Ever since I signed up for the Lisbon ETU race I was worried that I would be last. “Look at the times from previous years “ said Padraig. “There is no way you’ll be last”. Well eventually, after weeks of anxiety, I planned to just do my best and enjoy the weekend.

Conal, his other half Ailish, Padraig, Joe and myself all met at the airport in plenty of time for the flight. Some of us had airport food which turned out to be a good idea as Aer Lingus had no food on the plane. Joe and I did our usual trick of booking the aisle and window seats in the hope that the middle would remain empty. It works pretty well most of the time but just as we were thinking it’s worked again, along comes none other than Padraig Owens to take up the spare seat.

We arrived pretty late in Lisbon to discover a huge taxi queue. Padraig, with his bike box, managed to elbow most the queue-jumping ladies out of the way though so we eventually made it to the top. Joe and I headed to the team hotel and Padraig, Conal and Ailish headed to the apartments just a few 100m down the road.

Joe and I met Conal at the Ship MyTri Bike truck around 9am on Thursday morning. Picking up the bikes was a very efficient process and definitely made the weekend a lot easier. The official bike recce was due to take place at 10am so we were anxious to make it for that. The bike route was on a motorway so this was the only way to do a recce.

We ran into Laura and her entourage, Claire, just outside the hotel as they arrived on Thursday morning. Andrew and his wife Sarah arrived later on Thursday. The bad news from them though was that Andrew had done something to his neck and felt that he probably would not be able to race. Andrew was due to race the Standard distance race on Sunday whereas Padraig, Conal, Laura and myself were doing the Sprint on Friday, mostly so that we could have a bit of craic for the rest of the weekend.

We made it to the stadium in plenty of time for the recce. I was nearly as nervous about this as everything else. I envisioned a pack as tight as something you’d see on the pro circuit but it was actually fairly relaxed. You can spot Conal and myself in this video of the Grand Depart. (Well done to Tim Goodyear on spotting us in that clip.)
Watch the clip here
This turned out to be the highlight of the weekend for me. It was amazing heading out under police escort, with traffic held back while we went through all the red lights and then out onto the highway along the coast. It was an out and back course with a bit of a drag just before the turn around point. It felt like just a bit of a drag on the recce anyway.

Patrick McLaughlin, the team manager, then led a walk of the transition area and the run route, pointing out the bits and pieces to watch, mainly the cobbles. Patrick was fantastic all weekend. He turned out to have magic hands too and helped to get Andrew sorted out in time to race on Sunday. He also got a pass for Joe that enabled him to be the “unofficial” photographer for the weekend and get into the athletes’ areas. That was followed by a spot of lunch and then a swim recce late afternoon. It was pretty funny hearing the locals comment on the chilly water temperature as we stepped in. I think it was about 19 degrees. The swim was in a nice enclosed area and didn’t look like it would present any major challenges. It was lovely hanging around there in the sun, watching the para-triathletes doing their recce and marvelling at how many athletes from GB were there. In fact, there just wouldn’t have been a race without GB. They were just everywhere – over 600 strong I believe. We also started to get to know some of the other Irish. One of the first people I noticed was wearing Ireland ASICS gear. She ran cross-country for Ireland at some stage. I was pretty worried at that stage that I was way out of my league. We racked the bikes in the evening, went to an Italian for dinner, and went to bed nice and early. I slept pretty lousy but that didn’t bother me too much as I never sleep well before a race.

Laura and I were in the “all the older women” wave. The swim standard was really high and I was well down the field exiting. In an average race at home I’d be somewhere in the middle so that was pretty disappointing. I struggled a bit getting out of the wetsuit and headed out on the bike.

Laura generously waited until about the 2k mark before she passed me. I found the bike extremely tough. I could see the guys coming in on the other side of the highway and they were really working hard to make progress. Clearly there was a tail wind heading out but I just couldn’t take advantage of it. It felt like tremendously hard work for some reason. Laura even said afterwards that she thought I “looked a bit slow”. She was right. I just wasn’t on form at all. That bit of a drag on the recce felt like a serious hill and I used plenty of gears just to make it up in a reasonable time. I passed a few people going up but not as many as I’d have liked to. After the turnaround point, the wind hit me big time. I thought I’d never get back to town. I was also very lonely out there. No-one passed me and I couldn’t see anyone in front of me for ages. Eventually I closed in on a couple of English girls and passed them. It was weird seeing signs for motorway exits 500m away. You’d be there in seconds in the car but it was of course completely different on a bike. I believe Laura will be holding a special training session later in the year where she will reveal the secret of how one beams oneself from Bike to Run achieving a T2 time of 0 secs. Just saying..

Anyway, with the swim and bike safely negotiated, I headed out on the run. The run route involved running into the stadium 3 times. On the 3rd time you’d cross the finish line inside. On my first lap, I started to run the wrong way towards the finish line. I spotted it just in time and only had to double-back a few steps. I was furious though. There was a fairly clueless looking marshal there who just pointed that way without saying anything. Even worse though, I felt absolutely awful throughout the run. If the Garmin HRM is correct, I had an average HR of 200 on the bike and it hit a max of 212 on the run. That’s way above normal so maybe I was sick with something on the day. I almost stopped at 2k but there was just way that was going to happen. Somehow I just kept the legs moving. Ailish and Claire were amazing supporters, cheering on every lap. I also spotted Joe every time, standing right in the middle of the run route taking photos of all the Irish. Of course I knew like a typical bad husband that he had no sunscreen on and this bothered me tremendously every time I saw him. Every bit of support helps. It was also really nice to get cheers from Irish strangers shouting “come on Holohan”. Weirdly, there was a local standing on the ramp up out of the stadium smoking a fag.  As I was gasping for air, I didn’t really expect to get a lungful of smoke. Anyway, I was so happy to get into that stadium for the last time. Laura was there at the finish line waiting for me, wondering what was taking me so long no doubt. I headed for a massage as the queues were pretty short. I was still feeling awful 20 mins after the finish and spent a lot of time just sitting on the floor.

We were all up early on Sunday morning to watch Andrew race the standard distance, despite the few scoops in downtown Lisbon the night before. Considering the build-up Andrew had with his injury he had an amazing race with a blistering 41 min run. Of course, Sarah was an amazing nurse all weekend, only leaving his side to cheer on the rest of us and get a few runs in herself in prep for the rest of the season. Behind every good man is a great woman.. (Are you reading this Joe..?).

Helen: 1:28:30 (Swim: 16:00, T1: 1:52, Bike: 45:38, T2: 2:02, Run: 23:56)
Laura: 1:24:29 (Swim: 16:34, T1: 1:43, Bike: 42:09, T2: 0:00, Run: 24:02)
Conal: 1:19:52 (Swim: 15:55, T1: 1:30, Bike: 40:09, T2: 0:56, Run: 21:19)
Padraig: 1:11:15 (Swim: 13:15, T1: 1:03, Bike: 37:45, T2: 0:54, Run: 18:17)
Andrew: : 2:36:09 (Swim: 31:09, T1: 1:25, Bike: 1:20:47, T2: 1:00, Run: 41:47)

A great time was had by all, but I don’t know how much more wear that Ireland trisuit will be getting..