Dublin City Triathlon

Dublin City Triathlon takes place in the kind of conditions that the Irish have been perfecting their relationship with for centuries: unpredictable, frequently damp, and compensated for by the warmest crowd you'll ever race in front of.

The swim is in Dublin Bay — a broad, sheltered body of water between Dún Laoghaire and Howth Head. At 13°C, the water is bracing by any standard, Atlantic-cold and dark, with a visibility measured in centimetres rather than metres. It's Irish water — character-building, the locals call it.

The bike course rolls along Dublin's coastal road and through the city's southern suburbs. It's flat by Irish standards — which means rolling by anyone else's. The roads pass through Sandymount, Booterstown, and along the DART rail line, with Dublin Bay visible for much of the ride. The surface is typical urban Irish: functional, occasionally patchy, with drain covers to dodge.

The run loops through the Phoenix Park area and along the Liffey quays, past Georgian townhouses and the occasional pub where the early-morning regulars raise pints in salute. The crowd is everything you'd hope from Dublin: warm, loud, personal, and deeply familiar with the concept of enduring something difficult and celebrating afterwards.

The Dublin Triathlon doesn't have the prestige of a World Triathlon event or the scale of London. What it has is the unshakeable Irish conviction that sport is better when it's followed by a pint, that rain is just weather, and that showing up is the hardest part.