William O'Kane

September 2013

Name:                        William O’Kane

Age:                           44

Occupation:             Product Group Manager at Schrader Electronics in Antrim

Years in Triathlon:    8

Triathlon Highlights or recent performances: Getting a sub-12 at the Outlaw in July 2013, despite falling off the bike at 80 miles and breaking my collar bone and 2 ribs. Followed closely by a 3:22 at Dublin marathon in October 2012, taking 31 minutes off my PB…must have had 3 Weetabix that morning.

Current Goal: Complete my first medium distance adventure race (the RAID) at the end of October 2013. Also I promise myself every winter that I will do some strength and conditioning work and this is the year (again).

Next Year’s Goal: Not sure yet, but definitely no more Ironman distance races for a while. Thinking that the Coast to Coast adventure race will be my main aim for early 2013, and then do a couple of Olympic distance races as its been about 3 years since my last one. Also, really want to give Dublin Marathon another blast as it is a fantastic race – great course, crowds and a nice way to round off the season

Favourite Training Sessions: Tuesday morning run intervals at Antrim forum with a couple of the Triangle gang, including my brother. Really hard work and pushes me out of my comfort zone and to the limit, but great craic and banter. Only started doing intervals last summer and I can’t believe the gains to be made. I wish I had paid more attention to them and had a bit of structure to my training plans over the past 8 years.

What made you take up the sport? Initially started exercising in 2005 when I gave up cigarettes and needed something to keep my mind off them. Was too heavy to run every day so mixed it up with a bit of swimming - I was pathetic at the start, 20 laps of breaststroke on a good day. Every week I tried to add 1 lap of freestyle until I could do 20 breaststroke, 20 free. After about 3 months, I went along by chance to the pool one Tuesday night after work for a quick dip and got invited/coerced by a certain Peter Jack to come over the other side of the ropes. The rest is history

Favourite food/drink: If it doesn’t move, I will eat it. Yoko is my favourite place to go out with the family. Great food, sizzling hot (I have a thing about luke warm food), prompt service and big portions (yum!)

Favourite bit of kit/equipment: My Orca 226 tri-suit(s). Super comfortable – no discomfort even after 6 hours on the bike and I still remember having to send the first one back to Wiggle in 2011 as the “large” size was too big and I had to get a “medium”. Big moment for me as I finally had finally got down to my target weight of 175 lbs. from a high of 205 lbs before I started triathlons

Who do you see as your main rivals? Myself. I keep a training diary and record my PBs so am always looking to see if I can improve on them. When I look around the club and what ability I would like to have it would be to swim like Mervyn Kelly, bike like Adrian Devine and run like Peter Cole (but then so do most of us I suspect).

Finish this sentence:    If I wasn’t training I would be “fat”