Lead up

Inspired by Siobhan and Trish’s race reports, here’s my excessively long report from Jailbreak.

My wife is from the area in Cork, so I first heard of Jailbreak long before I began with triathlon. I always thought it sounded cool, being dropped on an island and having to swim back, a little bit like the infamous Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco.

I had a goal to complete two Olympic distance triathlons this year (as part of a larger goal, but that’s a longer story) so I decided on Athy and Jailbreak, signing up for both earlier in the year. Athy went well.

I had my first glimpse of the Jailbreak swim back in April when I did a 5k race on Spike Island, which is the start point of the triathlon. Getting the ferry out to that allowed me to see what I will be undertaking. It looks further than it is, but I was looking forward to the challenge.

We travelled to Cork on the Friday with the race on the Sunday. It rained from the moment we arrived which I can cope with, the wind was a different story. It was like a storm on the Saturday. I fully expected the swim to be cancelled; however, they put out a communication saying “as the area is quite sheltered, they wouldn’t be following the small craft warning” (!!!). I registered in Cobh on Saturday night; a nice bag of Jailbreak swag was acquired, and they were adamant the full race was going ahead.

Up early on the Sunday morning, no news is good news, I assumed it was going ahead despite the weather not really improving so made my way to transition. Looking at the flags flapping around wildly, I wasn’t much looking forward to the swim but at least it stopped raining. The race briefing informed us the conditions were indeed challenging but not to worry, there’s plenty of kayaks and ribs to assist (!!!).

Swim

We were bundled onto the ferry and 15 mins later let off at the jetty on Spike Island. There was something really cool about walking up the pier to the beach, no fanfare, no loudspeaker, no gantry or barriers. We were there about half an hour before start time, so people were warming up in the sea, stretching etc. The rain came back. Then a bloke arrives up on the beach in his kayak, gathers us all in a circle, tells us what’s what and where to sight for, blows an air horn and off we go! No messing around.

Clearing the pier on Spike after 100m was the first bit of “openness”. We could feel the 40km/h wind and resulting chop for the first time. It was coming from southwest so side on, away from my breathing side thankfully. Haulbowline is another island we passed on our left, there was some shelter from it but in my opinion, it was still fairly rough. My wife was standing on Haulbowline and said it was a great sight.

Once we passed that island, we had to cross the “channel” this was deep and open. Cruise liners and cargo ships use it daily. There’s no shelter. I’m an ok swimmer and am in the sea a lot, but I questioned my life decisions at this point! It was like a washing machine. There was some panic and a bit of breast-stroking, eventually got my head back in the game and got on with it. I reached the slip out, I felt I was one of the last out of the water as it was impossible to see anyone else out there with the swell, but looking out on my way up the slip, there was a fair few still out there which gave me a bit of motivation. It was only 20 meters from the swim exit into transition, so that was a plus!

Bike

T1 was straightforward, no issues. A few of us in transition agreed in there that the swim was a nightmare, so it wasn’t just me! It lashed rain for the first 5 min on the bike but then cleared up, the wind didn’t die down unfortunately.

The bike was fine for the most part, but the headwind made me irrationally angry. It would not give us a break. Obviously, we reaped the benefits of having it behind us in places, so the good bits were very good! At one point I shouted at the wind “JUST F*** OFF”, I must have been losing my mind. 

It finished about 4k short of the 40k I thought it would be, which I was surprised with but I was happy to get off the bike that little bit sooner!

Run

The run was 4 laps on the sea front in Cobh. The first half of the lap was into the wind (ugh), then 100m up a steep hill (ugh), most walked up it, then the second half of the lap was downhill (yay!) with the wind (yay!) so it was a run of two distinct moods.

It went fine, and as it was laps, it was good to have a crowd around you again, there was a bit of craic with the other athletes. I was pretty deflated after the swim and bike but the run went well in comparison. No records were set but I was happy to cross the finish line, definitely the most challenging race of my short triathlon career. I got my medal, then guess what? It rained.

A good few DNF’d, my wife could see some people being assisted on the swim, so I’m happy that I persevered, didn’t require assistance and I now know that I can make it through these conditions. I also learned I need to work on my cycling. Was it the wind? Or was it because I didn’t have the power to get through the wind? I’ll be focusing on this for the winter.

I didn’t enjoy a lot of the race and on the day, swore I’d never do that again but in retrospect, it is a very unique and interesting race. The swim would be great on a calm day, the cycle was 70% beautiful views and the run is fun. I’ve seen enough of Cobh and Spike this year to do me a while, but I might be back!