The TAW started on Thursday 6th June at 11am at the National Aquatic Centre just outside of Dublin City in Blanchardstown. On the Monday of that week, my Mum (who would act as our Logistics Manager for the race) had driven from Brussels (where my parents live) to Dublin, via London to pick up Jack’s and my gear for the race and then Jack and I would fly to Dublin on the Tuesday evening. Brompton had kindly given us some days to do the race and we would take the rest from our annual leave, so we were keen to keep the travel time to a minimum, hence the flying to Dublin. We had booked return flights for Sunday 16th June, so that gave us 10 days to complete the race and get back to Dublin. It was quite frustrating to put a cap on the amount of days we had to ride the race, but we were working professionals with significant others at home, so we couldn’t just keep ambling on if we didn’t make the progress we expected to. We aimed to ride 300km a day, starting early and riding longer into the night compared to the other riders. Given the slight inefficiencies (10-15%) of the Bromptons, we knew we wouldn’t be able to go as fast as the other riders, so we thought we’d just ride longer. Easier said than done, especially at when you have to wake up at 04:00 in the morning… If we managed 300km a day, we would complete the race in 8 days, within our time limit for our flights, with some breathing space, if anything did go wrong.
The race registration and rider’s briefing took place the Wednesday before the race started where we would receive our goodies pack and GPS tracker (that would allow anyone to follow our progress) and Adrian, the race organiser, would recap the riders on the rules, route, and safety elements of the race. Both took place in Trinity College Dublin, where I had studied Mechanical Engineering, but coincidentally, the registration took place in student accommodation in Botany Bay, where I had lived for a year in college, and the rider briefing was in a lecture hall where I used to have many lectures, so much that I almost felt like PTSD was kicking in! This is when it all started getting very real, this was happening, after 9-months of thinking, training, and planning it, it was all about to kick off. After the briefing, Jack and I thought it would be wise to settle the nerves with a good auld pint of Guinness in Doyles Pub on College Green, promising that we’d have a pre-race Guinness, and most importantly, a post-race Guinness when we made it to the end, not if. Once we got back to our base in Celbridge, at my Aunt’s house, we went over all our gear, made sure everything was in working order and had a massive lasagne for dinner, knowing well it would be our last warm sit down meal for over a week. And with that we went for what would be a final sleep in a bed for nine days.
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