The “Smell the Races” (and feel the River) Start to my 19th Triathlon Season

I’ve been doing  triathlons since 2007. I started at the age 44, and now, at 63, I’m still battling away at the endeavour. Nineteen years in, and I’ve realized that while training for an hour three times a week is what “healthy humans” should do, I am clearly not a self-disciplined human.

I have to pay a coach to nag me and find a group of other triathlon lunatics (Wicklow Triathlon Club) so I’m too embarrassed to stay in bed. Essentially, I use the threat of public humiliation as my primary fitness motivator.

The Clonmel “Wake Up” Call

Clonmel is the first race of the Irish triathlon season. It’s famous for water so cold it makes you want to turn around as soon as you’ve jumped in.

My strategy for the day was simple: “Don’t forget to smell the race”. This sounds poetic, but it mostly means reframing my “I-might-die” anxiety as “I’m-so-excited” butterflies. To help this process, my friend Liam and I blasted Sia’s Unstoppable on the car stereo at 5:30am as we headed off on the two hour road trip to County Tipperary.

By the time we hit Clonmel, I felt so “Unstoppable” that I did a pre-race karaoke version of the song in a coffee shop bathroom while squeezing into my wetsuit. I then Whatsapped the video to my age-group rivals—because if you can’t beat them on the race course, you should at least haunt their dreams.

The “Downstream” Ego Boost

The swim was a 750m dash down the river. At 11’C the water is less of a “swim” and more of a “conveyer belt of ice”. I finished in 12 minutes—a personal miracle that only happened because the rapid downstream current was doing most of the work.

The exit was less “James Bond” and more “Beached Whale”. I had to take my wetsuit off as rapidly as possible before the bike ride, but I struggled so much with the Velcro at the back of my neck that a spectator offered to help. I had to decline—partly out of pride, but mostly because “outside assistance” is a disqualifying offence in our weirdly strict triathlon world.

Cowboys and Runaway Rivals

As I leapt onto my bike at the transition bike mount line, I felt like an elderly cowboy heaving himself onto a horse that was, at best, trotting. The 20km cycle included a hill that made me contemplate the “mortal sin” of getting off and pushing. I didn’t do it, but the rogue thought was there.

Then came the 5km run—my favourite part because it means the suffering is almost over. The sun was out, the trees were green, and for a moment, I actually felt like an athlete instead of an aging man in a over-tight lycra suit.

The Final Verdict

In the world of age-group racing, I’m currently a 63-year-old slowcoach chasing Dan, Dave, and Bernard.

• The Good News: I beat Bernard by a massive two seconds.
• The Bad News: Dan “thrashed” me, and Dave managed to beat me in the rankings despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise (Dave started the race behind me in the staggered start, so even though I overtook him on the run and crossed the finishing line ahead of him, his time was still faster. He won.)

I finished 9th out of 13 in my category. To the rest of the world, we are just “triathlon idiots,” but to those thirteen men in the 60–64 bracket, it was the local Olympics.

Next up: my annual favourite race, the Two Provinces Triathlon in Lanesboro, Co Longford, on 11th July. I have two months to “fine-tune” my comeback and figure out how to stop Dan and Dave.

If you cannot see the video in this post, you can watch it here.