Joey Hannon 2014 Race Report – Cian Guilfoyle

Race Report: Joey Hannon Memorial Tri Sunday, April 27 2014  

Having originally missed the entry for the Joey Hannon Memorial Tri, I was pleased to get a place after putting my name down on the waiting list.

In the week leading up to the race, I was suffering from a pretty annoying head cold, so I wasn’t really able to train as well as I would have liked in the run up to the race, but I wasn’t worried as I had been feeling good up until that week. I did a quick 45 minute session in the pool in Westpark on the Friday night, and was feeling pretty good.

I travelled down to Limerick on Saturday and stayed in a hotel in the city. I spent the evening hunting for an Italian restaurant. Going to bed the night before, I was feeling good and felt like I had kicked the cold.

Waking up on race morning, feeling fresh and ready to go, I grabbed some quick breakfast in the hotel, loaded up the car and headed towards UL.

Starting in the last wave of the sprint tri, I hopped into the lane and did a quick 5 minute warm up. I went third in the lane, hoping to do the swim in around 11 minutes. Off we went, and we were doing a good pace, until around 400M in, when myself and the two guys ahead of me went to lap the last swimmers in our lane. The top 2 guys overtook at the wall, but I just missed the opportunity to overtake at the wall. Not wanting to risk a penalty I waited and swam behind until I could overtake at the wall, which added some time on.

Coming out of the water and into T1, myself and another junior were instructed by a marshal to do a lap of the transition area before touching our bikes, but it transpired that we weren’t meant to do that at all, so that added time on to my transition, but wasn’t too fazed by it.

I was feeling good running with my bike up to the mount line, but took it easy for the first couple of minutes on the bike to let my heart rate come down, before going hard. The bike course was lovely and pretty fast, heading out of UL towards Clare. With little wind, clear skies and sun, you couldn’t really ask for more! I was overtaking, but was also being over taken as I was struggling to hold on to the aero bikes on the straights. I felt I held my own though and was very pleased with the bike overall.

Going into T2 I felt pretty good, but going out onto the run I wasn’t feeling as good as I had been. I came out of transition but wasn’t feeling fast. For the first 2 km I was overtaken by a few people, and I was struggling to keep pace with those around me. At the 3km mark, I started to claw back places and upped my pace as I was coming in to the finish I managed to “turn it on” and overtook 5 people coming in to the finish.

Coming in in just over 1.09 I was pleased as I had taken nearly 3 minutes off my previous PB. I had a great time racing and learned a lot. I knew in the back of my mind that the race was a qualifier for the Age Group worlds in Edmonton, but wasn’t really thinking about that. To my surprise I actually qualified in my age group, which means I will be heading off to Canada at the end of August!

I still have a lot to learn and I’m really looking forward to my next race, Dun Laoghaire sprint on May 25th.

A big thanks to Spin 11, Runways and Cycleways for there support and of course Pulse!