Kevin Kennedy - IM 70.3 Weymouth 2021 Race Report

There are good, bad and indifferent days. Sunday the 19th of September 2021 was one of the great days. You have to celebrate the great days. I was on the start line of Ironman 70.3 Weymouth. All the training, travel, sleepless nights, gear worry, thoughts of not finishing or getting a dreaded flat tire, the nervous days, hours and seconds were all about to go crashing into the sea.

Swim

Breath through your nose, take a stroke or two, get up for air, take a kick... I’m away, I’m moving.. Ah the relief.. my heart is going through the roof but it’ll settle. Focus you idiot some dude is swimming into the side of you, push him off, get motoring again. Focus... holy shit, around the last buoy, 500 to go, glance at the watch, take a sighting.. I’m out of the water the legs are moving..A1.

T1 – All going well. UNTIL: all my gels fall out of my race belt without me realising as I’m running to the bike. Some hero calls me back and I fire them into my tri-suit. It was an old belt and the gel pockets were loose. You live & learn.

Bike

The wind is ok & the sun is in the sky. Yee Haaaa .. giddy up .. feeling good until around 50k when the lower back pain kicks in (I call it the you didn’t do enough training pain). It’s all gravy baby, 40 to go & I ain’t stopping for love nor money now. The hills are hard & the body is feeling it round 70 but all the nutrition has gone as planned so that reassurance takes me to T2.

T2 – Toilet (Thank God). Medic tent: Was carrying a foot injury into the race so had to get it laced with anti-flammatories & strapped. It cost me time, I didn’t care. All of sudden Alan Geoghegan arrives. Let’s go do this. James Barry is shouting at us as he enters T2. The spirits are up.

Run

Having two clubmates on the run was unbelievable. We pushed each other on and roared stupid shit at each other. It was class. My strategy was to get a reward gel down the hatch every 5k, get to 15k and the momentum and the atmosphere would carry me home after that. The heat was crazy on the day and as much as you feel you want to push on in your mind, your body and your watch tell you otherwise. There’s no sugar-coating it, I got to 15k and died a death for the last 6.5k. The nutrition plan went out the window. I threw everything I could get at the aid stations into me at that point. Coke, bananas, water, Caffeine gels, the lot. If there was petrol available, I would have threw it back too. But there comes a realisation in the race with about 1k to go that you’re going to finish & that is one of the best feelings in the world when you’re in pain. Then it just magically appears like a stairway to heaven, a beacon of hope, the famous red carpet and just like that, all the pain is gone.

Thoughts

Blood, sweat and tears turn to sheer relief, elation and joy. They say the first one is always the sweetest and it was sweet, trust me! The whole Ironman race experience was class, they put on a serious show and you feel like a professional athlete for a day. Yes it’s way overpriced and they are complete bloodsuckers but my advise : GET A GANG FROM THE CLUB TOGETHER, PAY THE MONEY & BOOK ONE NOW, YOU’LL HAVE A HELL OF AN EXPERIENCE & WHEN YOU’RE RUNNING UP THAT RED CARPET YOU WON’T REGRET IT. You’ll spend the money on some other shit anyway. It was an absolute pleasure traveling with #TheBrethern: James, Alan, Sean & Conor. I joined 3D with Alan & James three years ago this March & I never thought the three of us to be dancing around the finish line of a Half Ironman together.

3D Abú.