Paul May

Last Saturday I took part in the Kilkee “Hell of the West” Triathlon; my second Olympic distance race - finishing in 2 hours 52 minutes 3 seconds (155th male out of 308).

I’m very happy with my time - to say that Kilkee is on another planet of difficulty to Chicago and the other races I’ve done would be putting it mildly. The swim was fine; I was relaxed, the water wasn’t freezing and the shamozzle didn’t put me off at all. 30 minutes for 1500m - not exactly fast, but 7 minutes quicker than Chicago. The bike course is a 45K tangle of small hills, downhills and tricky roads…1.29.28 for the transition out of the swim , the bike course and the transition to the run. The run course is cruel and unusual; literally, 5K straight uphill and then 5K back down again. A tough, tough race.

After the race I went out to dinner with the Piranhas (Murphy Blacks in Kilkee do an excellent steak if you’re ever in the area), and then we had a few drinks. Most people went on to the race HQ in the Kilkee Bay Hotel for “the dishco”, but I was happy enough to call it a night and stagger home to bed.

A cracking weekend, and a race I’ll definitely do next year.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 11:21 am and is filed under Triathlon.