Please send your contributions for this
section to Ian Mulvaney
Race report from the Half Ironman St. Croix.
United States Virgin Islands.
By Peter Mills photos to follow.
PREPARATIONS
Averaged 16 hours a week of training, where I was swimming 8-12k a week,
cycling 250k and running about 60k. In addition weight room was not ignored
and spent 3 hours a week in there working on improving speed on bike and
swim muscles. Diet has been pretty good as well. I cannot resist my odd
pint or two and a curry, but did no harm. I stepped to th starters line
weighing 11st 5 and the lightest I have been since I was in my teens.
RACE SUMMARY
Well I can honestly say that I gave it my best effort, but made a lot
of mistakes on the swim that cost me a lot of time. However based on today’s
field, it was never going to be enough to get a Ironman World Championship
Qualifying Time. First qualifying time in went in a very impressive 4:39
and the last time went at 4:42. Here is the summary:
WEATHER
Temps were 86F with humidity of 74%. Wind made the sea swim choppy and
gave the expected headwinds after the Beast. Yet if you think this sounds,
pretty hot and tough, but it could have been a whole lot worse. The day
was overcast and this kept the sun exposure at bay and there were a few
showers on the run that provided some temporary relief. So the weather
gave us a fast course!
SWIM
Swim was 100 meters longer than the normal HIM distance. At 2,000 meters
and we were sent out in AG's. There were 78, 40-44's in my wave. Had my
goggles kicked off me twice in the first 100 meters before the first turn.
Wore a pair of blue tinted pair of goggles and this was the first of 3
mistakes I made on the swim. With the overcast conditions and surf, it
made sighting the buoys very difficult. This was a further challenge because
the first 1,000 meters were into swells. Went off course to the left on
the way out and on the way back putting costly minutes on a swim time
that was always going to have me chasing the leaders. Had a shocking swim
time of 43 mins and this put me 16 minutes behind the eventual #3 finisher
in the AG and in 57th place in my AG. Afraid this was game set and match
in my quest for Hawaii.
CYCLE
Cycle information on the website was fairly limited. It gave no information
about total climbing that needed to be done. Everyone knew about “the
Beast” which was a hill with a 7/10ths of a mile hill with an average
grade of 18% and a max of 25%. I knew about this hill and heard about
rollers, but was rather shocked at the amount of climbing that we did.
My watch said that I had climbed 1,975 meters over the 56 mile course.
The other aspect about the course is that it is technical and never really
had many spots where you can hammer with a tailwind to make up for lost
time from the headwinds or the hills. Headwinds after the Beast were expected
and did not disappoint. I figure 20-25 miles of the course was into a
20k headwind. The Beast was tackled with no problem thanks to some kind
information about gradient that was on the course. I sensibly gave the
25% grade section a miss by going wide vs the direct route.. Spent the
whole cycle passing people, but all this does is give you a false sense
that you are going well. The opposition was 10-15 mins up the road and
my result proved that I was not going to well at all. Clawed back alot
of AG's and did a time excluding transition of 2:44 averaging about 33kph.
Could have and should have done better then this. Exited transition in
21st place in my AG and 108th overall.
RUN
Two loop course with plenty of energy sapping hills to deal with. Rain
fell and this was relieving, but the negative side is that humidity levels
rose every time it rained. I did a hot and hilly half marathon about 4
weeks prior in 1:14 and had high hopes of being able to claw back a lot
of time and bodies in front of me on the run with a target time around
1:25. This was a pipe dream. The weather and the hills were never going
to allow this. Spent the run managing a surprisingly high heart rate and
backed off a bit out of fears of bonking. Plenty of people were passed
with a run time of 1:32. This was good enough for 4th in the AG and 28th
overall for the run.
OVERALL
I finished in 55th overall out of 600 with a race that included 39 professionals.
Was 12th in AG in a time of 5:03. This time disappointed me because I
thought my PB of 4:51 was achievable. The dreadfully slow swim and average
bike killed those hopes. The bar keeps going up in these events and was
very impressed with the times people were posting. The winner averaged
40kph on the bike course and then ran a 1:16 half marathon. These guys
are studs. It is back to the drawing board for me but I know what I need
to do. Need to find a 30% improvement in my swim and a 10% improvement
on the bike. If I can manage this then I can be competitive.
Christy
McManus by Anthony Crean
11 May, 2004
Event Sponsored By Duff’s Lounge, Main Street, Bray
Well what a contrast in weather conditions to the earlier attempt of hosting
the
Christy Mc Manus race, today we had much warmer temperatures and bright
blue
skies, although there was still a strong breeze blowing which will make
it hard on the
back end of the circuit.
When I arrived at the sign on at 10am there
were already quite a few of the usual
suspects ( the Lane Brothers, Keith Sullivan, Dollo and all the Bray Lads
etc. ) already
there, and eager for the battle to commence . I signed on and had a chat
with some
of my club mates where we discussed Brian’s sudden death earlier that
week and the
new circuit which was to be used today due to Major Road works on the Hill
in
Rathdrum causing the organisers to revert back to the old circuit, a 7.2mile
loop to be
completed 5 times.
At about 10.30am I start to get my loyal
Terry Dolan bike ready for action with a
couple of blasts of air into the wheels, at this stage I noticed how may
Bray Wheelers
riders were taking part today, 13 in total I counted, well if we can’t
do something
today it will be a bit embarrassing I thought.
11am came and it was time to line up for the start, on the line myself and
my brother
Declan had a few words with Paddy Kelly ( Bray Wheelers, finished second
), we were
saying that he had great form and we want to see him up the road ( only
joking with
him ), well little did we know at the time that he was to finish second
.
Prior to the start, race organiser Urban Monks ( Herbie ) asked for 1 minutes
silence
for the late Brian Lennon which was observed brilliantly by the riders,
you could have
heard a pin drop .At this point on behalf of myself and the Bray Wheelers
I would I
like to send my deepest condolences to Brian’s parents, family, friends
and Team
Mates.
The Ladies, 2 of them in total were first
to be set of followed by the Vets, Juniors and
C riders and last of all the B bunch. The first few miles were downhill
to Annamoe
were we turned left towards the circuit, up the little drag and this is
were the speed
shot with a few Ravens riders on the front upping the pace. Straight through
Tomriland crossroads and on to the next left turn. Before we came to the
turn I moved
myself up to the front of the bunch because I knew what was ahead, over
the hump
back bridge and up the short Bitch of a hill. After that the road dragged
uphill for a
while into a head wind towards Ballyduff crossroads then across the filter
beds and up
to Westons gates. At the end of lap one the ladies, Juniors and C riders
where still
leading with the B bunch chasing hard behind.
As we started the second lap I noticed we
were passing some dropped riders from the
front group which caused a lot of attacks at the front of the B bunch. I
noticed that
every move that was made had a team mate in it, fortunately the winning
break
which formed on lap 3 had Paddy Kelly (Bray) in it who rode a great race.
Also on lap
3 I found myself and four other Bray riders in a counter move (Aidan, Cyan,
Ger and
Tom) unfortunately we were brought back over the top of the hill, I tried
to go again
with Aidan Duff but my legs were starting to scream in the head wind, Duff
persisted
on his own for a while but was reeled back in down the road .Lap four was
steady
enough with a few rider trying to get away but only ever managing to gain
a hand
full of seconds one the bunch
Towards the end of the fifth lap coming up to a junction I had Lennie (
Dublin Wheelers ) to my right and to my dismay a team mate came up behind
him and shouted at him to move out of his F****** way, but fair play to
Lennie he told him were to go. As we finished the fifth lap and turned back
towards Annamoe myself and my team mates tried to get close to the front
for the drag up to the line. During the winter we would train on this road
every weekend so we knew that the bunch could split on the run up to the
finish and being our clubs event none of us wanted to be caught in the wrong
place if there was a split even though the break was going to take all the
placings. With about 1 mile to go I was about fifth from the front with
John Lynch and Tom Duggan at the front of the bunch setting a high pace.
I looked behind me with about 500m to go and there was Urban Junior getting
himself ready to sprint for the junior prize. At 100m to go Urban jumped
with me onto his wheel, we stayed this way crossing the line with Tom and
John close behind us. Urban on his way to taking the junior prize Urban
Monks took the junior prize and Paddy Kelly took a great Second Place behind
the winner Brain Taaffe to end a good days racing, I think I finished in
the top 12 so I was happy enough to. Many thanks to Ken Duff of “ Duffs
Lounge “ for sponsoring the race and the marshals who did an excellent job
as always and also thanks to Brain Harris who did service car for the Bray
Wheelers.
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