Lizanne Barnwall – 2016 season update

Since my last update I raced 3 more National Series races.

Hell of the West was the National Championship race for Olympic distance and also a Super Series race so a lot of great athletes were down in Kilkee for it, which is also the Pulse annual club race & a great weekend! The race went well, I was happy with my swim and very happy with my bike split. I finished 10 seconds behind the 1st national series girl overall so I was happy enough with that 🙂

Next up was Two Provinces in Lansbourough which was the National Championship race for Sprint distance, and also a Super Series draft-legal race. Training has been going well so I placed 1st in the National Series females.

Following this was Top of the Mournes, Olympic distance race up the mountains in Co. Down. This was the toughest race I’ve ever done – it makes Hell of the West look like a walk in the park! The swim was v-rough and as usual I drifted too far to the right adding on more distance. The bike was up the Mournes mountains, steep in places with sharp technical descents but it was beautiful scenery & enjoyable. The run was the killer. Three laps made up the gruelling 10k cross country course in Kilbroney park. Each lap had a long section through a forest that kept rising up, then coming back down on the other side of the park before another rise till you came to the turnaround cone & do it all two more times! It was mentally challenging but overall a great race. I came 4th overall but quite happy considering the top 3 girls were excellent athletes!

So far all my races have gone to plan and thankfully I’ve reached my ultimate goal of 1st overall in the National Series (I think that’s still the case anyway) I’ve never come first in a race since this year so I’m really happy that all the long training, hard sessions and juggling of priorities have paid off.

I have learned this year that you really do need to listen to your body. I got a good few niggles & some injury early in the season which I tried to push through. I learned from that and since then when I feel any niggles or exhaustion, I’ll skip a session / day and just move on when ready.

The last race of the season was Ironman Dublin 70.3 next week. I did my first half-distance last year so I really wanted to do a good time of 5 hrs or under for my second. I have never done an Ironman / branded race so I was really looking forward to the buzz that it entails. My no.1 goal was to complete the course safely (It’s strange re-writing this as I’m changing the words to past tense as this report was written BEFORE the race!) My no.2 plan was a bit more far-reaching to finish in sub 5hrs.

One week before Dublin 70.3 I was developing a sore throat which soon turned into a chest infection. I lay off training (taper week) and hoped it would improve but it worsened. I resorted to Antibiotics from doctor on Wednesday. By Saturday morning, I was still coughing up from the chest with congestion but as the day went on it finally started to improve a bit and I was advised that I could at least try start so I racked up.

I had trained so hard for this one last race before wedding preparations took over, so I would be failing myself if I did not try. The swim went fine and I was delighted not to be coughing too much when entering T1. I got on my bike and absolutely loved it. The bike was going really well, despite a very congested course. I was going strong and felt good despite the rain pouring down at this stage. At the 55km point I was flying around a sharp bend when my front wheel tipped a Cat Eye (thankfully there were no other cyclists around me). My bike immediately went into a wobble at speed, which was impossible to control in TT. I went flying over the handlebars landing on the back of my head then my body hurled across the road and into the thorny ditch. My helmet cracked open down the back leaving two gashes to the back of my skull (helmet literally saved my life!) My neck was twisted into my chest on landing & body cut up with road rash and thorns! I suffered trauma & wounds to back of head, whiplash to neck, broken ankle, and cuts along my body. Could have been a lot worse!

Thankfully, a TI bike official happened to be passing soon after. Between the crash, 50 mins waiting for an ambulance to find us and finally getting back the Phoenix Park it was 2.5 hours total. I was really upset that I did not get to watch Mark and the rest of the Pulse crew racing /finishing.
The next plan is to eat, drink, party and finally put time into wedding organizations for the following few months!
Lizanne.