Hell of the West

You may recall my installment last year when Kay and I went on holiday and ended up doing the Carrick-on-Suir triathlon? If you don’t (and I am trying to forget it as well) I should tell you that one of the outcomes was that Kay won her age group and her prize was a weekend for 2 in Killarney. Since the start of the season Kay has scanned the Triathlon Ireland calendar and google maps websites to find a triathlon that would put her prize to good use. Finally I was asked if I would like to do the Irish Championships. I have long held the view that those, like myself, who are over the hill should make the best of life before they are under the hill. I duly agreed to enter and found out later that I was destined for the ‘Hell of the West’ (a race based in Kilkee, Co. Clare). Neither Kay or I had entered with any expectation in terms of performance – she needed to test her injury plagued leg in the run with a view to getting around L’Alpe D’Huez triathlon at the end of July and I just needed to practice my open water swimming and kick off my triathlon season.

The most hellish aspect of the whole affair was getting to Kilkee. We set off on the Friday morning in glorious sunshine and it felt like we were going on holiday. Granny was minding the kids so it was just Kay and me off for a weekend on our own – whoopeeeee! We decided on a western route through Sligo and Galway – big mistake, very scenic but we should have gone via Dublin. We registered Friday evening in Kilkee which was bathed in warm sunshine, no wind and calm seas – definitely Mediterranean in feel. I felt chilled, like a nice evening sitting in the sun, drinking a little too much beer and perhaps relaxing to the point when we would sing (out of tune) with the locals – the scene was perfect except for the fact that we were to compete in a triathlon the morning. But you know how it is at these events – the relaxation is shaken by the sight of all those fit looking tanned young people strutting about in shades, limbering up, playing with carbon fibre kit and wearing compression gear in the sunshine (still don’t know what’s that about – especially when it is hot?). For Kay and I it would be the first race of the triathlon season and we were twitchy - obviously we couldn’t be outdone and so had to strut too; so I sucked in the belly (as best I could) and took a quick spin out on our bikes (to get to somewhere where I could start breathing properly again). It was then I discovered that I had put the wrong rear cassette on my wheel and that the chain slipped in gears 2-4 (inclusive). After some liberal cursing I realised that I couldn’t fix it so it was just too bad, I would just have to ride in the other gears.

Early on race day we loaded all our kit into the car and set off. The crowds of triathletes were incredible and snapped me out of my holiday reverie. The race started in two waves: wave 1 was male under 40, wave 2 was all the rest of us attired in bright pink swim caps. There was just over 600 competitors in the race and I was concerned about the swim start in such a large field. I decided to start at the back so that I would not get wacked or worse. On the face of it this seemed like a reasonable approach as swimming is never going to be my forte and this was my first open water swim this year. Once we started it became apparent that I should have been less intimidated by the large field. I was too far back and after swimming over a few competitors it was plain that there were too many in front who were worse swimmers than me – my speed however would not warrant swimming over the top of so many other weak swimmers. I had to wait a while until the field thinned out before I could make my way through the competitors. It did mean however that I could not get a tow off another swimmer but this was no big deal. My objective for the race was just to get round and not to stop in the run (as I had done in my last 3 olympic distances). The swim was good – nice, calm seas so I was happy and I actually enjoyed it. The only problem I had was sighting on the home leg – the sun glare off the sea was blinding (I don’t feel it’s really legitimate to moan about sunshine at an Irish Triathlon). Towards the end of the swim I was surprised to pass some of the swimmers from the first wave who had started 10 minutes earlier.

Out onto the bike course and into a slight headwind. Again the large field gave me a totally false impression. I normally make up a decent number of places on the bike leg but this seemed ridiculous – I seemed to be overtaking everyone – obviously they were the weak swimmers like myself from wave 2 and the tail end swimmers from wave 1. There I was bombing along on my ‘limited gearing’ bike (frame bought for £40 on e-bay) passing all these competitors on top notch carbon fibre steeds clad with rear discs, zipp 404s etc. My mind was trying to deal with the conflict between feelings of immense satisfaction (me smug?) and mega-doubts as to whether I was going too hard. I don’t ride with a speedometer, HRM or any other device so there was no objective measure – except I was not breathing hard and my competitors seemed to be going backwards. Another observation confused me – there were groups of riders who were plainly drafting and some groups had organised themselves to do ‘through and off’, but the funny thing was that they were not going fast. They were cheating and still going slow – duh! Never had the phrase ‘all the gear and no idea’ seemed more appropriate. The bike leg was 45k and I only felt uncomfortable towards the end and that was a consequence of a backache due to the rough road surface.

Out onto the run leg and a short level run along the promenade was ended by a left turn up a hill. I knew it was 5km uphill and then a return downhill and thought I would be ok. I had not gone too hard on the bike as I knew there would be trouble for me on the run, and I was right. Now some of the competitors that I had passed earlier on the bike came skipping past as I laboured up the hill. It felt as if they may as well have been flicking the Vs to me – I was annoyed by being passed but I could not do anything about it. I resolved to keep my diesel engine going up the hill and ignore the two-stroke engines powering past me. I could find no speed or induce any rhythm into my run – I just began to suffer in the sun. I spotted Kay as she passed on her return leg down the hill, there was no sign of her injury but she didn’t seem to recognise me? As I neared the top of the hill there was a slight breeze and although the hill steepened a bit, the cool air was delicious. I descended with a plod and nothing else entered my mind but to get to the finish without stopping – no further thoughts of racing came into my head: I was spent.

How good it was to reach the finish line - my first triathlon of the season had been bagged – more lessons learnt and more races to enter.


I crossed the line and they handed me a bottle of water. Six bottles of water later Kay found me sitting in the shade of a tent chatting to a South African guy, who now lives in Galway. ‘How did you go?’ I asked, ‘OK I think ‘ Kay says. She had only just become Irish age-group Champion! I did OK, she did champion. She had not seen me on the run as she had been focussed on catching her age-group competitor up ahead.

Kay finished in 138th overall in 2:37:33, first in her age group and Irish Age-group Champion for the second year running. I finished 185th overall in 2:41:55. That’s the good thing about starting at the back of a race – you get to overtake about 400 people!!

Sitting in my kitchen (Sunday evening) I can only report that the Hell of the West is a complete misnomer – the race was great, weather was fantastic, the course was fair and the people were wonderful, the most hellish part of it all was the journey there and back. Unfortunately, the management at the hotel messed up our booking and on the 2nd night we got downgraded from our suite to a normal room. To recompense for this travesty( actually I could have slept on the washing line) they have given us another voucher to stay there again. As we were traveling back home, I could see Kay scouring the atlas and uttering the immortal words
" do you fancy doing Kenmare next year .....?"

I don't even want to know what that is.

BTW for those interested in the elite rather than the 'also rans' the new overall Irish Champions are David Graham (2:08:56) and Elena Maslova (2:23:17).