Just before we post up Lisa’s report on the Castlegregory triathlon we’d like to say a huge congratulations to Lisa and Ellen who won both of their respective events; Lisa in the Sprint event and Ellen in the Olympic.  An amazing achievement to have even one winner let alone two.  A huge well done and hopefully next year one of the guys might be able to match it with a placing!

For me the last race of the season has to be on in Sandy Bay in the beautifully sunny Maherees on the last Sunday of September. Organised by Nuala (don’t know how she does it) in aid of the RNLI this ‘fun’ triathlon has two distances run on the same day. Just after 1pm the 22 athletes and teams doing Olympic started by a flare from the lifeboat braved the somewhat cool but calm water then after they turned near the beach I and 57 other ’sprinters’ jumped in after them, re tracked their route out to the buoy turn left (mind the seaweed) over to the other buoy and back to the beach. Where if you wanted your time recorded you had to shout you race number to the timekeepers (no fancy electronic equipment here).

Then to transition (mind the rabbit holes) found my bike and headed for the bike route which took me into Castlegregory and up towards the Conor pass with fabulous views onto Brandon bay. Thankfully I hit the 10k mark before it got too steep, turnaround and back down the hill, at this stage i knew how many cyclists where in front and who was just behind.  The only thing I didn’t know was whether they where doing Sprint or Olympic. The Olympic bike route was doubling up on the sprint cycle!

Back through the sandy dunes into T2. Here I met the first three men running back into Castlegregory for the 5k.  Now i knew i was first woman in and in 4th overall with ‘just’ the run to complete. for those of you who don’t know this I found myself in much the same position last year, when my snails pace during the run saw me being passed out by quite a few other competitors. Not this year!! At the 1k mark I met the next woman coming in on the bike so all i had to do was keep her behind me…then shortly after a man passed me out but not to worry he was part of a team (and if u ask Paul T teams don’t count). Into Castlegregory for my third visit and a cup of water and back to the finish with minutes to spare i won my first triathlon.