TriAthy 2019 – Nicola McLaughlin
I signed up for the double Olympic in athy in the build up for Ironman 70.3 in August. I did the swim athy a week previous and was good experience for the 3k distance doing it in 55 minutes. On the day of the race, I met plenty of pulsers much more experienced than me but helped to settle my nerves on the day. The swim went well much different to swim in a river to sea swimming as I realised having done Ecape from Ireland eye recently!
Once out the swim, I had a can of 7up partly for some energy and to get the taste of river out my mouth. I had plenty of nutrition that day as I recall Hugh Byrne referring to my “picnic” I had set out in transition! I remember from marathon training last year the advice Ciat gave me about fueling and hydration and I really took that on board!
That said,I spent 10 minutes in transition munching on a cliff bar and should have got better organised to get out on the bike! Transition time is still a work in progress for me!
Anyway ,once on the bike I found it easy to get the pace and probably was too slow the first 40k but wanted to pace for the half marathon and on reflection could have pushed harder on the bike the second lap. The nutrition on the bike worked well with cliff bars, banana and home made cacao bars and had my electrolytes in my drink. Last year I didn’t have a clue why electrolytes were important but on the long distances they are especially important.
On the second lap of the bike,I saw lots of new triathletes doing there first race on the route and I remembered that was me once when I first joined in March 2018. I never forget the first spin class with Kevin…how I survived that class I don’t know. Now fast forward to now and club sessions have really pushed me to improve.
Once off the bike, I saw plenty of pulsers support and paced my run as I had planned and stayed consistent and tried to hold back on the run which worked well. Once I crossed the line I was happy and gave me the confidence going into my first 70.3 in a few weeks.