As race season hits its peak stage July was another busy month for the Focus on Fitness crew, both racing and training for upcoming events. Lough Derg Tri took place on July 9th and Tom Cousins is having a great year coming back to triathlon finishing in 7th place and winning his age group. Maire Ryle was taking part in race 6 of the Tri10 series of races which involves 10 triathlons all around Ireland over the season.
The following day Carrick Tri took place, this is favorite race with locals and a nice race to take part in. Brian Jacob had a great race finishing 6th over all winning his age group. Darrell Evans finished 10th overall and having a good season so far. David McConnell recovering from Challenge Galway and preparing for Ironman Barcelona in October used the race as a recovery session. Katie Ryan was taking a break from long training and took part for some race experience and had good race. Liz Nolan made a come back to the tri scene and was delighted with her race. Sinead Power started into the tri scene this year, building up some race experience and took the opportunity to use the local race to get another race completed.
Nigel O’ Sullivan represented Focus On Fitness in Cahir for the half Marathon and had a good solid race working on pacing and good technique in the build up to Dublin 70.3 in 2 week’s time.
Wicklow Harbourman Tri had a big turn out for the Olympic race. John Hayden finished very well again taking 10th place overall and 3rd in age group. Tony McMahon and Fintan Stanley had a big battle to the line with Tony finishing 20 sec in front of Fintan, some big competition for the lads in Dunblin 70.3 event. Stephen Hall was next followed closely by Eamon Ryan, both lads using this as race prep for Dublin and Barcelona. Tim O’ Brien competed in Wicklow to gain some race experience before heading to France for Vichy 70.3 race in August.
Two Provinces Triathlon, this was another race in the Cat 1 super series and another great race for Eoin Lyons. Eoin is having a great season with some very consistent results in the lead up to the World Champion 70.3 race in Australia in September. Eoin finished 5th overall in what is a very competitive series competing up against full time athletes and scoring more important points for the series. John Hayden is making some serious inroads into the triathlon in only his 2nd season competing. He finished 7th place in the national series race, pushing himself well up the rankings and age group position. This is on the back of a great duathlon season and pushing on now to longer distance with Dublin 70.3 and Ironman Barcelona in October with training going very well.
Bilbao World Cup Paralympics race. Damien Vereker and Seamus Wall took part in the next race on the World cup series race. This series started in South Africa, then Belgium and onto Spain for the last race. Damien had another great race and with new pilot Sean Hahessy on the road to Rio in September. They finished 9th in the TT and had a great road race staying away with the break for the full race and finishing 4th in the race. The current World Champion in both TT and road race were in the break which was great for the lads to be mixing it up. Damien finished up 2nd overall in the World cup series after the 3 events. Seamus had a breakthrough race setting new PB’s throughout the weekend in TT, road race and finished 5th in the relay race with Declan Slevin and Ciara Staunton.
Race number 7 for Máire Ryle was last weekend with the long drive up North to take part in the Lakeside Sprint race. This is a big challenge taking on 10 races in the first year taking part in Triathlon. The next race is her home race in Wicklow, followed by Dublin City Tri and then finishing off with the Cork jail break Olympic distance.
Half Ironman distance training session. This was a great success for those doing Dublin 70.3 and going onto Barcelona in October. Mark Rainer and Gavin Downey who are doing the Hardman in Killarney were also using it as a big brick session in the lead up to the race. It was a good confidence builder putting all disciplines together and some good fun. Well done to everyone who took part some pictures in the link below.
