Brendan’s inspirational comeback race report below….
BANG!! My heart leaps and my body jumps like an electric current has just passed through it. My coiled stance releases as I spring forward and the race is on. Go hard around the bend to the break point on the back straight all the while analysing myself, my posture, my cadence my form and feeling and actions as well what my competitors are doing, where they are placed, are they looking for me? I need to react to them but concentrate on my own race and tactics. Control the controllable. Reach the break point and move in out of your start lane. Elbows out to protect my space and fists ready to throw a box or two or three to get where I want to be.
Panic over and settle into a steady pace third or fourth in line. Pass through 200m and look at the clock 22,23,24 secs. The pace settles slightly around the bend but a non kicker comes around the group and begins a long run from home. Let others react but keep in touch. Keep my powder dry. Take the bell and glance at the clock 52,53,54 secs. The litmus paper is lit again as another kick ups the pace. You need to follow this one but hold back in reserve. Down the back straight and the pace continues to wind up. Hold, hold, hold but stay in touch! 200m to go and the sprint for home has started, no time for clock glancing. Running tall, running strong, running controlled. I know the two runners in front are working hard. Runners behind me are beaten. I am confident. I am not sprinting yet. Be patient all the way around the bend. Wait until the tangent where the bend meets the straight at 100m and then in one stride cry fowl and unleash the dogs of war. All in Bren. One stride and I am into my sprint. Concentrate on technique and efficiently using my speed and strength. The shackles are off as I power pass my two foes. Wings on my heels as I kick away and cross the line a clear winner. Look at the clock. Stopped on 1:48.12. Season opener, career closer.
This was my last competitive race, February 2000! That was until June 2014! What happened in between? Chronic biomechanic issues and injuries. Track dream ends. Work and the real world begins. Throwing shapes with a surfboard. Moving to Dublin. Bike to work so started cycling. Started swimming. Soignuer duties. Fell in with a crowd of headers, jokers and chancers in lime green and black whose very existence is reliant on decimating each other while supporting each other in equal measure as we swim, bike and run. I feel at home here. Get the injury situation under control. A long journey begins. Sports med has moved on. Enter the club race 2014. Run twice in two weeks for the first time in two years. 15 time in 14 years. I am on the start line again.
Dunmore East is the club race and I find myself with a steely determination and excitement for racing again. But I know the aim is to reach the finish line this time and not the position across it. A beautiful calm and sunny day in my second favourite place in this world. I am very relaxed and excited to race. Friends, family, teammates seem excited for me too! I am sure they are tired of listening to me pontificating about how to race triathlon even though I am a tri-virgin. “You haven’t even done a triathlon” has quite rightly been fired in my direction any time I have gotten too big for my boots. But I love this sport and the life-style even before I have ever competed.
Wave 1 and it is a shallow water start! An official bellows the swim instructions constantly for competitors yet is ignored as five lads ask me the swim directions! Hooter goes and we are away. 100m in and I am on the feet of the second swimmer who is on the feet of the first swimmer who is heading for the cliff! “We don’t want to go to the cliff lads, lets swim to the big massive yellow bhoy! Nope! Okay I will break from your lovely draft and head there myself. Oh now you turn when I have lost your draft.” Head down and get to work Bren. I exit the water in third 20 secs down. Swim 12:04.
Goggles up and sprint for the ramp. Legs feel good as I go. One ramp, two ramps. Look around for race and competitor awareness. Velcro collar open, zip up and opened, right arm out left arm out. Legs go. Left calf then right calf. Sprint stops. “Shite” says I. My pace drops dramatically. Dude in fourth tries to go by. “No chance”! Elbows out fists clenched ready to throw a box or two or three, just like the old days. He gets the message. Wetsuit off, helmet on and grab the bike.
Flying mount and feet go straight into my shoes first go. “Nice one, Bren but you lost a place to the lad because you couldn’t sprint through transition! Get to work!” I try and I try but the declines and flats are killing me as I am on my lovely roadbike. Goddamn tribikes and aero helmets should be banned. TI can we please have draft legal races? I am working hard and staying with third but we reach the long decline and just like dirt with Cillit Bang, he is gone. I am 6 ‘3 and a quarter, (yes really Nick), and on a road bike! I practice and try to stay as aero as possible but dude I am loosing time. Piranha goes by! I am not letting you go buddy. Kev Keane goes by. I don’t want to let you go but I don’t have a choice. Another dude goes by but we are all together at the turnaround. Kevin moves off into the distance. I am happier as I know the return loop has more inclines than declines. Work like a demon to stay with the two lads on the flat and pass them on the inclines. Everyone races fairly and we start to make inroads into Kevin. Decline that killed me on the way out is now an incline on the way back. “All in Bren” as I horse the hill out of it and pull away from the two boyos and close in on Kev. Reach T2 right behind Kevin and my dismount is flawless. Calf’s have been okay on the bike. Kevin is slow running with his bike. “Move Kev”! Rack the bike, helmet off, runners on off you go. Bike 34:12.
Fifth out of T2 but the calf’s are not cooperating. It feels like they have been filled up with cement. “Sit back and enjoy the countryside Bren. You are running again”. “But the run should be your strongest discipline”. “Easy now. Baby steps”. I settle into a slow easy pace, a mooch if you will and I give encouragement to competitors as they pass even though this seems to freak some of them out! Climb up to the top of Killea and look back at a great view. Dunmore East on a sunny calm day, perfection!
On with the run/mooch and lads are going passed me at a high rate. Kevin, Brendan, Killian, Rob, Dave. I am expecting Derval and Ellen to come by me. “Liam Dunne would enjoy that one” I think. Exit out onto the main road and the marshall advises us to cross when it is safe to do so. Despite this ahead of me Rob decides to cross in front of cars and cyclists coming in both directions. “Good lad Rob! You might need that box sooner that you think”. I move along enjoying my run/mooch despite the chronic calf tightness and pain. Kilometre by kilometre until I cross the line after a great reception along the finishing straight. “All in Bren. Your first triathlon complete. It may not have been the performance that you wanted but it was the one you expected. Another milestone along the journey. As Yazz sang, “The only way is up”. I walk back down the course to cheer Ellen and Derval home. Podiums again for the girls, and as I expected they are faster than me. “Liam Dunne will enjoy this”! Run/Mooch 34:03. Overall 1:22:25.
I can hardly walk. Dad gives me a rub and it helps a lot, I think. By now the cement has set into concrete! Belpark team photo. “Whose idea is it to jump up in the air? No way lads I will stay on the ground in my ‘model’ pose”.
Brendan Murphy wins the male club trophy and Derval Devanney defends her female trophy. Well done lads great racing and now the Bar-B-Q will kick off down in Ellen’s house. (Third house up from the public toilets lads!) Hard work for a while but it is well worth it as the race is swum, biked and run all over again each time with further emphasis and embellishment. You must exaggerate to illustrate! Head down to the Spinnaker to round off the night under Chairman Mao’s instructions. I can’t dance, literally. Calf’s have given up the ghost by now. 12:30 am and I break out of the Spinnaker despite the best efforts of the bouncers to keep me in! As I walk home along the course and beside the beach where it all started 13 hours earlier I’m thinking “Ouch, calf pain!” and “This is just the beginning. I love racing and look forward to the next one.” Sincere thanks to The Meet Hotshot, the Parasite, Save it up Sammy, Lulu, Wilbur and Flipper.
Belpark Triathlon Club 