One Man's Window

And that's David Dungan from ... uh ... Bailieborough, finishing his swim! I'm not sure if the hesitation was over an uncertainty on the pronunciation or they were just shocked at how slow I got round the swim course, but that wasn't the point. The point was with those nine words over the loudspeaker, I realized I had beaten my biggest fear of this whole thing and was now onto the bike. This was a spot I could get the hammer down and feel somewhat comfortable. I was on dry land. This was natural. The swim, though, that was brutal. Pool swimming is fine, but it just does not prepare you for a lake swim. Surrounded by other people. And getting kicked in the face. And taking a lungful of lake water. Simultaneously. My stroke disintegrated in that moment, some 450 meters from the finish and even now, 4 days on, I can still feel a tightness in my muscles from where I did everything wrong in the water. By the time I hit land again, my legs were like jelly and my shoulder

I'm not a swimmer. My experience in the water extends about as far as getting flung into the River Boyne at Bective one glorious Irish summer and learning by not drowning. In more recent times, this has been expanded to include misjudging the consistency of mud in a stream bank and going in ankle deep. Don't get me wrong, I've been in the water a few times, but mostly what you'd safely define as 'horseplay' or arsing about. I'm not a cyclist. I'm fundamentally in the camp that believes the internal combustion engine far outstrips the human one and see no point in reopening the debate. I've owned one adult bike in my life - it was gold, it was hulking and it had 21 gears which I thought was great. I think I used 4 of them. I'm not a runner. Even playing sports, if there wasn't a ball that had to be put somewhere, I just didn't see the point. Running in itself is not a challenge, everyone more or less has the ability. And given the fact