tony Ward piloted by Mark Risely was a faster run we expected them to catch up and they did on the last lap getting to the finish chute about 30 seconds ahead. In fairness to them they waiting and Michael and Tony crossed the line together. However Mick is a competitor and he knew there was some unfinished business to win convincingly. I said to him I’d give it another go with him again in 2013.

And so to this year’s race. As prep we did the Pulse Aquathon in Bull Wall a few weeks and had a couple of sessions planned but Mick picked up a cold and wasn’t himself for 10 days – not to mention having a 6 week old daughter in the house meaning plenty of broken sleep. To make sure the bike was in working order we did a spin from Clontarf just up to Sutton cross and back. We practiced the take off which can be tricky but otherwise we were ready to roll. We’d be relying on the training we had each done on our own.

In Athlone we got registered nice and easy and back to the car to get things set up. Fionnuala who normally looks after getting the bike together had her hands full with Laoise so I was on duty. Because of the size of the tandom the only way to transport is on the bike rack on back of the car with the wheels off – and even then its wider than the car. Back wheel on grand – front wheel not so grand. the brake was rubbing and it wasn’t the standard brakes I’m used to. I take off the wheel again and somehow manage to let’s say – break the brakes! At least this year the drama was before the race.

Thanks to one of the lads at the Trizone stand for getting us fixed up. But we ended up with the front brake not as tight as I’d like in order to make sure the initial issue with the wheel was ok. Worth bearing in mind the brakes on a tandom need to be strong enough to stop 2 people and a heavier bike!

Down to transition with what feels like not much time to spare. We get to go into transition and Noel McCluskey asks “have ye got yer helmets lads”? I don’t have mine. So I dash back across the bridge in through the shopping centre into the car and back across. More time lost. We definitely wouldn’t have time for a quick spin on the bike now which wasn’t ideal.

No more drama and we were ready to go. We got going in the swim and around the buoy just before the bridge to turn back. So far so good. On the way back there was a bit more company with one particular guy all over the place – crossing over and back and interrupting Mick and he went through. Couldn’t help but have a little giggle at the irony of the visually impaired guy swimming in a straight line and the guy in the relay zigzagging all over the shop.

Out of the swim and into the long run to transition. I Was pretty sure there weren’t too many in the para race out ahead of us. When we got to the bike all the tandoms were there.

Got going on the bike and around a few new turns in the new Athlone set up. Then down the fast little hill past the bike shop and then to the tight turn under the railway bridge. Its tight and there were cones and tape to seperate outward traffic from the traffic which would be coming back in. We’re going full belt and suddenly as I pull the brakes I’m reminded of the slighted less than 100% front brake and we’re pretty much touching the tape between the cones as we corner. Thankfully when guiding someone visual impaired the opportunity for them to be a back seat driver in pretty limited so I knew Mick was oblivious to our little scrape with the tape!! We have a good laugh about it afterwards.
So full gas on all the way to the turnaround point pushing as hard as we could – although neither of us can really tell how hard the other is pushing it. The gear selections are taken by me so Mick kinda has to just roll with it. Luckily we both have a similar preferred cadence. There are a couple of tricky roundabouts particularly the coned one back into town which we took pretty easily. I knew from the turnaround we were well ahead of the other tandoms so there was no point taking any risks. Back in through transition and onto the run without much drama. You might notice in some of the photos Mick is wearing a blindfold which is basically to try to equalise between the varying degrees of visual impairments and to essentially make athletes who may have 2 or 3% vision ‘blind’ so its fair on the guys who have no sight at all.

The run went off grand and we kinda knew we were ahead by a good bit but didn’t want to take any chances. I tried to encourage Mick along without having him push too hard too early which I think we did a bit last year. Anyway we got to the line. Delighted for Mick to be 1st home in the Para race.

Later on after some grub and getting back to the car etc we get the splits.
Swim 17.40
Bike 31.20
Run 20.48
for a 1.15 total

There are many people, who can train independently as often as they want, would be delighted with those splits so its pretty amazing for Mick to be hitting those times. It was great to be part of it.