How it all went........

Hopped in the car on Friday morning, got down to Dublin (well, Ashbourne), and spent the next 3 hours hanging about the hotel watching Blackadder DVD's in our room. Then went off for the Friday night session at the NAC, and managed to get ourselves lost in the process. Dublin like, they seem to have divided the suburbs into all sorts of "towns". Examples: Blanchardstown, Buzzardstown, etc.etc. Trust me, there are loads of them! But anyways, the NAC (National Aquatic Centre) is fully amazing. 50m olympic standard state of the art pool, diving pool with about 10 different boards, a fun pool about twice the size of Lisburn's, and then all the usual gyms and all. It's totally class. And damn hard to find too. But yea, Friday night's session i wasn't swimming, so i just dandered about looking around and saying hey to some of the crew from down there.

From the end of that session at about 9pm, we got back to the hotel while getting lost again, and had a pretty lovely dinner in the restaurant. I had a steak sandwich topped with cheese and mushrooms, and potato wedges on the side. After that the 4 seniors went round the block to stock up on lucozade and the likes, and found the full Friday night nightlife in Ashbourne in full swing. The nightlife involves many groups of Skangers (spides) hanging outside the 24 hour Tesco Store, chasing cars and stealing trolleys. To avoid them mobbing us and stealing our goods on the way back, we walked through some random apartment area, and ended up scaling the back wall of the hotel car park to get back in. Interesting.

So after that at about 11ish we hit the pit, and ended up watching.....late night wrestling! It's so fake, but it's funny! Last night Kurt Angle was taking on Triple H for revenge for getting his car blown up or some crap like that. Had not a bad nights sleep, and then started today, the day which i've spent the past week thinking about. Here started the lovely diet i had today. Between 8am this morning and about 9.30pm tonight, all i had was a small bowl of cereal (with loads of sugar), 2 bananas, a kitkat, about 4 bits of pasta, and a complete ton of powerade, water, apple juice, and red bull. Put all that together and you make me hit a sugar high of about 7 hours, which is only starting to wear off now. That can't be good for me! The fact that i didn't eat was cause it'd screw up my race.

Anyways, back to the swimming. I warmed up, then spent the next 3 hours not swimming! In otherwards, wandering about, waiting to race, drinking stuff, and talking to people from other parts of this island. My heat was a doss, because everybody was swimming slowly on purpose. I was way ahead after the first 2 lengths, so i just slowed right down and swum with the flow, and put myself in the final. Now, the final was make or break for the Ireland team. Let's just say i broke it, and ended up coming 6th, in one of the most wrecking races ever. I ended up doing 100m freestyle in 54.16 seconds, which is a personal best for me and was pretty damn close to the rest of them, who were all like 18. The age factor is a problem this year you see. If i was 2 weeks younger i'd have been Intermediate, and i would've either won or come 2nd in my race. But ah well. So, slightly disappointed, but what was to follow got rid of that.

Relay time came after that. Our U6 swimming was mighty annoyed that he didn't make the Irish team (cause he should have), so he was all up for tearing out the relays. As were the rest of the senior team. The heats were easy enough, we just dossed it to get ourselves a central lane in the final. Then came finals time. I know red bull ain't good for you, but we had some anyways and were fully ready for it. The challenging school were called Gonzaga, from Leinster. One of their guys knew 2 of us, but apart from that, they didn't have a clue who we were, and were pretty sure of winning. It was a great race (this was the medley relay), so i took last leg of Freestyle and tanked it like my life depended it. 50m and 23.9 seconds later i hit the boards, and we damn well celebrated. Not just cause we'd won, but somehow we also smashed the 12 year running Irish record, taking 3 seconds off it!
Freestyle relay was the same story in the heats, then we had the final again. I was expecting a 3rd or so in this. I ended up going first, and the other guys managed to hold off Gonzaga for another win. And another Irish record. Now of all i was expecting this weekend, this wasn't it at all. In our true style, we got the party poppers & hooters out there and then. We were all absolutely knackered, but who cares?! We can now call ourseleves the fastest Irish Senior Schools relay team...ever.


A good weekend's work then. It has totally wrecked me, and all the other guys, but i personally don't give a crap at all. It was well worth it, and again it's things like those competitions which are keeping me in the pool right now. I'm sure it's the same with other things - doing stuff like this let's me experience a lot of pretty memorable things, pleasant or not. Getting fully tanked on sugar and adrenaline is one thing. Cruising about the Dublin suburbs trying to find the pool while blasting out Sandstorm in the car is another. Nerves before the race is another. Craic between everybody has to be another. You've probably guessed hanging with people from elsewhere on this island is another. It's all a good laugh in the end.

Cheers for everybody who supported me coming up to this and kept the nerves at bay!! The sugar high is going now........but what we managed to do today was pretty legendary. The above blog is a quick summary of my last 36 of so hours. They have been 36 damn long hours, and i'm loving that.